Motorola Droid Razr M

Not counting the iPhone, smaller handsets are a shrinking breed. That's why it's so refreshing to see a smartphone like the $99 Motorola Droid Razr M. Not to be confused with Motorola's upcoming Droid Razr HD and Droid Razr Maxx HD, which will boast big batteries and massive screens, this compact Android device packs a punch despite its small stature. The phone -- available now for preorder and officially shipping September 13 -- has fast dual-core processing, Verizon 4G LTE access, plus a generous helping of battery life. The Droid M is also handsomely crafted with an ultrathin chassis and lovely 4.3-inch AMOLED screen encased in an edge-to-edge bezel. If you've been seeking a very portable smartphone on Verizon with plenty of high-end power and features, that also won't break the bank, the Motorola Droid Razr M is a great option. For a midrange price, it offers many of the advanced capabilities you'll find only in premium smartphones.

Design
Based on its slim and seductively stylish construction, you would never guess the Motorola Droid Razr M costs a mere $99. The first thing that hit me when I picked up the device is its sizeable 4.3-inch screen. Thanks to a bezel that’s practically nonexistent, the display extends almost to the phone’s left and right edges. This helps fool the eye, giving the illusion that the screen is larger than it actually is. The display also sits flush with the phone’s front face, and there are no physical buttons here, either, which further heightens the sleekness of the handset’s facade. It’s all part of a design tactic Motorola refers to as the Droid Razr M’s "edge-to-edge" display and certainly gives the device a sophistication not many handsets can match.
In fact the only tangible buttons, a power key and volume rocker, sit on the Razr M’s left side. Other design elements include Motorola’s signature Kevlar fiber coating that has graced its Droid Razr handsets for years. It helps resist the phone’s back from scratches and scrapes. Also on back is the phone’s 8-megapixel camera with LED flash; the camera and flash are encased under a glossy plastic panel, which, unfortunately, is a fingerprint magnet.

A Kevlar fiber coating resists scratches and scuffs.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

Measuring 4.8 inches tall by 2.3 inches and just 0.33 inch thick, this is one seriously minute mobile computing device. At a featherweight 4.4 ounces, you’ll also barely notice the Razr M in your pocket. That’s slightly smaller than Motorola’s original Droid Razr (5.14 by 2.71 by 0.28 inches, 4.5 ounces) and more manageable than the beefy Droid Razr Maxx (5.14 by 2.75 by 0.35 inches, 5.1 ounces).
Display
The Droid Razr M’s 4.3-inch qHD (960x540-pixel) AMOLED screen packs plenty of visual impact. Despite its low resolution -- compared with the HD displays you’ll see on competing devices such as the Samsung Galaxy S III (4.8-inch, 1,280x720 pixels) and Motorola’s own upcoming Droid Razr HD (4.7-inch, 1,280x720 pixels), the Droid Razr M’s screen serves up eye-popping colors and deep blacks in high-contrast. For example, watching the HQ YouTube movie trailer for "Resident Evil Retribution" was more fun than I’d like to admit. Detail in 720p video files was also sharp, and like many AMOLED screens, viewing angles were nice and wide, allowing me to see the display well from off-center angles.

The screen offers high contrast, wide viewing angles, and colors that pop.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

Software and UI
Running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, the Motorola Droid Razr M comes infused with a modern version of Google’s mobile operating system. While it may not be Android’s freshest flavor, 4.1 Jelly Bean, the phone’s software is current and very capable. The company said the handset will receive a Jelly Bean update by the end of the year. Motorola also has placed its own interface on top of Android, which offers its own enhancements. Like many Ice Cream Sandwich phones, the Droid Razr M’s lock screen displays the time and date in a clean font on the upper left. A sliding button to toggle phone volume sits opposite to the right.

The lock screen lets you jump directly to many phone functions.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

In the center of the screen is a pulsating key icon that simply unlocks the handset when dragged to the right, launches the camera if pulled left, fires up the messaging app when flicked downward, and jumps to the phone function when pushed upward. You get two home screens to start but can add up to seven to fill with widgets and application shortcuts. The primary home screen occupies the left-most pane and scroll from left to right. An interesting and handy twist is the Quick Settings screen that appears when you swipe left from the main home screen. It offers access to often-used functions such as ringtone, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, and Airplane mode.

The Quick Settings screen give fast access to often-used functions.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

If you’ve seen the Motorola Atrix HD or Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE, you’ll recognize the Circles widget placed front and center. I think it’s one of the slickest home screen UI gadgets since HTC’s legendary Sense weather clock. It features three interactive discs displaying analog and digital clocks, weather, and battery level.
Instead of physical buttons, there are three virtual Android keys running along the bottom edge of the screen. They’re spelled out in icons representing back, home, and recent applications. Above this are four shortcuts to launch the same functions found on the Droid Razr M’s lock screen, though you can swap them for others if you’d like.
Features and apps
One of the nice abilities of Android 4.0 is its native support for folders. Just drag app shortcuts on top of one another to create custom folders and help beat back home screen clutter. I suggest doing this, too, since as an Android device, the Razr M has access to more than 600,000 apps and counting in the Google Play store.

Create folders to save space on the home screen.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

Onboard the Droid Razr M is the wide range of Google services and software including Gmail, YouTube, Maps, Navigation, and Google+, along with the Google Play store for music, books, and movies. Useful third-party applications preloaded include the Kindle app, Quickoffice for viewing common MS Office files, and Facebook.
Sadly there’s a decent amount of bloatware on the phone, including Verizon’s curated app store, NFL Mobile, VZ Navigator, and the Viewdini entertainment search app. There’s Amazon’s own Appstore, too, plus a smattering of questionable software including Color video for sharing and Zappos to shop for shoes.

Motorola adds its Smartactions application, too, a solution designed to automate phone functions to improve usability and performance. With it you can have the phone shut down its data connection at night to conserve battery life or, say, automatically connect to Wi-Fi when its GPS sensor realizes you’ve arrived home. It’s a nice idea but honestly I’d rather control my smartphone settings myself, thank you very much.
Camera
Like my experience with the Atrix HD, the Motorola Droid Razr M’s 8-megapixel camera at first seems like a winner. It has plenty of scene settings, special filters, and shooting modes such as Panorama, Multishot, HDR, and Timer. You can even adjust the exposure manually. The phone takes more than a second, sometimes two, to cycle through shots, which makes nabbing fast-paced action tough.

The camera app features lots of scene options and shooting modes.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

Image quality was also an issue, with still-life images being dark with muted colors. Indoors under low light proved challenging for the Droid Razr M as well, and I noticed color noise and grainy details in my test shots inside. Outside camera performance picked up a bit, and colors were more vibrant in strong sunlight. That said, details could have been more clear and features more crisp.

Still-life shots were dark and colors bland.

(Credit: Brian Bennett/CNET)

Shooting fast-moving subjects under low light was tricky.

(Credit: Brian Bennett/CNET)

Colors outside improved, especially in bright sunlight.

(Credit: Brian Bennett/CNET)

The HDR mode added more detail to shadows but created halo effects.

(Credit: Brian Bennett/CNET)

Street scenes in bright sun were acceptable.

(Credit: Brian Bennett/CNET)

Performance
Motorola chose wisely to equip the Droid Razr M with its robust 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor. Joined by 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage, the phone turned in a high Linpack score of 182.2 MFLOPs (multi-thread). That’s almost as fast as superphones such as the HTC One X, HTC Evo 4G LTE, and Samsung Galaxy S III.
Connecting to Verizon’s swift 4G LTE network, the Razr M also notched impressively quick data speeds. I clocked download throughput at an average of 18Mbps, with uploads often exceeding a blistering 16Mbps. As I expected, call quality was rock solid on Verizon’s CDMA network. Callers described my voice as clear and easy to hear with no distortion. They did detect a slight background hiss, so they knew I spoke to them from a mobile line. On my end callers came through loud and clear through the earpiece, and the speakerphone has enough volume to fill a medium-size conference room.

The 4G LTE data speeds were very fast.

(Credit: Brian Bennett/CNET)

When Motorola announced the Droid Razr M, Droid Razr HD, and Droid Razr Maxx HD at its New York press event, company reps were sure to emphasize that these new phones are built to provide ample battery life. Still, for such a small device, I was surprised by the Droid Razr M’s stamina. It lasted 8 hours and 41 minutes during anecdotal tests, which consisted of playing a 720p video file continuously. While it’s no match for the runtime of the Droid Razr Maxx (15 hours and 16 minutes), the Droid Razr M should make it through a standard workday without any issues. That’s a good thing, since the 2,000mAh battery isn’t removable. Of course Motorola says the Droid Razr M will offer 20 hours of "mixed-usage," whatever that means.
Conclusion
I haven't been this excited about a compact Android smartphone for quite some time. The $99 Motorola Droid Razr M is not only fast, thanks to its premium processor, but it has generous battery life to match. Throw in this phone's gorgeous 4.3-inch AMOLED display, sleek styling, and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich OS, and you're looking at one of the best deals to hit Verizon in ages. If you plan to take lots of photos on the go, though, this device isn't for you. Sadly, even while the Droid Razr M's camera boasts lots of features and settings, it's a slow shooter with lackluster image quality. For shoppers looking for a phone that takes excellent pictures, then I suggest springing for the more expensive $199.99 Samsung Galaxy S III. Motorola's upcoming Droid Razr HD and Droid Razr Maxx HD due out by the end of the year will offer bigger, sharper screens and larger batteries but likely higher sticker prices. Still, the Droid Razr M's unique blend of high-class looks, premium features and performance, and low cost of entry are hard to pass up.

Source : reviews.cnet.com

LG Motion 4G review (MetroPCS)

As the saying goes, it's not the size of the dog in the fight that matters, but the size of the fight in the dog. Fortunately for MetroPCS, one of its latest handsets, the LG Motion 4G, has a lot of bite.
Not only is this petite device 4G LTE-enabled, but it has a swift 1.2GHz dual-core processor and runs on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. In addition, its 5-megapixel camera has 1080p HD recording capabilities.
The most noteworthy feature about the handset, however, is its plan. MetroPCS released the phone in conjunction with its promotional $55-a-month unlimited talk, texting, and data plan. And, since the phone itself costs a reasonable $99 after a mail-in rebate, this phone is ideal for a penny-pinching, commitment-free user.
Design
The LG Motion 4G is compact and small, measuring 4.37 inches tall, 2.39 inches wide, and 0.45 inch thick. It weighs 4.8 ounces and it fits in my petite hands comfortably. I could easily toss it in a small clutch or bag, and it fits well in the front or back pockets of my jeans. Though it doesn't have the most luxurious feel, with its all-plastic exterior, it does feel sturdy and dense.

The LG Motion 4G is compact and sturdy.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

To the left are a Micro-USB port and a volume rocker. Up top are a 3.5mm headphone jack and a sleep/power button. At the rear is a 5-megapixel camera with accompanying flash. Below that is a small slit for the output speaker. There's a small indent in the bottom edge that you can use to pry off the back plate, revealing a 1,700mAh battery and microSD card.
The device has a 3.5-inch Corning Gorilla Glass touch screen. Photos and video graphics were vivid and rich (especially when the brightness was cranked to its highest level), but the low, 480x320-pixel resolution is disappointing. Although menu icons were crisp, more complex images looked grainy and color gradients were streaky.
The display was responsive when I selected icons, swiped through menus, and played games. However, images were difficult to view in direct sunlight. Above the display is a VGA camera for vanity shots and Web chatting, and below are three hot-key navigation buttons that light up when in use: back, home, and menu.
Features
The handset runs on a zippy 1.2GHz dual-core processor. Opening large apps (like games) is a snap, the camera's shutter is impressively speedy, and there was no lag time when transitioning back to the home screen.
The phone ships with the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system, and comes with all the Google goodies you expect: Gmail, Search, Plus, Latitude, Play, Books, Music, Movies, and Store, Messenger, Maps with Navigation, Talk, and YouTube. Other preloaded content from Google includes Chrome (in addition to a native browser), Car Home, which lets users access phone features while driving, and Local, which scans the nearby area for popular restaurants and attractions.

MetroPCS' LG Motion 4G comes preloaded with tons of apps, including the Chrome Web browser.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

Also included is a handful of MetroPCS apps, such as its hot-spot capabilities app; M Studio, which stores media files like ringtones; MetroPCS Easy Wi-Fi, a Wi-Fi hot-spot app; Metro411, which searches for and locates nearby businesses and restaurants; MyExtras, an entertainment and media app; and MyMetro, which lets you check your account balance and plan.
In addition, the Motion 4G's equipped with several basics like a clock with alarm features, a calculator, Bluetooth, a calendar, text messaging (with Swype), a voice recorder, and a news and weather app. Uncommon apps include IM and Social, which consolidates all your social-networking portals; an emergency app that gathers emergency and Amber Alerts, Yahoo Sportacular for sport news; a mobile media suite called Pocket Express; and the mobile office suite, Polaris Office.
The device also comes preloaded with Rhapsody's music subscription service. For an extra $10 a month, on top of a $50-a-month unlimited talk, text, data, and e-mail plan, you can search through and download thousands of albums and artists on major U.S. record labels. Despite the fact that you can't play songs offline unless you add them to a playlist, the service is intuitive and easy to use.
The device is equipped with LG's user interface, the Optimus UI 3.0, which isn't as stylishly simplistic as the vanilla Ice Cream Sandwich skin. The default icons are boxy (but are thankfully customizable), the widgets look clunky (especially the unattractive weather widget), and even though I like the Roboto font, the keypad and app drawer still look a little outdated. There are a few welcome changes, however, like the fact that you can access up to four apps of your choosing from the lock screen by simply swiping over their icons.

Moving in on the LG Motion 4G (pictures)

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Camera and video
The 5-megapixel camera offers a variety of options: touch focus, a flash, a 15x digital zoom, face tracking, geotagging, a timer, and continuous, HDR, and panoramic shooting. It also has an exposure meter (-2 to +2); five image sizes (ranging from 2,560x1,920 pixels to 1,296x864 pixels); seven scene modes; four ISO options; five white balances; and four color effects. Two novel features are the "Time catch" shot mode that lets users choose and save the best shot before the shutter was pressed, and a voice command feature called Cheese Shot.
The front-facing camera offers the same exposure meter, white-balance options, color effects, timer, and geotagging feature, but only two scene modes, the Cheese Shot command, and one size (640x480p). There's also a "beauty shot" meter that lets you adjust the brightness and blurriness of an image. This comes in handy when you're taking self-portraits and want to soften the photo.
Recording options consist of the same digital zoom, flash, exposure meter, geotagging, color effects, and white balances. In addition, there's audio muting and you can choose from seven video sizes (ranging from full HD 1080p to QCIF). One new interesting feature is the "silly faces" mode, which will distort your face while the video records. It can squeeze your face together, shrink your mouth, or make your eyes huge and Lady Gaga-like. Needless to say, I got a kick out of it. The other is a background module, so you can change your background to outer space, a sunset, a disco, or your own custom image.

Though front-facing video recording has fewer options, it still retains a good number of features. There are still the exposure meter, silly faces and background options, white balances, color effects, and audio muting feature. But there are only three video sizes (ranging from 480p to MMS).
For pictures taken outdoors in ample lighting, photo quality
 was perfectly adequate. Colors were bright and vivid, though small details like water ripples and blades of grass blurred together. With dim or indoor lighting, images were incredibly grainy and had lots of digital noise. Dark hues were hard to distinguish and lighter colors washed out easily. As for the front-facing camera, there was understandably some digital noise. The smaller number of megapixels did lead to more blurriness and poorer focus, but you could still make out faces easily.

In this sunny outdoor shot, colors are richly saturated.

(Credit: Lynn La/CNET)

In this indoor shot, you can see a lot of digital noise.

(Credit: Lynn La/CNET)

Here there's a yellow cast to the white background of our standard studio shot.

(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

Video recording was excellent. Recording ran smoothly for the most part, and there was no lag between the camera and my moving of the handset. Focusing was fast, objects looked clear and crisp, colors were true to life, and audio picked up well.
Performance
I tested the tri-band (850, 1900, 2100) LG Motion 4G in San Francisco. There were no problems with signal quality -- I didn't get any dropped calls, extraneous buzzing, or audio clipping in and out. Sound quality, however, was disappointing. Voices were audible, but muffled, as if my friends were speaking underneath a thin sheet. Though turning up the volume helped a bit, the maximum volume wasn't very loud. Likewise, my friends told me that I sounded muffled, too.
The output speakerphone quality was also disappointing. Calls, as well as music, were muffled and low, though I didn't hear any harsh tinniness. Turning the volume down helped somewhat; you could still hear what's being said, but it sounded stifled regardless.
LG Motion 4G call quality sample
Listen now:

MetroPCS' 4G LTE network isn't the most robust, but data speeds were impressive. Loading the CNET mobile site, for example, took an average of 8 seconds, while loading our full site took 19 seconds. The New York Times' full site took slightly shorter on average, clocking in at 14 seconds, and its mobile site took 5 seconds to load. ESPN's mobile site took 8 seconds on average, and its full site loaded in 16 seconds. The 22MB game Temple Run downloaded and installed in an average of 4 minutes, and Ookla showed me an average of 1.10Mbps down and 1.62Mbps up.
Although we haven't finished our battery drain test yet, its reported talk time is 5.4 hours. And according to FCC radiation tests, the phone has a digital SAR rating of 1.03W/kg.
Conclusion
Though it comes with a lot of bloatware and doesn't take the highest-quality pictures, the LG Motion 4G is still a solid handset to consider. With its 4G LTE connection, zippy dual-core processor, and affordable price, the phone packs a lot of punch into a tiny frame. In addition, it's perfect for anyone who wants one of the latest Android OS phones without a contract.

Source : reviews.cnet.com

Kindle Fire won't go big to take on iPad

Amazon next week will announce two 7-inch Kindle Fire models, one with new hardware and the other an updated version of the original, CNET has learned. That's counter to rumors it would launch a larger version.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced the Kindle Fire, the company's first tablet computer, at an event in New York last year.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

Amazon plans to double down on the 7-inch tablet market with two new Kindle Fire models, CNET has learned.
Despite speculation that Amazon was preparing a larger 8.9 or 10-inch version, the company will only unveil a new 7-inch Kindle Fire and a slightly revamped version of the original tablet in an event scheduled for next week, according to a person who has seen the products.
The new Kindle Fire tablets are crucial in keeping Amazon competitive in the tablet business, which already faces tougher competition from Google's own Nexus 7 and the prospects of a lower-priced, smaller iPad Mini from Apple. They play into Amazon's broader strategy of playing a more significant role in the mobile consumer world.

Amazon vaulted into the tablet market a year ago with the Kindle Fire, with $199 price tag that many felt was the most innovative aspect of the product. The attractive price tag, access to Amazon Prime content, and a featured spot on the online retailer's home page generated a lot of buzz for the product, with many believing it would end up being the No. 2 tablet player behind Apple.
Unlike other equipment makers, which generate their profit off of the hardware itself, Amazon views the Kindle Fire as another storefront -- one that consumers can take with them wherever they go. As a result, it was able to offer the tablet at such a low price. The company can make up the difference on books, DVDs, and other products that consumers end up ordering through the tablet. But with the emergence of several other low-cost tablets, including the $199 Nexus 7, its price advantage has been negated.
Rather than expand its potential market and launch a larger Kindle Fire to compete against the iPad, Amazon will stick with the two 7-inch tablets. The company said earlier this week that the original Kindle Fire was "sold out," a convenient announcement given the upcoming event next week.
But Amazon appears to be making room for a slightly upgraded version of the original Kindle Fire, which includes a new user interface. While the person didn't have any pricing information, the company will almost certainly charge a lower price for the device than the original.
The more exciting product is the new higher-end 7-inch Kindle Fire model, which will feature more hardware improvements, including a faster processor, a camera, physical volume controls, and an HDMI port. It will also have larger storage capacity, but it will still not be expandable. There is no pricing information on the device.
The Verge posted a picture of the new Kindle Fire yesterday.
It's unclear whether the two versions will have different names. CNET contacted Amazon for comment, and we'll update the story when the company responds.
Amazon could also have a larger Kindle Fire in the works, but any such product won't be announced at the event next week.
While many had expected Amazon to lead the non-Apple tablet pack with its lower priced tablet, Samsung Electronics, with its lineup of Galaxy Tab devices, is actually the second-largest player in the world, thanks in part to its global distribution. The Kindle Fire isn't in nearly as many markets. Samsung had 9.2 percent of the global tablet market in the second quarter, while Amazon had 4.2 percent of the share, according to IHS iSuppli.
Still, Amazon has taken steps to expand its presence overseas, including launching its app store in several new European markets. Rather than rely on Google Play, Amazon directs Kindle Fire users to its own Amazon Appstore.
The expanded availability and a lineup of two Kindle Fire tablets at varying -- but still low -- prices could make Amazon a major player this holiday season.
 
Source : news.cnet.com