Saying that the Motorola Atrix is the best Android phone isn’t a big deal; that throne gets usurped every few months. But even though the Atrix’s accompanying laptop dock is slow and and expensive, the idea behind it is one of the first innovations in mobile technology in quite a while. More »
Verizon’s webpage dedicated to the Xoom has just gone up and one of our eagle-eyed readers has already spotted a disquieting bit of small print: “Adobe Flash expected Spring 2011.” You don’t sit around expecting what you already have, so that leads us to conclude that the Xoom, the mighty iPad-slaying, Honeycomb-bringing, world-changing tablet… won’t have Flash at launch. The version of Adobe’s rich media player it’s waiting for is most probably 10.2 for mobile devices, scheduled to arrive in the coming weeks, which should mean first-day buyers this Thursday will get a limited-time premium feature on their tablets: no Flash ads.
[Thanks, Chris]
Update: Motorola has confirmed this, in a very roundabout fashion. The company’s statement in full:
“Motorola XOOM will include full support for Adobe(R) Flash(R) Player(R) for accessing the rich video and animations of the web, to be available after launch.”
Motorola Xoom will ship without Flash support on February 24th, expects it in ‘Spring 2011’ (updated) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Feb 2011 06:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
No more stunt prices, no more premature web appearances, this (we hope) is finally Best Buy’s fully official listing for the Motorola Xoom. It brings no great surprises to those who’ve been tracking the tablet’s progress to retail shelves, offering first dibs to buyers willing to make the effort and pre-order one in store today, with full availability coming on Thursday, February 24th. The $800 3G-equipped model is accompanied on Best Buy’s site by a $40 portfolio case, a $50 basic charging dock, a $130 stereo speaker dock, and a $70 Bluetooth keyboard, but there’s no sighting of the cheaper WiFi-only Xoom. There was some suspicion that the $600 SKU would launch a little later on and that is indeed what appears to be happening. One final note of caution: even if you’re intending to use the Xoom as a pure WiFi-only device, remember that you’ll be required to activate data with Verizon for at least a month first — don’t ask us why.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Motorola Xoom up for in-store pre-order at Best Buy, $800 for Thursday availability originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 20 Feb 2011 03:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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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!
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Motorola Atrix 4G already rooted, and it’s not even out yet originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 19 Feb 2011 13:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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 some impact this year. Question is, can they make up for the loss with a harder push on other carriers like AT&T?
Motorola: 28 percent of 2010 revenue came from Verizon originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Feb 2011 17:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Current pre-orders appear to be looking at early March delivery, but AT&T has gone on record saying that folks that elected to pre-order the mighty Motorola Atrix 4G by the 17th will receive it on the 21st of February — next Monday — and if they chose to have their unit sent to a store, they’ll be able to get it there on the 21st as well. The rest of us will need to check out the store on the 22nd and hope for the best. We’ve gotten confirmation from a tipster that his pre-order has shipped with a scheduled delivery on Monday, so it’s looking like they’re on time. Who’s standing in line next Tuesday?
[Thanks, Shaun C.]
Motorola Atrix 4G pegged for February 21st pre-order delivery originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Feb 2011 15:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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There you have it, folks — the exhausting saga of the Xoom‘s pricing has finally been laid to rest by Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha. Reuters reports a $799 levy for the 32GB Honeycomb tablet when bought with 3G (which will be upgraded to 4G) connectivity from Verizon sans subsidies, while Jha is also quoted as saying that a WiFi-only version will set buyers back only $600. The latter price matches the 32GB iPad directly, however the 3G Xoom is $70 more expensive than the Apple alternative. Sanjay failed to say when said pricing or models will become available, but there have been strong indications that pre-orders or reservations will begin tomorrow (at least at Best Buy), with the tablet launching in full on Thursday next week.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Motorola Xoom price official: $799 unsubsidized on Verizon, $600 for WiFi-only originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Feb 2011 11:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Motorola may have once said that it was “open” to developing Windows 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.”
Motorola exec nearly rules out Windows Phone completely, laments ‘closed platform’ originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Feb 2011 14:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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We heard some weird reports over the weekend that the 3G Motorola Xoom tablet couldn’t be sold unless you bought at least one month of wireless data. That, plus the groan-inducing $800 MSRP, is surely giving some potential buyers a wee bit of pause. This might help. Crossing the wires at the FCC is what appears to be a WiFi-only version of the Xoom, called a “wireless tablet with embedded WLAN.” It’s lacking a 3G radio so, unless Moto has another trick up its sleeves, this is probably that. Obviously any speculation on price would be highly… speculative, but here’s to hoping ditching that modem brings this thing down a Benjamin or so. Also spotted, this time in Dubai but also embedded below, was a silver version of the Xoom, sporting a two-tone back that will nicely complement your Casio Data Bank calculator watch. No word on whether we’ll get that on these shores, but we hope so. Variety is, dear readers, the spice of life.
WiFi-only Motorola Xoom tablet does its FCC duty, silver version spotted in Dubai (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 Feb 2011 07:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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It’s common knowledge that the Droid Bionic is the ever-so-slightly-lower-end CDMA cousin to the mighty Atrix 4G, lacking a little RAM and compatibility with the interesting Laptop Dock. Otherwise, though, you’ve still got that lovely 1GHz Tegra 2 action and dual-band 802.11n, which is actually how we came to suspect that this device that just passed the FCC today is indeed the Bionic. Dual-band WiFi support is still exceptionally rare — the Atrix 4G has it, of course — so when you add that in with a CDMA cellular radio, that gives us plenty of evidence to work with. No word on a release date yet for this thing, but let’s hope it doesn’t trail the Atrix by long, right?
Update: Wireless Goodness makes some interesting points that suggest this could actually be the Xoom, not the Droid Bionic; most notably, the documentation makes reference to a non-removable battery, which would leave the Bionic out of the picture. That would also make sense considering the Xoom’s imminent availability, versus the Bionic’s rough Q2 target.
Motorola Droid Bionic in FCC? (update: or Xoom?) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Feb 2011 14:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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