All Articles Tagged motorola

Update: Boy Genius has an advanced preview up for the Droid rocking Android 2.0. His take away:

The Droid isn’t an iPhone competitor because nothing at this point in time is an iPhone competitor besides the new iPhone. And things don’t have to be right now. Everyone can eat. So will the Motorola Droid be successful? Absolutely, we think. It will eat in to BlackBerry sales, Windows Mobile sales, and positively murder any lingering Palm Pre sales. It’s that good. Did you notice how Verizon still hasn’t announced the BlackBerry Storm2?

Original: This time it wasn’t the blogshinobi who leaked more details on Verizon’s upcoming Motorola Droid “iPhone Killer”, but good old Moto itself, according to Android Central:

Motorola just went live with the official Droid webpage and it went into beautifully excruciating detail about this most anticipated device. The early publishing of the website is no longer available but Motorola’s mistake is our gain, now we don’t have to wait til October 28th to get the nitty gritty specs.

And those specs are a fairly impressive:

• Android 2.0 ‘Eclair’
• 3.7-inch WVGA (480×854), 16:9 touchscreen
• 550 MHz processor
• 6 oz (169g)
• 2.4 x 4.6 x.5 inches (60×115.80×13.70mm)
• 3.5mm headphone jack (yes, HTC has now made this a feature for Android)
• Broswer will support Flash 10 in 2010
• Wi-Fi, 3G, GPS, Bluetooth, microUSB (comes with 16gb microSDHC card)
• 1400 mAh battery (rated at nearly 6 and a half hours of usage time)
• 5 megapixel camera with image stabilization, 4x zoom, dual-led Flash, and auto-focus
• the color is listed as: ‘Licorice w/ brown sugar accents’

So Android is now taking a page from Windows Mobile and really pushing the hardware. Is this finally enough to force Apple into raising its own spec game? (TiPb did ask for an iPhone HD last year already). And if so, will next June be soon enough to keep the new generation of competitors at bay?

Or were Tim Cook and Fake Steve (twice) right, that usability and unified platform are the killer iPhone advantages, and on those terms, Apple is still way ahead of the competition?

If the latter, should Windows Mobile (which uses the same split software model and hardware partners), and BlackBerry (which used to have Verizon’s spotlight) be worried?

20 years before there was Verizon’s iPhone iDoesn’t… and Droid does campaign, there was Sega Does and Nintendon’t.

Be interesting to see if it works out better for Droid than it did for Sega…

[via Daring Fireball]

Just a few days ago Verizon started their iDoesn’t campaign specifically targeting Apple’s iPhone. Well late last night images started to emerge all over the blogs, including our very own Android Central, giving us a sneak peek to what may be some legitimate iPhone competition. After a hands on, BGR came away mighty impressed. Here are just a few of the highlights spotlighted by BGR:

• It’s thin. Just slightly thicker than an iPhone 3GS and the thinnest QWERTY-slider we’ve ever seen.
• It is the fastest Android device we’ve ever used. (It’s running a TI OMAP3430 processor)
• Awesome capacitive display. Plus it’s huge. Easily the best screen we’ve ever seen on an Android handset, and an amazing screen overall.

The specs seem impressive but I’m not sold on the look of the device yet. What are your thoughts on this new Motorola Android device? Do you think Apple is shaking in their boots? Let us know in the comments!

[Via Android Central via BGR]

First up, the highly anticipated HTC Hero is in Android Central’s house, and Casey gives us a look at the decidedly non-Google Android phone and SenseUI, something closer akin to HTC’s previous Windows Mobile powered TouchFLO3D. And we think he likes it:

We believe that you’ll be stunned at how easy it is to use and how polished it all works. If you’re looking from the myTouch 3G or T-Mobile G1, you can’t help but be jealous of the Hero. The UI offers a great experience while still maintaining the same lovely Android and even adds a better browser! We have no hesitation in saying that the HTC Hero is the best Android phone available and after using HTC Sense, will be for quite some time.

Next up, I don’t think we’ve ever mentioned “Motorola” and “competition” to the iPhone in the same paragraph before, but with the introduction of the CLIQ, their first device running Google’s Android OS, do we have to stop chuckling at the mere concept?

Maybe. We often say (okay, Chad often says) that Apple designed the iPhone for RAZR users — the first dead-simple, consumer-friendly smartphone. Well Moto built the RAZR, and now they’ve built MOTOBLUR, a new, hyper-social network focused new layer on top of Android designed to hook the heart of the Twitter/FaceBook generation (yes, Icebike, I campout firmly in the former). And they’ve put it on a G1/Dream-style horizontal slider.

Have they succeeded? Engadget says:

Let’s be very clear: though it fares pretty competitively against the aging crop of Google-powered devices on the market today, the CLIQ isn’t the Android phone to end all Android phones. Then again, it’s not supposed to be — at least, we hope it isn’t — because a smallish HVGA display and an overworked, outmatched MSM7201A core aren’t going to win any believers that haven’t already been won over by HTC’s stable. What the CLIQ does do, though, is lay the groundwork for something better — a Motorola that doesn’t cause eyes to roll, a Motorola that makes aspirational phones that people can want to own again.

One thing’s clear, however. The competition is focusing on the social networks, something Apple’s never been historically good at, and something they may still not quite understand. Is it an achilles heel for the iPhone? Not yet, especially not with the App Store. But there’s no MOTOBLUR or widgets or Synergy in the App Store yet, and likely there won’t be given SDK restrictions. So, Apple, howsabout 4.0?

The Motorola MOTOROKR S305 Bluetooth Stereo Headphones [$49.95 - TiPb Store link] for iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G are great for enjoying your music on the go. Whether you’re on your daily jog or spending some time in the gym, these headphones are the perfect fit that will not hurt your wallet.

Read more after the break! Read the rest of this entry »

The Motorola MOTOPURE H15 Bluetooth headset is available and can be purchased in The iPhone Blog Store for $109.95. If you are looking for an absolutely smokin’ Bluetooth headset, checkout this review! Let’s see how it measures up after the break!

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Motorola’s RAZR stood atop cellular handsets in the US, in terms of sales, for the past 3 years. Well as of today, it stands no longer. According to the market research firm NPD, enter in our new #1: iPhone 3G.

Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis for NPD said:

“The displacement of the RAZR by the iPhone 3G represents a watershed shift in handset design from fashion to fashionable functionality, four of the five best-selling handsets in the third quarter were optimized for messaging and other advanced Internet features.”

It seems U.S. consumers are looking for a few good but common features. 43 percent of consumers stated they needed a camera, while another 36 percent needed the ability to send SMS messages. Phones with a physical QWERTY keyboard showed the greatest year-over-year rise in sales. 30 percent of devices sold happened to have QWERTY keyboards, which was up 11 percent from the previous year.

All of this news coming days after it was announced that Apple has taken the number 2 smartphone spot away from RIM. And that is worldwide, not just in the US. Life must be grand for Steve Jobs…

It has taken Apple a very short time to reach this position, would it be wise to assume that it is only a matter of time for it to become #1 worldwide?

[Via Appleinsider]

Not evil twin to theiPhoneBlog.com Week in Review, not an invasion by Fake Steve, This Week in Smart Phone Schadenfreude brings you all the feel-better news you need about the smartphone world outside Apple’s current media dominator. (Who knew there was such a world? We were just as surprised! Inelegant, interface challenged, keyboardy, crashy, single-touchy place — best not to linger…). Join us as we mock review the big news from last week at our sister sites. Everybody loves sibling rivalry!

This week: Zilch again. Nadda. We’re too busy getting ready to cover the no doubt universe denting news Apple will unleash at “Let’s Rock” on Tuesday. And, frankly, so is the competition. Face it, they’ve been quiet as little blue-OLED mice lately.

Blackberryboss Lazeridis is all dressed up like Leo Laporte and is already lining up in San Francisco to find out what Apple’s releasing this year… so he can release it next. Palm-Top Colligan’s not releasing anything new until Nova ships sometime in 2012, and Larry and Sergey have shifted the focus off Android and onto their new Chrome browser, which we just know they’ve been running on gLinux in-house for years but is somehow only released (in what will not doubt be perpetual Beta) for Windows.

And speaking of Windows, Steve Ballmer’s off preparing an extra-special CES-sized Monkey Boy dance (YouTube it) for his first adult Keynote since Bill Gates retired to make $10,000,000 mockumentaries with Jerry Seinfeld (Wikipedia him).

No doubt they’ll return to their usually scheduled schedules next week, and so will we!

Not evil twin to theiPhoneBlog.com Week in Review, not an invasion by Fake Steve, This Week in Smart Phone Schadenfreude brings you all the feel-better news you need about the smartphone world outside Apple’s current media dominator. (Who knew there was such a world? We were just as surprised! Inelegant, interface challenged, keyboardy, crashy, single-touchy place — best not to linger…). Join us as we mock review the big news from last week at our sister sites. Everybody loves sibling rivalry!

This week: Boldly browsing (or not), AppClones, HTC’s dreaming, and Treo requiem.

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Bluetooth headsets are becoming increasingly popular, on a common day you’d run into plenty of people using these hands-free devices. Some make you look like a bionic man, others simply look bland, but there are a rare few that makes your head turn. The Motorola H9 Bluetooth Headset ($89.95) falls in that head-turner, borderline sexy category.

Sculpted to be no larger than a quarter, the Motorola H9 is sleek, lightweight, and unmistakably TINY. How can they fit a capable Bluetooth Headset in such a small package? Does it sacrifice performance for the sake of good looks? Is it even useful?

Read on for the rest of the review!

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