It took 'em long enough, but it seems as if The Now Network has managed to snap up Motorola's Droid Pro... just seven months after Verizon Wireless did so. For whatever reason, Sprint's dubbing its version the XPRT, with the same 3.1-inch HVGA touchpanel, full QWERTY keyboard, 1GHz CPU and Android 2.2 loaded. It'll go for $129.99 on a two-year contract starting June 5th, but giving that the Pro hit the bargain bin long ago, we're having a hard time believing anyone will pony up for Sprint's iteration. Moving right along, the Titanium gets off on the wrong foot by shipping with Android 2.1, and while it's hailed as the first iDEN device to combine Nextel Direct Connect and Eclair, the G'zOne Commando has somehow managed to show its brawn while stepping up to v2.2. For those interested nonetheless, there's a 3.1-inch touchscreen and a chassis that's built to MIL-SPEC 810G for dust, shock, vibration, low pressure, solar radiation, high temperature and low temperature. She's unpriced for the moment, but the full release can be found just after the break.
You've probably already seen the leaked pictures of the Droid 3, but what you really want to know is what's going on underneath that chrome trim. TechnoBuffalo claims to have the inside scoop and it sounds like the latest landscape slider from Motorola is packing a number of nice improvements. According to a tipster the screen has been upgraded to a 4-inch qHD panel and inside is one of those fancy dual-cores all the cool phones are rockin' these days -- presumably of the Tegra 2 variety like itsDroid X2 cousin. As spied in the photos it also has a new 5-row keyboard layout and front facing camera for video calls, while the rear-facing shooter is getting bumped to 8 megapixels. There is one disappointing, but not entirely shocking, detail though -- the Droid 3 will lack LTE. We can't confirm these specs, but they're perfectly logical assumptions and raise no alarms and no surprises.
Interestingly, we've also spotted the close proximity of the USB and HDMI ports on the side of the new X2. That arrangement is reminiscent of the one on Motorola's Atrix, where the two connectors served to hook that handset up to its laptop and multimedia docks. We don't know whether the Droid X2 will fit into the accessories designed for the Atrix, but it looks sure to be strapping itself into a dock of some description in the near future.
Update: NVIDIA has confirmed that its Tegra 2 chip is the heretofore unnamed 1GHz dual-core chip inside the Droid X2, which just happens to be Verizon's first dual-core smartphone.
Update 2: A little birdie tells us you may be able to pick up this bad boy in person in some stores as soon as tomorrow (May 19th). Your mileage may vary, but let us know in the comments if you manage to buy one.
Update 3: Sure enough, they're on shelves. Matt sent us a pic, which is after the break.
Until now, the best way to get Froyo on your Defy was to drop the thing while eating at a TCBY -- thankfully, the water and drop-resistant Motorola handset could take the abuse. Things are a bit easier now, however; the company announced today that the rugged handset is finally getting an Android 2.2 update, hot on the heels of Verizon's Samsung Fascinate -- half a year after the operating system first hit the market and a bit later than originally rumored.
Experiencing voice quality woes with your otherwise delightful Atrix 4G? You aren't alone, buster. In fact, the issue has become so prevalent and widespread that Motorola itself has taken notice, with one of its forum managers creating a sticky to confirm that the company is looking into things. As of now, there's no clear indication of why the problem is emerging, but the positive news is that you aren't actually losing your hearing -- it's a legitimate quandary, and if you'd care to help Motorola fix it, you can visit that source link to tell your story. Till then, we hear local phone providers are offering unbeatable deals on landline connections.
The Motorola Droid 2 and Droid X are both headed toward their one-year anniversaries this summer, which has pretty much become the culling hour for a smartphone of any creed these days. Their successors, ingeniously titled the Droid 3 and Droid X 2, have seemingly made an appearance over atHowardForums, courtesy of longtime forum member wnrussell. He's also kindly provided imagery of a heretofore unknown device, called the Targa, which promises Verizon 4G LTE and has a protrusion on its rear that looks to be dedicated to accommodating an outsized camera sensor. It reminds us most of Motorola's XT720, though it sports a chrome outline to its body similar to what you see above on the purported Droid 3. Click past the break to get an eyeful of this Targa device and its Droid X 2 brandmate.
The road to Android 2.1 may have been a long and treacherous one for Milestone users, but the one to Android 2.2 wasn't even certain of reaching its goal. Thankfully, Moto has managed to conclude its "exhaustive testing process" and is now making a Froyo firmware update available to Milestone users wishing to step their software up a notch. Flash Player 10.1, a faster browser and mobile hotspot capabilities await the intrepid updater, but Motorola warns that any DRM-locked media you have on your SD card will be lost. Weirdly enough, there's also a caution that "users may experience some adverse effects associated with the upgrade which could include slower operation of some phone functions and applications." Once you've read and understood all the warnings, smash the source link to download the new software.
While Fenny's hack could potentially make the desktop dock obsolete -- assuming you've got a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard handy -- Motorola's LapDock is still something else. It's razor-thin, it doesn't require a separate monitor, and it charges your phone. So, before you write it off entirely, you might at least want to indulge your morbid curiosity about what's inside, and thus there's a complete teardown video after the break to show you what the guts look like. Enjoy!
You know how Motorola's Atrix is unique in having all these docking stations and a Webtop app that collectively turn it into a far more versatile computer than your average superpowered smartphone? Well, Sanjay Jha has just told investors at a Morgan Stanley shindig that the Atrix won't be unique for long -- the Webtop app will be making an appearance on all of Moto's "high performance" smartphones in the second half of this year, and we're told that the only reason the Droid Bionic won't be shipping with it was the simple constraint of time. What that implies, but something Jha didn't say, is that the Bionic and Moto's other forthcoming devices are likely to have laptop docks of their own -- hopefully with a connector that makes the docking accessory interchangeable between models.
Verizon's first Xoom ad is out leaving little doubt about how the company plans to market Motorola's new tablet. While the Honeycomb slab might lack the Droid branding, VZW looks set to maintain the overtly machismo tone that helped sell so many Android handsets over the last year while dismissing any of that cerebral nonsense preferred by Motorola. And really, who amongst us, man or woman, can resist the temptation of strapping on an $800 jetpack come thursday?
If you thought the lack of root on the Atrix 4G was going to save you a couple hundred bucks next week... well, we hate to break the bad news, but you're going to need to find another excuse not to buy it (more on that in a second). Long story short, the phone's already been rooted by a gentleman over on the ever-resourceful xda-developers forums, which means you can do all the normal things that require root access like enabling the standard Froyo mobile hotspot feature, using root apps like Titanium Backup (pictured above), and generally looking 1337 compared to your friends locked up in their walled gardens. Now, the bad news: the bootloader remains firmly locked and presumably encrypted given Moto's track record, so custom kernels are still just a dream -- but hey, where there's a will, there's a way. Keep the faith!
Pakistan's premium online retaliler has launched the most cuttting edge smartphone available today by any manufaturer in the world, the Atrix 4G for Rs. 74,990/-. It is one of the first Android smartphones with Nvidia Tegra2 inside (a dual core processor of 1GHz for every core). Specifications are quite impressive and this gadget will be a benchmark for the first part of 2011. So meet 1 GB of RAM, 16 GB of in-built memory coupled with microSD memory cards of up to 32 GB. You can find the details of the Atrix 4G here. If you want to buy it, you can find the direct link to the online retailer at the source link below.
We can totally picture how this went down: AT&T appears to have made it not worth LetsTalk's time (orWirefly's time) to sell its phones anymore, which means they're parting ways staring next month. LetsTalk -- wishing to end its AT&T relationship in the most spectacular fashion imaginable -- has elected to sell the Motorola Atrix 4G / Laptop Dock bundle for $250 on contract after rebates, essentially half of what you'll pay through AT&T directly (LetsTalk runs Walmart's wireless store portal, which we've linked). The fire sale might not fix some of the dock's flaws... but it certainly makes them a little less painful.
The hotly reviewed and already rooted Atrix 4G is now on sale at AT&T. As expected, the privilege of buying direct from the carrier will set you back $199.99 with a two-year contract in the range of $39.99 per month for the Nation 450 on up to $69.99 for the Nation Unlimited with another $15 per month for a 200MB DataPlus plan or $45 per month for a Data Pro 4GB + tethering plan. Or shop on over to Amazon (or RadioShack) who lists the same HSPA+ device for $50 less with a 24-hour ship time. Remember, if you just have to have the laptop dock then you'd best do it now while it's offered with the handset in a $499 bundle (after $100 mail-in rebate and purchase of the Data Pro plan with tethering add-on) -- the same laptop dock purchased separately will cost you $499.99. No, really. Walmart is offering the Atrix 4G handset for a measly $129.99 for those of you activating a new account before Thursday.
We've been hearing rumors of a Motorola Droid X 2 for a few days now from The Mobi Zone, complete with specs and pictures (above). Supposedly, it's the successor to the Droid X, with a similar appearance, Android 2.2 with MOTOBLUR, and the same 8 megapixel camera. Some of the leaked specs -- 4.3-inch qHD (960 x 540) display, 1GHz Tegra 2 dual-core CPU, 1GB RAM -- didn't sit well with us, since these closely match the upcoming LTE-equipped Droid Bionic. We did some digging around and one of our trusted sources confirmed that the Droid X 2 aka Droid X "squared" is indeed coming to Verizon in Q2 2011 without LTE. However, it appears to be a refreshed Droid X, with the same 4.3-inch WVGA (854 x 480) display, a 1.2GHz single-core CPU, and 768MB of RAM. It's not quite the powerhouse it was originally made out to be, but it now seems to be a better fit in the Droid family. We have also confirmed that the Droid X 2 will feature a front-facing camera.
The best laid plans of Motorola may be in disarray, as we hear the device manufacturer is shuffling release dates for its hottest new Android devices. Supposedly, AT&T customer service reps are getting the above message in their inbox, which suggests the modular Atrix 4G smartphone may arrive more than a week earlier than planned, while a Best Buy memo (image after the break) pegs Xoom tablet pre-sales for February 20th, three days after the date originally communicated. Still, we haven't heard anything to suggest that the Xoom won't be 100 percent ready for purchase on February 24th.
Think the Atrix 4G might be a critical launch for Motorola right now? A fresh regulatory filing by Motorola today revealed that the company got a whopping 28 percent of its cash from Verizon last year -- up from 17 percent in 2009 -- a pretty powerful testament to the "Droid effect." The company goes on to say that "the loss of, or a significant reduction in revenue from, one or more of these customers could have a negative impact on [its] business," and it's pretty clear that the launch of the iPhone on Verizon will have at least someimpact this year. Question is, can they make up for the loss with a harder push on other carriers like AT&T?
We were just settling into our expectation that the terms "Motorola" and "Android" are always going to appear in the same sentence, but check it out: the new Gleam flip phone for Europe bucks the trend in a big way. Looking more like a South Korean or Japanese domestic market handset than anything else, the Gleam features an external dot matrix LED display that can flash a variety of messages and pictograms, while the inside sports a 2.4-inch QVGA display, a dual-band GSM radio (don't even think of importing this thing to the States), Bluetooth 2.1, a 3.5mm headphone jack, microUSB charger, microSD slot with support up to 16GB, and a 2 megapixel cam. High end? Not exactly, but we bet the price will be right when it launches in the first half of the year in your choice of gray, red, or "thistle." Follow the break for the press release.
Motorola may have once said that it was "open" to developingWindows Phone 7 devices, but it looks like that possibility is now a whole lot less likely than it already was. Speaking at Mobile World Congress this week, Motorola's corporate vice president of software and services product management, Christy Wyatt, said that while she would never say never, she doesn't envision Motorola using Microsoft's OS, and added that "it's not something we're entertaining now." Wyatt went on to say that "there were a bunch of things that we believed about Microsoft that ended up not being true, mostly about what functionality it would have in what period of time," and further explained that Motorola is looking for "an opportunity to create unique value," and it doesn't feel it can do that on a "closed platform" like Windows Phone 7. Obviously, it does feel like it can create unique value with Android, and Wyatt dismissed concerns about a potential duopoly between Android and Apple, saying that "It could be a duopoly on platforms but I'm not sure why having another OS is a good or bad thing." Incidentally, she also said that the upgrade process for Motorola's Android phones has "humbled" the company a bit, and she promises improvements in the future, noting that "we were better with Froyo then with Éclair and we'll be even better with Gingerbread."
