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Purported Motorola Droid prototype turns up on eBay originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 21 Nov 2009 20:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Slowly but surely, the Motorola Motus is coming into focus — sort of. Hot on the heels of that super blurry shot we saw yesterday, BGR has some specs for the mid-range Android set, which seem to indicate this one’s not much more than an AT&T-oriented variant of the Cliq: 850 / 1900 / 2100MHz 7.2Mbps HSDPA, 3.1-inch capacitive 480 x 320 display, microSD expansion, MOTOBLUR, and a Qualcomm MSM 7201A CPU, which will undoubtedly be clocked at 528MHz. Unfortunately, there’s no word on what version of Android is on this thing, but we’ve got the sinking feeling it’ll be 1.6, given the last-gen hardware and Blur UI. Not the most impressive first Android set for AT&T — let’s hope there’s a better surprise in store.

Motorola Motus specs leaked, headed for AT&T? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While we were busy looking into external speaker problems on the Droid, it would seem Moto was itself hard at work remedying a separate issue with the device. A number of users on support forums have complained of the Droid’s camera failing to focus and giving them “red corners” when attempting to take pictures, but now — suddenly and without warning — their ailment has gone away as if touched by the hand of an omnipotent being (or, alternatively, a silent firmware update). This particular autofocus problem was mentioned in Verizon’s 5-page treatise on known issues with the Droid, though the planned resolution was an official update by December 11. The fix seems to have been delivered early, as green corners are sprouting up all around, but this silent update conduit sounds a bit nefarious, no?

Update: Sure enough, we can confirm from testing one of our own Droids that the issue has been resolved. The endless quest for the green focus box is over, and you can now finally begin scanning all your discount cards into Key Ring.

Update 2: And things have turned surreal. Dan Morrill, from Google’s Android team, has confirmed that there’s a date-related bug in the Droid’s camera software that leads to it having cycles of good and bad focus that depend on the date. Our own testing confirmed this, as backdating to the 11th of November returned those red bars of failure. Apparently, the cycles last 24.5 days, meaning that you’ll have good focus all the way to December 11, when the real fix is expected to drop. So breathe easy, Gotham, there are no phantom updates, just an oddly date-sentient camera.

[Thanks, AlexL and Kaiser]

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Motorola Droid camera autofocus fixed in secrecy? (Update: it’s a date-related self-correction) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Verizon Wireless’ vaunted network may not be paying off for some users of the Droid, who are complaining about problems with call quality on their smartphones.

“There’s a problem with echo on the phone, so when someone calls you, to them it sounds like they are having a conversation with themselves,” says Heath Brashier, a Baton Rouge, Louisiana, software developer who bought his Droid, which is manufactured by Motorola, just about a week ago. “It’s happened to me twice so far.”

Similar complaints have been posted on Motorola’s support forum, where people have posted dozens of comments saying that their voice sounds ‘tinny’ and ‘clipped.’ Some subscribers have found a quick DIY fix to the problem: Quickly turning the speaker phone on the device on and off makes the echo go away, they say. Others suggest rebooting the phone.

The problem is not widespread enough for Verizon to have launched an investigation yet, says a Verizon spokesperson. “We stand behind our products,” says the spokesperson. “Customers have a 30-day return-and-exchange policy if they are not happy with their phone.”

Motorola and Verizon launched the $200 Droid (with a two-year contract) Nov. 6 to excellent reviews. Droid has a crisp screen, zippy Android 2.0 operating system, 5-megapixel camera and maps with free turn-by-turn navigation.

The phone has proved a good seller for Verizon, so far. Flurry, a mobile-analytics company, estimates Verizon sold 250,000 Droid phones in the first week since the product’s launch. That compares to about 60,000 T-Mobile HTC MyTouch phones sold during that device’s first week, but falls far short of the estimated 1.6 million Apple 3G S iPhones that customers bought during a similar period.

The gripes about Droid’s call quality, however, have dampened the enthusiasm of some users. “It is irritating,” says Brashier.

Verizon may not be ready to officially acknowledge the problem, but it is likely aware of it. A leaked technical bulletin from the company suggests it is planning an over-the-air software update Dec. 11 to fix it. It will also include a patch for problems such as lack of availability of 3-way calling in some areas and inability of some users to transfer contacts by Bluetooth.

Seperately, a Wired.com reader said in an e-mail note that Droid’s Wi-Fi connectivity can be unreliable. While the phone connects to a Wi-Fi network, it doesn’t always connect to the internet from there. It’s not clear if that’s a problem with just a few phones or a more widespread issue among Droid devices.

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See Also:

• Why I’m Not Getting a Droid Today
• Review: Motorola Droid
• Droid Weekend Sales Top 100000, Says Analyst
• Verizon to Offer Tethering For Motorola Droid
• Verizon Won’t Offer Free Tethering, but Droid Hackers Might

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

While it’s busy trying to rebuild market share on the backs of Android-powered devices in North America and Europe, Motorola’s already got a bustling business in China, so it makes sense that they’d want to contribute some Google juice over there as well. That dovetails nicely with China Mobile’s Android-based Open Mobile System — which runs those so-called OPhones — and Motorola has yet to bring an OPhone to market, so that’s where this little beast appears poised to come into play. The MT710 is said to feature an 854 x 480 display clocking in at 3.7 inches and 3G support (using China Mobile’s up-and-coming TD-SCDMA network), but beyond that, little is known; rumor has it that Motorola will intro a total of seven Android models in China over the next year, though, and this is clearly one of them. Shave three or four millimeters off the Droid’s girth with this puppy, and count us in.

[Via PMP Today]

Filed under: Cellphones

Motorola’s MT710 OPhone for China makes us dream of Droids without keyboards originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 22:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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