Hasta La Gadget!

We’d been wondering if the Droid 2 Global was just a beautiful figment of our imagination after the Droid Pro came out of left field, but it looks like the world-phone edition of Verizon’s slider Droid is still coming — it just appeared in the VZLearn employee training system. No idea when it’ll actually hit, but we’re guessing it’ll be sometime soon — and then the decision between global Droids with QWERTY keyboards will be as agonizing as possible.

Droid 2 Global appears in Verizon employee training system originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Oct 2010 17:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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What is the Motorola MB860? It’s hard to say for sure, but it could be one of the infamous Tegra 2 tablets that Motorola’s been allegedly working on. Ameblo recently discovered that the MB860 had been certified for Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR and dual-band 802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi, and then noticed that the UPnP Forum had attached a curious codename — Olympus — to the device. This is where things get fairly fuzzy, but Android and Me recently reported that the Olympus was one of two Motorola tablets in testing — though it may not be the Stingray, as that supposed 10-inch device has an alphanumeric designation of its own: MZ600. For those of you inspired to go sluthing on your own, we’ve got a couple final notes. First, the Bluetooth SIG has already changed its MB860 filing to read BT0001, according to Google’s cache. Second, though the WiFi interoperability certificate above reads “smartphone,” that’s not necessarily true — according to the Wi-Fi Alliance, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab is a “phone” as well.

Motorola’s mysterious Olympus MB860 gets certified for Bluetooth, UPnP and dual-band WiFi originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 Oct 2010 06:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Want to see a smartphone take a bath? Good, we thought so. At CTIA today we got the opportunity to submerge the Motorola Defy, a dust-proof, water and scratch-resistant Android device, and it came out completely unscathed. Since we’ve heard plenty about this hardware on the specs end, and even spotted it in the wild last month, we’ll just leave you to this video and let you on your way.

Motorola Defy defies water and lives happily ever after originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Oct 2010 22:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Late yesterday, Verizon and Motorola announced a new Android smartphone with a front-facing QWERTY keyboard, sleek black business-casual look and a 3.1″ multitouch multimedia screen. The Droid Pro is expected to attract a big chunk of Verizon’s existing Android and Blackberry high-end and business users when released in the coming weeks.

My first, beloved smartphone was a first-generation Blackberry Bold; for me, Motorola’s Droid Pro is clearly the handsomest Android phone I have ever seen. (Yes, I like it more than the R2-D2 Droid.) The major differences between the new Droid Pro and my old Blackberry Bold are Android apps and a touchscreen. As long as the Droid Pro’s keyboard is a champ like the Bold’s, the touchscreen isn’t too teeny and its yet-unannounced pricing isn’t too obscene, we can say that it’s improved in every way.

The Droid Pro’s specs are also impressive: Android 2.2., a 1GHz processor with 2GB of storage, Adobe Flash Player 10.1 and support for both Exchange and Google email and calendar programs. It can act as a 3G mobile hotspot (although Verizon has disabled that functionality for current Droid users) or stream media from a server over a Wi-Fi network using the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) standard. Its 5MP camera can shoot still images and video, so you might even have something on your phone worth streaming back.

When the Droid Pro’s finally released, upgraders should make sure they don’t throw their old phones away: Verizon Wireless today announced a new trade-in/recycling program that will appraise your old phone, refurbish or recycle it and offer you a Verizon Gift Card. Even non-Verizon phones can be traded in, so network-switchers can take advantage of it too.

Price and release date for the Droid Pro have yet to be announced; when released, it will be available through Verizon Wireless’s online and retail outlets. You can fully expect that Verizon’s people will be happy to sell you one.

Image from Motorola.

See Also:

• Verizon Denies Tethering, Hot Spot Features to Droid Customers …
• Hands On With the Motorola Droid X
• Verizon Won't Offer Free Tethering, but Droid Hackers Might …
• HTC Droid Eris
• HTC 'Incredible' Android Phone Lands on Verizon
• The R2-D2 Droid Phone You're Looking For
• Reviled by Reviewers, BlackBerry's Storm Rages On
• Verizon + Skype Not Mobile VoIP Nirvana, But Closer
• Android Gains While iPhone, BlackBerry Lose Share
• Most Clicked Mobile Ads Aren't On Android or iPhone

Nah, this trio isn’t nearly as flashy as Motorola’s spate of new smartphones, but those still rockin’ the earpiece (or trying to avoid a ‘talking-while-driving’ ticket) may be interested in the outfit’s newest line of peripherals. Here at Fall CTIA 2010, Moto unveiled the Roadster in-car speakerphone alongside the Finiti and CommandOne Bluetooth headsets. From top to bottom, the Roadster is a clip-on device that goes on your visor, boasting dual-microphone noise cancellation technology and MotoSpeak — a technology that reads your texts allows and accepts voice replies. There’s an integrated battery that can withstand up to 20 hours of yapping (or three weeks of nothingness), and there’s even an FM transmitter thrown in for good measure. The Finiti BT headset was engineered with “extreme conditions” in mind, adding to the Elite series with a trifecta of microphones and the aforesaid MotoSpeak read-back technology. It can supposedly let you carry on a conversion with 40 mile per hour winds whirling around you, but we’re hoping you’d never actually be able to put it to the test. Finally, the CommandOne — for all intents and purposes — is simply a less rugged, differently styled version. The whole lot lands in Q4, but mum’s the word on pricing.

Motorola sneaks out Roadster in-car speakerphone, Finiti and CommandOne BT headsets originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Oct 2010 13:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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