Hasta La Gadget!

We’re hearing from… well, let’s call them “people familiar with the matter” that HTC’s Thunderbolt — a phone that’s supposed to be Verizon’s first with LTE — is experiencing positively miserable battery life that’s making it difficult for testers to avoid carrying a second phone around as a backup. How bad? Two to three hours from full to empty in some cases. Of course, we wouldn’t be surprised if battery life was really bad with the LTE radio left on — the EVO 4G wasn’t much different at launch with WiMAX lit up — but the word on the street is that the power situation is largely responsible for the delays we’ve been seeing. In fact, our source tells us the phone is currently working on its sixth retail delay at the moment. More on this situation as we get it.

Update: We’ve just heard from another trusted tipster that there’s definitely a new firmware in the works to address battery life and signal issues (which — you guessed it — are interrelated). Thanks, HTC Kid!

HTC Thunderbolt said to have terrible battery life, might explain delay? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 25 Feb 2011 19:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Verizon’s Motorola Xoom 4G upgrade guidelines. Image: Droid Life

The Xoom tablet has a respectably fast Verizon 3G connection, but Motorola promises a free upgrade to Verizon’s faster 4G network within a few months.

To do that, however, you’ll need to ship your Xoom back to the manufacturer for more than a week.

It’s not often I laugh out loud when researching a post, but when reading up on the Motorola Xoom 3G to 4G upgrade procedure, I sounded like barking dog. If anyone has ever designed a more convoluted, ridiculous way to rush an unfinished product to market, I have yet to see it. But more on that in a moment.

Of course, you can buy Motorola’s Android 3.0–powered, 3G-enabled Xoom today. The promised upgrade to 4G is now slated for May (officially “90 days after launch”), and the upgrade involves shipping the tablet back to Motorola (also free) and waiting up to six business days (translation: more than a week). This despite the fact that the Xoom is clearly designed for easy upgrades, and the upgrade procedure probably takes no more than 10 minutes.

For customers who are happy to be without their tablets for a while, this is clearly good news: You get a free bump to use faster 4G networks. It’s good for Verizon, too, as you might sign up for a 4G plan (although you don’t have to). But for Motorola it’s plain dumb.

I don’t know how much it costs to pay for two-way shipping, opening up a tablet and replacing a part, but I can bet it isn’t cheap. After all, there’s a reason that replacing gadgets is often cheaper than repairing them. Add to this the fact that Motorola will have cut profit margins to the bone to compete with the iPad, and I can see this stunt losing the company a lot of money.

So why do it? Why not wait until it is ready and launch it in the summer? Two words: iPad 2. The iPad 2 will be here in April, and maybe even as early as next week, at which time many of the Xoom’s “advantages” will disappear. If our guesses are right, the Xoom’s camera and fast processor will no longer be unique, and the only extra will be 4G, aka “the ability to connect to a fast but sparsely deployed data network.” It seems rather obvious that Motorola was absolutely desperate to get its tablet out the door before Apple makes it irrelevant.

So, want to hear about what had me chuckling? Take a look at the “Getting Ready Guide” for the upgrade. Sandwiched in the middle is rather huge section on backing up your data before sending it off to Motorola. It boils down to this: Connect your Xoom via USB, dig down through its file system and then copy (via drag and drop) the files and folders onto your computer.

Then, when your machine is finally returned after surgery, you put it all back again. Just the kind of thing Auntie May will find it dead-easy to do.

And that’s before we even get to encrypting the contents to keep it safe in transit (“If you interrupt the encryption process, you will lose some or all of your data”).

Remind me why nobody is buying Android tablets, again?

Motorola Xoom Upgrade program [Verizon via Droid Life]

See Also:

• Motorola Xoom $600 With Verizon Contract, $800 Without
• Motorola Thinks You'll Pay $800 for the Xoom Tablet
• Motorola Xoom Launches Without Flash

Wondering why the Thunderbolt isn’t in stores yet? Hard to say — apart from the reeling HTC and Verizon employees might be doing in light of the Apple / Intel news — but a Best Buy in California spilled the bad news on Twitter last night that it’s now expecting Big Red’s first LTE phone on March 4th. As Android Police points out, the store appears to have confused the day March 4th falls on (it’s a Friday, not a Thursday), but we’re figuring it’s far more likely the date is right, not the day of the week. And if Best Buy has a launch exclusive on this thing, that means it could be another week or two beyond that before the phone shows up in Verizon retail locations and elsewhere. Bummer, eh?

Update: We just got an image (you can see it for yourself after the break) that seems to set the ThunderBolt’s Best Buy arrival date even later than March 4th. According to the Best Buy Mobile document, it will be on sale on March 10th. We’re assuming the timing keeps being adjusted, but we think it’s pretty fair to say things keep getting pushed back.

Continue reading HTC Thunderbolt delayed until March 4th, says a Best Buy store with a Twitter account (update: or maybe March 10th?)

HTC Thunderbolt delayed until March 4th, says a Best Buy store with a Twitter account (update: or maybe March 10th?) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Feb 2011 15:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oh yes, the world’s first Android Honeycomb tablet really is here now. As Verizon announced earlier, you can snag a Motorola Xoom for $599.99 with a two-year contract, or splash out $799.99 for just the LTE-ready device. Alas, the WiFi-only version is nowhere to be seen just yet, but maybe some will show up in the stores later if not tomorrow, so hold on to your personal hotspot devices and keep believing. Either way, in case you’re still indecisive over this 10-inch goodness, maybe our review will help.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Update: Verizon’s been in touch to inform us of a policy change: customers who purchase the off-contract Xoom will now no longer need to be on a month to month plan. That said, we still see “Month to Month” as a compulsory option at the time of updating this post.

Motorola Xoom now available for purchase straight from Verizon, no data activation required (updated) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Feb 2011 23:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You laugh, but D-O-Quadruple-G does have a certain ring to it. In fact, it sounds a little like the ringing of Samsung’s Galaxy Indulge, which is tucked inside the pocket of MetroPCS’ CEO right about now. You see, the aforesaid carrier has presumably paid Snoop Dogg (or Snoop Dogggg, as he’ll be known until he scurries outside of a 4G coverage area) to change his name in order to celebrate the commercial launch of the world’s first LTE Android smartphone. The Froyo-based phone is just barely beating out LG’s Revolution and HTC’s Thunderbolt, and you can bet that MetroPCS is doing everything it can to let the world know about it. Taking things one step further too far, Snoop’s also appearing in a new series dubbed “The G-Connection,” and you can peek the first episode just after the brizzle. For rizzle, homedizzle.

Continue reading Snoop Dogggg goes 4G to celebrate launch of Samsung Galaxy Indulge, was probably paid more than 4Gs to do it

Snoop Dogggg goes 4G to celebrate launch of Samsung Galaxy Indulge, was probably paid more than 4Gs to do it originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Feb 2011 20:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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