Motorola Flipout makes North American debut with a Rogers exclusive

In another case of Canadians getting things ahead of their southerly neighbors, the Motorola Flipout has made its journey across the Atlantic and settled on Rogers as its first North American carrier. 3-year contractual commitments will be greeted with a lowly C$30 charge for the phone, or if you can’t bear the thought of being locked in for so long, you can buy the flipping thing outright for C$375. As a quick reminder, the Flipout runs on Google’s Android 2.1 OS, but embellishes things a little with a freshened up variety of the Motoblur UI. If that, together with the “hip to be square” form factor, sounds like your slice of pie, we suggest you head on over to the source link and put those Canadian Dollars to good use.

[Thanks, CoconutCheez]

Motorola Flipout makes North American debut with a Rogers exclusive originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Aug 2010 19:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Droid X update to Android 2.2 coming ‘by early September’

A Motorola support forum response about issues involving Exchange 2003 email problems on the Droid X has actually yielded something far more juicy: an updated window for the Froyo upgrade’s release. Promised since the phone’s initial launch, Moto’s now saying that the new build is “scheduled for deployment by early September,” so barring a miracle, we can probably toss out those dreams of getting it by late August — and we can certainly forget the rumors that it had already started going out. Clearly we’d like it sooner rather than later, but hey, if they’re hard at work squashing bugs as we speak, more power to ’em — we’re all for stable releases.

[Thanks, ARR]

Droid X update to Android 2.2 coming ‘by early September’ originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Aug 2010 18:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Droid 2 flyer confirms Froyo (again), promises 40 percent boost in website load times

It’s not often that we know this freaking much about a major smartphone prior to its announcement — not to say that we’re complaining. Latest in the never-ending string of Droid 2 leaks is this handy little flyer, seemingly part of internal training for sales reps, pimping a variety of features like Android 2.2 out-of-the-box (something the original Droid is just now getting), the 8GB of on-board storage with another 8GB on an included microSD card, the Droid X-like UI skin, Swype, and — this is interesting — a claimed 40 percent gain in website loading time over its predecessor thanks to the 1GHz core. Of course, Froyo’s quite a bit faster than Eclair, so if they’re benchmarking a Froyo Droid 2 against an Eclair Droid, that could account for part of the performance improvement, too — not to say that we’re complaining. Hit the gallery below for a larger version of the page.

[Thanks, anonymous tipster]

Droid 2 flyer confirms Froyo (again), promises 40 percent boost in website load times originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Aug 2010 18:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola Sage pictured in glorious detail, on a collision course with AT&T

Confirming our FCC-inspired conjecture, here we have a gallery of pictures giving us a detailed look at Motorola’s latest (though probably not greatest) Android handset. Just as we posited, this QWERTY slider is bound for AT&T’s airwaves and it comes with a Motoblur 2 skin, as seen most recently on the Droid X. We keep telling these manufacturers that bone stock Android and a rapid upgrade cycle would be preferable but they don’t listen. You’ll have to make do with Android 2.1 when the Sage launches, which can’t be too far off from now given that our tipster has had his test unit for a good month already.

[Thanks, Charlie W.]

Motorola Sage pictured in glorious detail, on a collision course with AT&T originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Aug 2010 08:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola Glam brings Android 2.1, plenty of ritz to South Korea

Yeah, it may look like the Dell Aero when peeking it head-on, but Motorola’s Glam is apt to be far more sophisticated that the self-proclaimed “world’s lightest Android phone.” Launched today over in South Korea, this Android 2.1-based handset (which we toyed with earlier in the year when it was known as the XT800) boasts a 3.7-inch capacitive multitouch panel (854 x 480), dual LED flash, a 5 megapixel camera, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, 3.5mm headphone jack, USB 2.0 connectivity, an HDMI socket, 1GB of NAND Flash, 512MB of SDRAM, an 8GB microSD card, inbuilt GPS and support for a multitude of multimedia formats. Mum’s the word on a price, but it should be shuffling over to SK Telecom — high heels and all — by the end of August.

Motorola Glam brings Android 2.1, plenty of ritz to South Korea originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Aug 2010 04:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Verizon says original Droid ‘doesn’t have the hardware’ to support a mobile hotspot

This is the week that the original Droid will be getting the Android 2.2 update, but it looks like that update won’t be bringing two of the most oft-requested features: tethering and a mobile hotspot. Why’s that? While tethering seems to be simply due to a lack of an app that “isn’t part of this update,” the mobile hotspot issue is a bit more curious — Verizon spokesperson Brenda Raney says that the Droid “doesn’t have [the] hardware to support a mobile hotspot.” No further explanation than that, but we have a sneaking suspicion that Motorola and Verizon aren’t passing over the feature because of a lack of hardware, but because of too much hardware — namely, the Droid 2 and Droid X.

Correction: It’s Verizon making this claim, not Motorola.

Verizon says original Droid ‘doesn’t have the hardware’ to support a mobile hotspot originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Aug 2010 12:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola Sage: AT&T’s next Android phone?

We tend to go into full-on conjecture mode when we see an interesting FCC filing, but our instincts haven’t let us down in the past, so allow us to throw something out on the table. A new Motorola just hit the feds with 7.2Mbps HSDPA and 2Mbps HSUPA on the 850 and 1900MHz bands, quadband EDGE, WiFi, Bluetooth, AGPS, and a digital compass. In other words, this is definitely an Android set, and it could definitely work on AT&T. The Backflip’s already looking plenty long in the tooth, and we wouldn’t be surprised to see Moto fire its second Google-powered volley on AT&T before too long — it’s certainly been doing its duties on Verizon (and to a lesser extent, T-Mobile) after all. Any thoughts on what wild form factor this one might be?

Motorola Sage: AT&T’s next Android phone? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 30 Jul 2010 18:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola Droid getting Android 2.2 next week (update)

We’ve just been dropped a brief note from Verizon that the original Droid will be getting the full Froyo treatment at some point next week. Considering the brevity of the announcement, it’s entirely possible that this was thrown together in response to Sprint’s EVO news — but who cares? The more Android 2.2, the better, right? No official word on other Droid variants — most of which are likely going to see Froyo updates soon — but we’ll be keeping our ears firmly planted to the ground.

Update: Want to know just how extensive your Droid makeover might be? Hit up the full Verizon PDF guide to Android 2.2 on Droid at our more coverage link. [Thanks, Sgenius]

Motorola Droid getting Android 2.2 next week (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 30 Jul 2010 17:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Droid 2 cases arrive at Best Buy, Droid 2s soon to follow?

At this point, we’re starting to think that Motorola is intentionally (and cruelly) teasing us with its Droid successor. Today we can add to the parade of leaks preceding the Droid 2‘s debut in the form of the above hard case, which has just landed in Best Buy’s storerooms. Before you go off on some conspiracy theory comparing this to the iPhone’s Bumper and questioning whether this Droid might need a jacket, you should be aware that Rocketfish does similar paraphernalia for the Droid Incredible, marking this out as an entirely unremarkable run-of-the-mill accessory. Which might be the best news of all, we figure — if the unexciting peripherals are already being shipped, the handset itself shouldn’t be too far behind.

[Thanks, Justin]

Continue reading Droid 2 cases arrive at Best Buy, Droid 2s soon to follow?

Droid 2 cases arrive at Best Buy, Droid 2s soon to follow? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 30 Jul 2010 02:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Droid 2 manual leaks, teaches you everything you need to know about a phone you don’t have

You know the drill: blurry shots of phone get leaked… user’s manual gets leaked… excited would-be buyers voraciously consume manual’s contents… phone finally gets released. Indeed, that’s precisely the same well-trodden path the upcoming Droid 2 is taking, so if you’re looking at getting this thing in the next few weeks, you might want to start skimming the documentation so there aren’t any embarrassing newbie missteps in your first few moments of ownership. As Droid Life notes, we’ve got more confirmation here that the phone will be running the same skin as the Droid X, complete with the Swype-enabled (and presumably multitouch-enabled) soft keyboard for those times when you’re too lazy to pull out the physical keyboard. We can’t imagine what else could possibly leak at this point — so hey, Verizon, can we recommend you go ahead and get this show on the road?

Droid 2 manual leaks, teaches you everything you need to know about a phone you don’t have originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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