Motorola outs Jelly Bean friendly phones
Razr gang
While Nokia was showing off its new Windows Phone 8-based Lumias, the Google-owned Motorola Mobility was unwrapping three Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich smartphones from its Razr line.
The Razr M, which is destined for a worldwide release, follows the trend toward bigger screens. It has a 4.3in panel, though the handset is narrower than rival offerings, Motorola claimed, because the display goes (almost) edge to edge. It's a qHD panel - so 960 x 540 pixels.
Razrs M (left) and HD
The Razr HD has a 4.7in, 1280 x 720 screen, as does the Razr MAXX HD, which is a Razr HD with a bigger battery - enough for 32 hours' operation, the vendor claimed. That said, the HD gives you a full day's operation, so it's no slouch in this department. Both have an 8Mp rear camera and a 1.3Mp front-facer. The M has an 8Mp camera too, but only a 0.3Mp job for video calls.
All three are backed with a kevlar battery hatch cover and fronted by Corning Gorilla Glass.
As we say, they will all run ICS initially, but Motorola has promised Jelly Bean upgrades "soon".
The LTE-enabled Maxx HD will be US-only releases initially, but the M will be available globally in HSPA form. Ditto the HD, which will also be available with LTE. Special developer-centric versions of the M and HD will also be made available with unlockable bootloaders and, if so opened, no warranty. The developer M will cost $550 (£346) and ships next week. ®
COMMENTS
Re: Soon...
Also the upgrade from Gingerbread to Ice Cream Sandwich is much bigger than the upgrade from ICS to Jelly Bean...
I probably wont buy anything Motorola again after the lagginess of Android updates on my UK 3G Xoom
Re: Soon...
"Since the original (well reborn) Razr only just got the ICS update OTA in the UK last week, I recommend you don't hold your breath on that one..."
I would agree with you 100% on past record BUT they are (in the US, at least) including a promise of $100 cash back if they fail to deliver Jelly Bean by a certain date. I'm not a Motorola fan but that sounds like a bloody good way of acknowledging past errors and buying back confidence.
Re: Baffling
More likely Verizon holding Jelly Bean up - features that are normally freely available within the OS must be Verizoned*. Took them forever (year +/-) to go from Gingerbread to Ice Cream Sandwich on the first gen Droid Razr.
*altered to generate cash flow for Verizon. Go look, they charge for every little thing and you're stuck because they do happen to have the best network coverage in the US.
