Motorola Blogged

The Motorola Atrix 4G was announced at the AT&T Summit and the device looked very promising and impressive. It will run on Android 2.2 with a dual core Tegra 2 processor with a whopping 1 GB RAM. It will have a 16GB memory expandable up to 32 GB. It features a decent 5 megapixel camera with LED Flash and auto focus, 4 inch touch screen with Gorilla glass display, MOTOBLUR UI with live widgets, office based softwares, GPRS/EDGE, HSDPA and Wi-Fi connectivity, Bluetooth, micro USB port, HDMI port, IM services, social networks integration (Facebook, Twitter and MySpace), Google maps, digital compass, Adobe Flash player 10.1, music player and FM Radio. Its first look suggests that it is a sleek Smartphone weighing only 135 g and will be available in black color.

The release date of the Motorola Atrix 4G has been announced to be somewhere in March or April; however some have speculated the release date to be March 1st. The model is set for a UK release with Orange but the price has not yet been confirmed. Motorola is preparing to provide an accessory Laptop dock with ‘WebTop’ for the Atrix 4G which would transform the appearance and functionality of the phone into a Netbook. It supplies a video docking solution where in, it can pair up with the dock hooked to the Television or desktop monitor and is capable of producing 1080p video.

Motorola, in the recent past, had not produced models that could be termed as an improved fantastic handset. But with this upcoming model Atrix 4G, they seem to have re-entered the market with an enhanced vision and can be considered to be a potential game changer in the mobile computing world, maybe even giving the iPhone 4 a run for its money. We never know!

The Motorola Milestone (aka Droid in the US) was a huge success for Android and Motorola. It is still one of the bestselling Android smartphones on the market, even though there are better and faster alternatives. But of course, time doesn’t stay still, and the successor to the Milestone is already here. The Milestone 2 is a direct evolution of its predecessor, and it features only minor changes in the hardware and the exterior.

The front part that contains the screen now has the “lip” integrated into it, instead of the back piece, as in the first Milestone. But the best exterior change is the keyboard, which has been refined and made better for typing. It is not flat anymore, but features bumps that make it easier to type, and with the dreaded gold navigation key gone, it’s one of the best keyboards on the market.

Internally, the Motorola Milestone 2 has been upgraded with a 1GHz TI OMAP SOC (which has a pretty good video chip that should be better than the one in Qualcomm’s Snapdragon solution), 512 MB of RAM (which is really needed, 256 just wasn’t enough anymore), 720p video capabilities on the 5 megapixels camera, Wifi N support and 8 GB of internal memory + a micro SD card slot that supports cards of up to 32 GB capacity (64 and maybe more in the future), so you can have a lot more storage space for your data.

All of this is great and makes the phone a worthy competitor, but despite running Android 2.2, Motorola has decided to lose some customers with their custom Motoblur skin for the OS, which a lot of people hate and is impossible to uninstall.
If you like or don’t care about that, the Milestone 2 is definitely a great phone, but if you want to have a more pure Android and smartphone experience, you’d be better off with a HTC Desire Z, which has the same specs, same great keyboard and comes with a default Android 2.2 installation that can be easily customized to your liking.

It seems that the Motorola Flipout is indeed Euro-bound, but the Android smart phone will initially be available in Germany. According to the latest reports, the new square Android handset from Motorola will be getting a July launch and it will be priced at about 350 Euros –pretty decent for a handset of this caliber.

The Flipout is most well known and recognizable for the unique form factor; it is almost perfectly square –if you do not count in the rounded, tapered edges. The screen is a 2.8 inch TFT capacitive touch screen with a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels that sits in the center of the device. Also has an accelerometer that allows the screen to auto rotate when viewed in different orientations.

Hidden below the front screen is a physical QWERTY keyboard which literally flips downward (though it is a sliding-spinning motion as opposed to a clam shell style flip). The four row QWERTY keypad gives users convenience and ease when typing long messages and emails. Sadly, the buttons of the keyboard are packed in rather tightly, and some users might take a while getting used to typing on this phone. Thanks to the slightly raised buttons and the slight space adjustment between the “t” and “y” columns, typing with two thumbs seems a lot more efficient.

As expected, the device will be using Motorola’s very own Motoblur user interface which gives users access to live widgets. This feature allows you to customize the various contents that will be displayed onscreen. With only 150MB of internal memory, users will want to make use of a microSD card (the device can support up to 32GB cards). The 3.2 mega pixel camera takes great quality images and it also takes custom 352 x 288 videos at 30 FPS.

So far, Motorola has yet to confirm when the device will actually hit UK shelves, but many are predicting it to be within the same month as the German release.

When it comes to smart phones, users have a very wide range of choices; after all, usage preferences and patterns change from one person to another. And while one might think that slapping in all features into a single device is a great idea, doing so will sacrifice a couple of important factors –size and weight.

This is why there is variety when it comes to smart phones, and even a single phone can come in a variety of flavors. This is the case with the Motorola Milestone. Many of you may remember this handset as one of the most elusive Android devices to ever be released. It was; the phone as first announced as the DROID in the US where it would be released exclusively under mobile carrier Verizon. It was not until a later announcement that the device would indeed be available in the UK and under a different name did Android fans finally get to rejoice.

One of the reasons why the Milestone was such an anticipated handset was that it bought together several important elements: the (then) new Android 2.0 Éclair, a slide out QWERTY keyboard and a big touch screen display. The 600MHz CPU is hardly anywhere near the Snapdragon chips used in today’s smart phones, but it did keep the price of the handset lower.

Now, Motorola is trying a new approach to the Milestone, dropping the keyboard and slimming down the handset. The new XT 720 Milestone smart phone is now a media based handset with an 8 mega pixel camera, 720p video recording and even an HDMI output port for video playback.

The new device moves away from the usual tech crowd to the more media centric Android fans. As fun as a full QWERTY keyboard can be, not all smart phone users are heavy typists; this makes the shift from typing to media playback a pretty good choice.

It seems that the initial report about the Motorola Shadow that was left in a US network Verizon operated corporate gym was not as accurate as we had expected. According to new sources, the Shadow will be using the old Texas Instruments OMAP 3630 CPU which is clocked at a speed of 720MHz.

Not exactly the high end CPU that we were hoping for; since the 1GHz Snapdragon is now a common feature for the average Android smart phone but that does not make the Shadow any less impressive. The device still comes packed with a 4.1 inch capacitive touch screen, 8GB of internal memory and an 8 mega pixel camera. All in all, it is still a pretty decent smart phone. The only thing that does not add up is why the specs are generally low for what was supposed to be a high-profile Android device.

It was originally rumored that the Motorola Shadow is the project that the phone manufacturer has undertaken as part of their efforts to make the next Google branded Android smart phone. Since the Nexus One already had impressive hardware specs to boot, it was an easy assumption to make that the next phone in the series would have better hardware –or at the very least, specs to match.

For many Milestone fans, this latest bit of news is certainly a disappointment –especially since the Shadow looks so much like the original DROID in terms of form factor. In fact, one can even say that the Shadow is the more stylish device of the two.

So far, Motorola has not yet announced what the final specs on this handset really are nor have they stated which version of the Android operating system it will originally have. Many are expecting the handset to come out with the newer 2.2 Froyo OS since it is expected that the phone is not going to be launched until a much later time.

Having a plethora of game apps at your disposal does really seem to attract the masses. That is probably why so many mobile phones are trying to tap the gaming market these days. When compared to game centric handheld devices, the only thing that is missing from mobile phones is really good controls. Sure those keys may look classy and tiny. Sure, the mobile phone does fit in your teensy weensy pocket, but can you play games in it?

Now Motorola Droid owners can, with the advent of the Game Gripper. The Game Gripper is a peripheral for the Droid that allows users to get that old-school game pad feel when they are playing games. Being the open source platform of course, emulators are a must to relive those childhood memories and maximize your mobile phone gaming.

The Game Gripper only comes in one color, floppy gray with red, semi see-through buttons. It features the classic D-pad as well as eight control buttons. While it is not exactly for professional gaming it does seem to do the job nicely by pressing on the keys below the toy-like buttons. According to the official site, they try to keep the cost down with their choice of materials (hence the air bubbles and lines):

“Buttons have small lines on them and air bubbles in them (this kept the cost way down and I think makes them look better). The Game Gripper is loose fitting so it slides on and off easily.”

The Game Gripper team is working on several new designs for other phones. The site also has a request page wherein people can give ideas on which phones to focus on. Looks like Droid gets a one up on this one, it is quite a simple solution to a problem that GameBone and Patent 0081505 have been trying to fix.

See the video at Engadget.