Hasta La Gadget!

Your smartphone and / or tablet is just begging for an update. From time to time, these mobile devices are blessed with maintenance refreshes, bug fixes, custom ROMs and anything in between, and so many of them are floating around that it’s easy for a sizable chunk to get lost in the mix. To make sure they don’t escape without notice, we’ve gathered every possible update, hack, and other miscellaneous tomfoolery we could find during the last week and crammed them into one convenient roundup. If you find something available for your device, please give us a shout at tips at engadget dawt com and let us know. Enjoy!

Continue reading Refresh Roundup: week of October 15th, 2012

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Software, Mobile

Refresh Roundup: week of October 15th, 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 21 Oct 2012 20:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’re getting a serious dose of déjà vu, we’re right there with you. The RAZR i is a version of Motorola’s Droid RAZR M that’s headed to Europe and South America with a few differences. For the most part, though, it’s cut from the same Kevlar cloth: you get a 4.3-inch AMOLED screen with qHD (960 x 540) resolution, an 8-megapixel rear camera, a 2,000mAh battery and 5GB of built-in storage — with a microSD slot for expansion.

So what’s different? On the outside, the RAZR i gets a physical, two-stage camera button. It’s a welcome addition, but Intel reckons that its 2GHz processor is what you should be concerned with. It’s the highest-clocked Medfield processor we’ve seen yet — and perhaps more importantly, it’s been placed in a core phone-maker’s device. We’ve already come a long way from the Orange-branded San Diego. So how does this compare to the Qualcomm-powered (and LTE-capable) RAZR M? Will this Intel iteration charm us the same way? Join us after the break to find out.

Continue reading Motorola RAZR i review: how does the Droid RAZR M fare with a 2GHz Intel processor inside?

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Google, Intel

Motorola RAZR i review: how does the Droid RAZR M fare with a 2GHz Intel processor inside? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Oct 2012 09:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Soon after it’s unveiling, the Intel-based RAZR i showed up in Clove‘s listings with a SIM-free price of £342, and now it looks as if a few more outlets are pushing pricing details to the world. Expected to storm the UK in October, the phone should ship to Virgin Media customers for around £23 per month on its Premiere Tariff, while T-Mobilers will be able to score one for £0 to £31 per month depending on the contract. All told, not too shabby for the world’s first 2GHz Atom-backed Android phone, and if you’re eager to push all of this iPhone 5 stuff aside, at least you know precisely how many quid to save up between now and next month.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

UK pricing begins to filter out for Motorola’s Intel-powered RAZR i smartphone originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 Sep 2012 12:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola were quick to tell us that we’re testing on pre-release RAZR i here — software updates may arrive before the device does, but these figures below should give you a good estimate at what the 2GHz Intel processor can do. We’ve pitched it against the US-bound Droid RAZR M, with a capable dual-core Snapdragon S4 clocked at 1.5GHz, and ZTE’s Grand X IN, which houses Intel’s 1.6MHz Medfield Z2460 and Android ICS.

So what do all these numbers mean? Well, Intel’s 2GHz processor is pretty capable. Although the RAZR i only bests the RAZR M on SunSpider browser performance (something that Intel’s been focusing on with its mobile hardware), it’s a substantial score difference. Otherwise, the Europe-bound RAZR skates pretty close, if behind the RAZR M’s benchmarks. There’s a hiccup on the CF-Bench score, something that we also noted on the Grand X IN. While both the ZTE and Motorola devices are running Android 4.0, there’s still a tangible difference in these early benchmarks — perhaps testament to both Motorola and Google’s proximity and the debut of Intel’s faster 2GHz Medfield processor. We’ll be testing out those power-saving promises from the chipmaker over the next few days.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

Motorola’s RAZR i: benchmarking Intel’s first 2GHz Medfield smartphone originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Sep 2012 07:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While we’ve seen similar things from the RAZR M already — and even reviewed it — we reckoned those 2GHz Intel internals and HSPA-only radio inside the RAZR i (as well as European availability) warranted another tour of the hardware. In summary, there’s decently bright, if a little jaggy, 4.3-inch AMOLED screen, with a water resistant coating covering the already hardy Kevlar backing. There’s space for microSD expansion, and thanks to that tiny bezel, it’s a phone that very happily resided in the palm of our hand. Some Intel assistance has added a new 10-frame burst mode, and also sped up the boot-time of the camera app itself, not forgetting that this RAZR model has a dedicated camera button on the side. We’re booting up our benchmark toolkit to assess how Intel’s processor fares, but until the final scores are revealed, take a look at our hands-on video after the break.

Update: We’ve added our initial benchmarks — check them here.

Continue reading Motorola RAZR i: hands-on with the 2GHz Android phone (video)

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

Motorola RAZR i: hands-on with the 2GHz Android phone (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Sep 2012 05:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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