All posts tagged motorola

Motorola Reveals Three New Android Smartphones in China

By | 08.31.2010 | Android, Android Phones | Comments Off

Motorola released two new Android smartphones for China on Monday, and announced details of another, as the company broadens its product offerings for the Chinese market.

Part of Motorola’s MING series, the new phones have touchscreen displays and can recognize Chinese characters traced on them.

The MT810 and A1680 are now available in some areas in China, priced at 5,980 renminbi (US$877) and 3,080 renminbi respectively, a company spokeswoman said.

The MT810 will be serviced by China Mobile, has a 3.2-inch screen and can display mobile TV broadcasts in China’s CMMB format. The phone also uses China Mobile’s OPhone 2.0 operating system, which is based on the Android 2.1 version.

The A1680 phone, built for China Unicom, runs Android version 1.6 and has a 3.1-inch display.

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The Motorola Droid 2 Review

By | 08.24.2010 | Android Phones | Comments Off

Motorola Droid 2 Overview

It may not be easy to discern the new Motorola Droid 2 from its first-generation sibling, the original Droid, but be assured that the latest Android device for Verizon Wireless has enough firepower lurking behind the scenes than one would surmise. First off, there’s more horsepower under the hood regarding processing and RAM. But the Motorola Droid 2 bursts out of the starting gates running Android 2.2 Froyo, meaning all aspects of interface performance have been improved. Along with the integration of Android’s latest interface, the Droid 2 boasts an improved battery life, which we tested, and improved internal storage memory. While we weren’t crazy about the Droid 2′s camera, this phone offered enough upgrades to take our original Droid experience to the next level.

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Free Android app trumps $30 multimedia dock

By | 11.20.2009 | Android Phones | Comments Off

A new, free application you can download (for now) from the Android application store opens the functionality that you could previously only use on the Motorola Droid by purchasing the Multimedia Dock. The application only works on the the Android 2 OS of the Motorola Droid. Search the app store for DockRunner and install.

The Motorola Droid senses whether it’s being used free-form or mounted in either the multimedia dock or the car-mounted dock through the use of magnets. When mounted in the car dock, the phone automatically launches the Google Maps Navigation application while launching the multimedia interface / clock when the device is cradled in the Motorola accessory. Although you can fire up “Car Home” on the phone without the use of the dock for your vehicle, there hasn’t been an obvious way to launch the hidden multimedia interface without the corresponding accessory for your desktop.

Found at telephonvonline.com

Droid sales analysis all over the map

By | 11.12.2009 | Android Phones | Comments Off

Here’s an article at Yahoo Tech that underscores the dizzying range of analysts’ opinions of Motorola Droid sales from the launch weekend. I mentioned here that you could find any opinion to support your personal view of success for sales depending on where you look. Apparently I’m not alone in that thinking.

Read the Yahoo article

That said, a Citibank analyst told Bloomberg that while the Droid’s estimated numbers pale compared to the iPhone’s, “anybody that was expecting [iPhone-like sales figures] had their expectations too high,” and I’m inclined to agree.

After all, while the Droid isn’t the first Android phone on the market, it’s still essentially a first-generation device in the eyes of many consumers (a sizable portion of whom still aren’t sure what an “Android” phone is).

Also, don’t forget that the iPhone 3GS’s first-weekend total includes sales from eight different countries, while the Droid was only available here in the States.

5 Things to consider before dishing Droid battery life

By | 11.09.2009 | Android Phones | Comments Off

An article at PCWorld provides some tips on how to maximize battery life and perhaps alter your charging habits for the new Verizon Droid released last week. The article goes over a common sense approach to why battery life “is what it is” on the Droid, but I’d like to punctuate a few of the points. It’s important that you temper what you read on the internet from people complaining about the need to recharge every 5 minutes (not the PCWorld article, but others) with a few considerations that seem to be conspicuously absent in a number of opinions.

Things to consider:
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Verizon Droid tethering available Q1 2010?

By | 11.04.2009 | Android Phones | Comments Off

Gearlog.com is reporting that tethering for their upcoming Motorola Droid will be available sometime early next year. I’ve found a dozen posts around the innerwebs quoting the Gearlog scoop, but nothing substantiated from Verizon. Tethering has been the bane of 3G mobile carriers for as long as they’ve been providing the increased speed thanks to the enormous load it puts on their data networks. AT&T provided tethering to users of iPhones at one point, but quickly disabled the functionality as load went through the roof. Blackberry customers have enjoyed tethering for a number of years, but on a slower 2G network.

If you happen to know of an official position from Verizon on this, feel free to share it.

Droid “Phone Holder” car mount announced

By | 10.30.2009 | Android Phones | Comments Off

Motorola has added a cradle accessory for the Droid phone being released on November 6th. The simply-named “Phone Holder” is intended to be either dash or window mounted in your vehicle in order to provide the same vantage point as dedicated GPS devices available today.

I’ve read a number of opinions about how the new GPS navigation offering from Google is going to have only slight impact on the GPS manufacturing market. While there are some reasonable points to these arguments — hard to use the phone while it’s being used as a GPS, necessity of a data connection to pull down maps which makes the feature nearly useless in low coverage areas, search and rescue needs — I believe the impact will be a lot more serious than people think. The pounding that Garmin and TomTom took on the stock market in recent days lends weight to this possibility. If the navigation functionality offered by Google and the Droid is even moderately good, I can’t imagine how GPS makers can survive without getting into the mobile phone market.

Phone Holder Accessory

phone_holder

Multimedia Dock
Some initial reports when the Droid was revealed last week stated that the multimedia dock was included in the Droid package, while others are claiming this is a for-purchase accessory.

multimedia_dock
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