Technology Android

[masta247]

Motorola Droid Razr has a thickness of 7.1mm... wow, thin.

In its thinnest point. It gets really thick where the camera is located - definitely thicker than SGS2, Xperia Arc and LG Optimus Black. I'd say it's probably around 12mm judging by the pictures.
Super Amoled on a Motorola phone? Hmm, Samsung uses their Amoleds exclusively lately, they don't even give them to HTC anymore. Giving one to Motorola would be a strange move since it builds Samsung's critical advantage over their competition. Considering that they want to push their SGS2 sales and they would rather sell the whole package themselves that sounds either like a strange business move or fake specs.

 

[Flipmo]

http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/18/motorola-droid-razr-hands-on/

Hands-on vid of the Droid Razr

 

[Flipmo]

A few more photos and descriptions.

Hands on with the new Motorola RAZR

By Ian Hardy on October 18, 2011 at 2:06pm in Mobile News, Rogers Wireless News

Wow, just finished with some hands-on time with the new Motorola RAZR, also known as the Droid RAZR in the States. This will be released by Rogers “in time for the holidays” and it’s one sexy Android.
First, this is incredibly thin, only 7.1mm and takes home the crown as being the thinnest smartphone in the world. Overall dimensions are 130.7 x 68.9 x 7.1 mm. Apart from it’s thinness, it’s light too. This weighs in at 127 grams, which is a bit heavier than it’s Android competitor, the Samsung Galaxy S II at 116 grams. The device doesn’t seem too bulky and feel great in the hands. Motorola has added a bit of a quality feel to it as the backing is made of KEVLAR fiber. You can’t open up the back to get to the battery, which is 1800 mAh that claims to give you 12.5 hours of talk time and 8.9 hours of video playback. Another plus about the RAZR is its inside, coming with a dual-core 1.2GHz processor that had no lag time during my quick look at it. The screen is remarkable – it’s 4.3 inches and is made of scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass, but captures a massive amount of fingerprints. Typing, viewing pictures and videos was a good experience. I’m not sure what it’s like outside as I wasn’t actually allowed to take it out of the room, so when we get our demo unit we’ll do a test in direct sunlight. In addition, the RAZR has an 8 megapixel rear camera that captures 1080p video and a 1.3 megapixel camera (720p) for video calling.
The complete hands-on video is being uploaded now, but overall it’ll be a great addition to the Canadian market. Finally, this runs Android 2.3.5 but was informed that an update to Android OS 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich will be coming in Q1 2012 – not sure if that is on globally or just for Verizon.

 

[ARon]

The thinner and lighter = better thing just bugs me. Samsungs phones for instance feel cheap as fuck and I hate it. I want some nice metal type finish somewhere on my phone. Be it like the iPhone or most HTC devices. I think HTC has the best build quality when it comes to devices and I wish the sgs2 and some other phones were better. I know the plastic is incredibly strong and shit and it wont break but I dont want it to feel like it would even though it wont, lol. This new moto looks nice and its very thin but I don't know, i feel skeptical about it's actually build quality and how it will actually feel.

 

[Casey]

Only a few more hours, here's the link to the livestream - http://youtube.com/android

What's cool about the launch being for both the Nexus and Ice Cream Sandwich, is that even though we've seen a fair few Nexus leaks, like pics, specs etc.... we still don't know much about ICS and what new features it'll have. Let's see what cool new shit Google has brought to the table.

 

[Casey]

Yall tuned in? 11 mins to go.

The press in Hong Kong were greeted upon entering the event with the official press release for the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. Plenty more to come tonight, but all of the rumors and speculation regarding the Nexus itself can finally stop.
Here is your next Nexus device:

• Android 4.0 Ice Cream
• 4.65-inch HD Super AMOLED Screen with 720p resolution
• 1.2GHz dual-core processor
• Redesigned UI in Android 4.0
• Improved multi-tasking, notifications, Wi-Fi hotspot, NFC support, full web browsing
• Android 4.0 features Software Navigation buttons
• People App with Google+ Integration among other features
• Redesigned camera with panorama mode, 1080p video, zero-shutter lag, silly faces and background replacement features
• Face Unlock: Facial recognition to unlock your phone.
• Android Beam uses NFC to easily share content with other Android users
• PURE GOOGLE EXPERIENCE
• All the Google Apps you love from Android Market and GMail to Movie Studio and redesigned Google+ app
• 8.94mm thick, 4.29mm bezel
• LTE and HSPA+ connectivity
• Available in USA, Europe, and Asia beginning in November and then rolled out globally

So now that we finally have the full specs what are your first impressions of the newest member of the Nexus family?
<

 

[Flipmo]

I am ready and waiting.

 

[Flipmo]

Holy shit. Efficient as fuck, the sample videos were amazing. Sharing much easier (than it already is). Loving the Android Beam. lol.

I'm sold.

 

[Casey]

Livestream just wrapped up. I'm about to crash but here's some initial thoughts:

Ice Cream Sandwich is fucking awesome. The UI refresh was needed and now everything about the platform is aesthetically stunning. There's a lot more unity between all of the core apps now. The new folders system is awesome and I'd actually use it, unlike the current folder system. The updates to the camera and video recorder are super slick, the panorama mode is dope, and the videos they showed off that the guy had taken on the Galaxy Nexus were stunning and easily the best video I've ever seen taken on any mobile device.

Facial recognition unlock screen is cool lol. The new mobile data area in settings will be incredibly useful especially if you don't have unlimited data, which I'd guess most people don't. Just the other day, my cousin was asking me if there was a simply way of monitoring data usage as her daughter has a HTC Wildfire S with a 500MB monthly data limit. So that's awesome that they've done that. The new calendar looks way better. The screen looks stunning..

ANDROID BEAM. Now that's some sick shit. And of course, everything that was awesome about Honeycomb is now right here on the phone as well.

Obviously a lot more to say but overall this shit is mad dope. Can't wait for the update and I'm really strongly tempted to sell the SGS2 and get the Galaxy Nexus.... even though the hardware isn't that much different. We'll see lol.

 

[Casey]

Nexus site is live - http://google.com/nexus

Also...

 

[Flipmo]

LOL @ Apple fanboys already saying it isn't much and the camera sucks. They've been stuck with the same old dull looking OS since Christ broke-bread with the apostles. GTFO.

That being said, Casey pretty much summed up some of the best features. Lord knows what else they didn't show that oozes epicness.

 

[Casey]

Ice Cream Sandwich makes iOS5 look like some prehistoric neanderthal caveman shit.

If phones were cartoon shows, the iPhone 4S would be The Flintstones and the Galaxy Nexus would be The Jetsons.

 

[S O F I]

LOL.

Where can I watch the stream? I couldn't watch it on time.

 

[ARon]

The Roboto font looks pretty damn good. Ics being built for hd is cool as well. I wish the galaxy nexus had a better camera and a bigger battery. Best phone i've ever seen though. I think it looks amazing. Can't wait to check out the display on it.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

LOL.

Where can I watch the stream? I couldn't watch it on time.

me too. it seems that they have taken down last year's gingerbread announcement video; and the new one is not up. last night, i figured it'd be in the uploads section by today.

 

[dilla]

Gingerbread's UI looked like shit. I'm so glad that after 6+ months of seeing that ugly, shitty UI, Google has finally moved beyond that shitty, green look. Now the UI looks as elegant as iOS.

Still kinda curious why this is a "my dick is bigger than yours" contest with screen size. 4.65"? Why? Granted, 3.5" on the iPhone isn't respectable either, but at least it has resolution on its side.

Outside of that, I really like the phone. I've been seeing different sites and I still walk away feeling the same. I wish I could buy it off contract and uses it here on the island, but there is no price quoted for that. And I'm sure it'll be $700+.

 

[masta247]

I'm not sure why everyone is disappointed by 5mpx. It might be a great camera as far as we know, unless they used an old/low-end module. You really don't need more than 5mpx in your phone. Heck, you don't even need 5mpx. It's about the optics and I really, really hope that they used a decent module.
If it comes to UI I liked the white-green one on current Android versions because I like it bright and vivid. I don't mind ICS UI though from what I see mainly because of great design. Definitely looks more modern and hopefully it'll be more intuitive too. It'll also save you a lot of battery life on Amoled screens. LCD screens will lose because it'll look crappier. On IPS screens it'll be harder to tell shades of dark apart because its "blacks" give a blue-ish tint, and since the UI seems to be black and blue they will suffer the most from that change and I assume that manufacturers like LG will be first to release bright UIs for ICS.

I didn't like the looks of Google Nexus at first when first pictures leaked but now it looks much, much better. Actually neat and stylish. The screen is a bit too big for me though, and I don't think they'll sell that phone here, like it was the case with previous Nexus devices. Otherwise if the price isn't much higher than current SGS2 price tag and the camera turns out to be good I might reconsider.

What I THINK that they also did with ICS (judging by the video) that I would really, really love is the new task manager where you can close unused apps, a bit like on the tablet version. Please Google, I don't need a million processes open and I love closing stuff after I'm done with it.
Folder management looks exactly like on my Xperia Arc.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

i too, would love to stop various apps draining battery by running in the background and using up data. the new facebook app update seems to be a culprit. that, bbc iplayer, whapsapp and a few others. i don't even use facebook and it seems to be running.

 

[Pittsey]

I'm not sold on the galaxy nexus.

I might wait and see what Samsung replace the S2 with....

A google experience phone isn't a big deal when you have people writing custom roms for other devices with vanilla variations.

 

[masta247]

I'm not sure if Samsung will replace the SGS2 anytime soon though.

Main features of ICS:
http://www.gsmarena.com/android_ice_cream_sandwich_first_look-review-662.php

Samsung's Nexus was designed by Samsung from the very beginning to avoid any patent cases:
http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_nexus_designed_with_bypassing_patents_in_mind-news-3288.php
But it's also going to be pretty expensive:
http://www.gsmarena.com/galaxy_nexu...lity_surface_costs_north_of_800-news-3289.php