Hasta La Gadget!

Behold: Razr redux.

Tuesday morning, Motorola announced its new flagship Android smartphone, the Droid Razr. Now, after spending some quality hands-on time with the phone, I can say it’s poised to become a formidable competitor in the Android space — if not also a challenge to Apple’s much-lauded iPhone 4S.

Motorola is celebrating the new Razr as the world’s thinnest smartphone, and its slim packaging is the first thing I noticed as soon as I picked it up. At 7.1 mm, the Razr dethrones the previous “thinnest device” title holder — Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Arc — by a full 1.6 mm. It’s difficult to tell just how thin the Razr is from promotional press shots, but considering the amount of high-end hardware packed inside — a 1.2GHz dual-core TI processor, 1GB of RAM and 32GB of storage (16GB care of a microSD card) — the phone’s svelte shape is impressive.

In order to slim down the phone’s profile, Motorola used threaded Kevlar fiber on the Razr’s back casing. This material, most famously used in bullet-proof vests, helps maintain structural integrity while keeping the phone’s figure trim.

With Kevlar on one side and a sculpted Gorilla Glass display on the other, the Razr is built for durability, yes. The phone’s innards, however, are also sealed inside a stainless steel interior chassis for extra shock absorbancy and all-around toughness. The phone is named after one of the most successful gadgets in Motorola history – a product famous for its iconic design — and it’s clear that Moto paid attention to all design features in order to elevate the Razr to a marquee-level status worthy of its namesake.

Here you can see the Razr's Kevlar surfacing — as well as the top portion of the phone, which exceeds Motorola's category-besting 7.1mm thickness.

But how does this curious object feel? Well, however attractive its hard edges and boxy aesthetic may be, the squared-off chassis did feel a bit awkward in my hands. The display measures in at 4.3 inches. It’s by no means the largest screen on the market, but the phone itself feels considerably larger than what a 4.3-inch display should suggest. But I did enjoy the Razr’s Kevlar backing. The woven material is soft to the touch, with a pleasingly grippy surface quality.

I loved the image quality of the screen. Photos render in crisp detail, with bright, brilliant colors. Shah said in order to save on battery life, the design team went with Samsung’s Super AMOLED display, which is famous for its modest power requirements. Considering that the phone comes with a battery-sucking 4G LTE radio, you’ll want every bit of power conservation that Moto’s engineers can muster.

One of my favorite Razr features is Motorola’s Smart Actions app. In essence, it’s a user-friendly scripting tool that helps control all the phone features that suck down battery life. Using Smart Actions, you can set up automatic tripwires that will adjust screen brightness, Wi-Fi, 4G and GPS settings when power conservation becomes critical. For example, you can set the Razr to automatically lower its display brightness as soon as battery life drops below 30 percent.

Smart Actions also contains settings that have nothing to do with battery conservation — for example, automatically switching your phone from vibrate to ringing mode when GPS detects that you’ve arrived at home. How ’bout them apples, Siri?

This full-frontal shot shows how the Razr compares to an iPhone 4/4S. You get a much bigger screen, and the Razr even weighs 13 grams less.

As with most of Motorola’s high-end devices since the debut of the Atrix in January, the Razr will launch with a slew of peripheral options. Back again are the webtop and lapdock stations. Like those that work with the Atrix, Photon and Bionic handsets, the webtop dock allows you to plug the Razr into an HD charging station and connect to an external HD monitor. As such, you’re able to use the phone as makeshift computer. Moto’s patented webtop environment is a nifty desktop-style UI, complete with the ability to surf the web using Mozilla’s Firefox Browser.

The new dock comes correct with Ethernet and USB support among other business travel-friendly goodies.

Shah said Motorola learned from user experience studies of previous lapdock-capable phones, and, as a result, its two new docks include extra ports and connectivity option. Specifically, the Razr-compatible Lapdock 500 Pro now features an Ethernet port and multiple USB ports. In essence, it has most of the I/O attributes of an actual laptop.

The company has bet big on connectivity and peripheral hardware options before, and failed miserably in execution (see Atrix, Xoom, et al.). But after these first impressions, it seems Motorola’s Razr redux may have gotten peripherals right.

Continue reading Hands-on with the Motorola Droid RAZR’s (many) accessories (video)

Hands-on with the Motorola Droid RAZR’s (many) accessories (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Oct 2011 14:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Droid RAZR vs. Droid vs. iPhone 4… fight! originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Oct 2011 13:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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To everyone who rocked a Motorola RAZR in the ’00s, it’s time to get excited again. The line — or at least the name — has been reborn, and not without good reason. This is a thin device — extremely thin. The Droid RAZR by Motorola is 7.1mm thin, in fact, and holding it up next to the iPhone 4 makes Apple’s phone look downright beefy by comparison. At 127 grams, it’s also incredibly light, a fact that’s quite apparent the first time you hold thing — we were honestly a bit surprised when it was first dropped in our hands. The company has clearly come a long way from the first generation Droid.

Of course, as noted, Motorola didn’t skimp on the specs here. The RAZR’s got a TI OMAP 4430 1.2GHz dual-core processor and 1GB RAM inside, and it does zip through apps with ease. The handset is rocking Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread — or at least was during our hands-on. No word on Ice Cream Sandwich — though we’ll no doubt be hearing more about that OS at tonight’s event. The 4.3 inch qHD Super AMOLED display is quite bright, and should do wonders on those Netflix HD videos.

Also of note is the phone’s relative ruggedness, thanks to its Kevlar backing, diamond cut aluminum and Gorilla Glass, but in spite of these facts, it really doesn’t feel or particularly look like a rugged device in your hands, just a big, surprisingly light handset. It’s a slick, fast, thin phone, that certainly seems worthy of the RAZR name we’ve all know and love.

Zach Honig contributed to this report.

Continue reading Motorola Droid RAZR hands-on (video)

Motorola Droid RAZR hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Oct 2011 13:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As far as secrets go, this one was not well kept. After a series of leaks that treated us to early images of the device, Motorola finally spilled the LTE beans with a teaser page reveal just yesterday. Now, we have official confirmation that the itsy bitsy 4G Spyder’s on its Big Red way.

This newest addition to Verizon’s Droid lineup boasts a Gorilla Glass coated, 4.3-inch qHD Super AMOLED display — a first for any mobile handset — atop a dual-core 1.2GHz TI OMAP4430 processor. Although the RAZR may look like a Kevlar-wrapped, slightly warped Droid X with its 7.1mm skinny silhouette and familiar topside hump, the insides tell a different tale. Joining the list of well-heeled specs, are an 8 megapixel rear camera capable of 1080p HD video, 1GB RAM, 16GB of onboard storage with 16GB additional on the microSD card and an 1,800mAh battery. Moto’s also included Lapdock 100 and 500 Pro compatibility, converting this latest red-eyed beastie into a power user’s best friend.

To help you squeeze the most productivity out of its 21st century RAZR, Moto’s also thrown in what it’s calling SmartActions software to manage your phone’s battery life. These user-determined settings can be programmed to shut off Bluetooth when you return home or slow down the processor speed while you’re on the phone — whatever your energy needs, the company’s intent you make the most of this handset. A new personal cloud feature comes bundled with the device, dubbed MotoCast. Video, photos, documents and music can be streamed from your laptop straight to the handheld. And for the IT departments of the world, the RAZR comes business ready with Citrix Receiver, Motorola Webtop and videoconferencing abilities.

Of course, there are a slew of accessories you can pair up with that new Droid: two lapdocks, wireless keyboard options, HD docks and Bluetooth headsets. You can snatch up all the extra goods and, of course, that aluminum-accented smartphone on October 27th when Verizon begins accepting pre-orders. As for that hard street date, the network’s being coy with a global release slated for November.

Update: Motorola has also confirmed that the phone will be exclusive to Rogers in Canada, where it will simply be known as the Motorola RAZR. Still no word on an exact release date, but the phone is now available for pre-order at $150 on a three-year contract, and Motorola says it will launch “in time for the holidays.” Unfortunately, Canadians will have to make do without LTE, as Rogers’ version will only do HSPA up to 14.4Mbps.

Continue reading Motorola Droid RAZR unveiled: LTE, 4.3-inch qHD Super AMOLED display, available November for $299

Motorola Droid RAZR unveiled: LTE, 4.3-inch qHD Super AMOLED display, available November for $299 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Oct 2011 12:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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