Tag Archives | Motorola

Motopalm? Or Palmorola?

Posted by Harry McCracken on January 11, 2010 at 3:30 pm

Om Malik thinks that Motorola should buy Palm. My heart is with Palm staying independent and thriving, but (A) it’s hard to be a relatively small smartphone company; (B) Motorola could really, really use an operating system as impressive as WebOS that it controls; and (C) I suspect that Palm’s investors intend to seek a return on the money they put into the company by selling it sooner or later.

If Palm must be sold, Motorola is the most logical buyer I can think of–and some neat phones could emerge from the deal.

5 comments

Is it Too Early to Start Designing the Verizon Droid II?

Posted by Harry McCracken on November 6, 2009 at 2:05 am

Droid IIVerizon Wireless starts selling its first Android phone, the Droid (“by Motorola”) today. I’ve been using a unit loaned to me by Verizon for a week, and remain mostly impressed: The Droid couples impressive hardware with the much-improved Android 2.0 OS, and the result is the first Android phone that’s fully worthy of being compared to the iPhone 3GS and Palm’s Pre. (It’s most definitely an example of the class of device that Walt Mossberg calls “super-smart phones.”)

I don’t expect every Verizon customer who’s currently lusting after the iPhone to buy a Droid instead, but I think a meaningful percentage will–and that overall, they’ll be pleased.

But the Droid is hardly above criticism. As I’ve been using one and mostly enjoying the experience, my mind has been racing ahead to…next year’s model. (I’m assuming there will be one: Already, Verizon is releasing another phone in the Droid lineup, the Droid Eris.)

So here’s my quick wishlist for the phone I’m calling the Droid II–the next major collaboration between Verizon, Motorola,and Google.

A better keyboard. I want to like the Droid’s wide QWERTY keyboard, but so far I can’t muster much enthusiasm for its feel–the overall thinness of the phone has resulted in keys without enough travel for truly satisfying typing. (I do like the fact that it frees up all of the handsome screen’s 854-by-480 pixels for content, not virtual keys.)

It’s gotta be possible to squeeze a better keyboard into the space the Droid has–for one thing, the little five-way controller to the right of the keys seems superfluous on a touchscreen device. Dump it, and you could widen the keys and make them more comfy. I’d also be tickled if the Droid II took a cue from the AT&T Tilt I used to carry and angled the screen up when you slid out the keyboard.

Continue Reading →

7 comments

Verizon Droid: First Impressions

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 29, 2009 at 8:07 am
DroidVerizon Wireless’s Droid won’t show up in stores until a week from Friday, but the company has shared loaner devices with technology journalists and bloggers, including me–PC World has a good roundup of the first reviews. After having spent a bit time with it, I’m not surprised that Verizon is trying to encourage hands-on coverage of the device in the days leading up to its release. A few random thoughts:
Yes, it’s impressive. I keep saying that we’ve been waiting for the first great Android phone, and here it is–Android 2.0 is a much nicer OS than its predecessors, and the Droid shows it off to excellent advantage. No, it’s not an iPhone killer, but I think a meaningful percentage of Verizon loyalists who have been sitting around waiting for a V-iPhone will get this instead, and be pleased. And there are certain things about the Droid–the screen, the openness, Google Maps with navigation for free–that’ll provoke a feeling iPhone users aren’t used to: envy.
High-resolution screens are going to change smartphones. The Droid’s 854-by-480 screen is a delight–it allows for a dozen thumbnail previews of Web pages that are crisp enough to be recognizable, and Google Maps satellite imagery dazzles. If I were the maker of any other touchscreen smartphone, I’d be scrambling to match it right now.
The Droid flies, mostly. The phone’s relatively robust tech specs compared to previous Android phones pay off: The interface generally matches the fluidity of the iPhone (with a few exceptions–when you pull down the list of status updates, it’s herky-jerky) and the browser, like that of the iPhone 3GS, is a joy to use. I need to use the phone in more places before I form conclusions about data speed, but I have noticed that sites designed for use on mobile devices seem to pop into place–no waiting required.
The keyboard is a plus, but not for the reason you might think. I’ve come to the conclusion that vertically-oriented phone keyboards like the ones on BlackBerries and the Palm Pre are more usable than horizontal ones like the Droid’s, because they let you thumb-type without having to stretch your hands too much. And while the Droid keyboard is decent, the phone’s thin case doesn’t leave much room for travel. But here’s why I’m glad the Droid has a keyboard: It leaves all of the phone’s pixels available for stuff that would otherwise be eaten up by the on-screen keyboard. That’s a boon for apps which require a keyboard all or most of the time, such as instant messengers and word processors.
The iPhone still rules for entertainment. This is an area where Android 2.0 doesn’t seem to have changed much–it’s still got a music player and a video player and an integrated version of Amazon’s MP3 store, but the apps are pretty basic and there’s no way to buy or rent movies or TV shows.  Eventually, Android’s openness could make it a more appealing media platform than the iPhone, since purveyors of content will be able to develop cool apps without worrying about whether Apple will approve them, and audio-related ones can run in the background. But for the moment, Android 2.0 feels like Google has ceded the media race to Apple. And Verizon and Motorola didn’t do anything to compensate.
The iPhone OS is still more elegant and intuitive. You can pick up an iPhone and figure out nearly every feature (keyboard excepted) with virtually no learning curve, and once you know what to do, you can do it with remarkable swiftness. Android, on the other hand, is solid overall, but it feels a little more like a desktop OS that’s been shrunken to phone size. There are things that are hard to remember–every time I pick up an Android phone, I need to retrain myself on some tasks, such as how to install widgets. on the desktop
The Droid isn’t Verizonized. When word began to leak out about the Droid, lots of skeptics said that Verizon Wireless would hobble Android. On the review unit loaned to me by the company, however, there’s little evidence of Verizon’s involvement except for its logo on the case. It feels like an Android phone, not a Verizon one, and seems as open as any other Android device.
Google Maps with Navigation rocks. I said that iPhone owners might be envious of certain Droid features, and this would be one of them. So is Google Voice (which isn’t preinstalled on the phone, but is available on the Android Market rather than being stuck in App Store approval limbo).
More thoughts to come–anything in particular you’d like to know about the phone?
37 comments

The T-Grid: Verizon Droid vs. iPhone 3GS

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 28, 2009 at 5:43 pm

So Verizon’s Droid is official, and officially arriving a week from Friday.  I’m smart enough to know it’s pointless to call any phone an iPhone killer, or even a potential iPhone killer–and that competing with the iPhone is much more about software and overall integration than it is about hardware specs. (If you could kill the iPhone through trumping its specs, it would already be a goner.) But the Droid does pack better specs than the iPhone 3GS does in many areas–including its screen, which has well over twice as many pixels. It runs the promising Android 2.0 OS. And it’s on a network that doesn’t provoke much in the way of squawking from customers. In short, it’s the most formidable Google rival since the Palm Pre.

I have a Droid in hand (lent to me by Verizon) and will report in with a hands-on report soon. But as is my wont, I’m going to begin with a features comparison. Note that the information that follows mostly doesn’t take third-party applications and products into account.

Continue Reading →

72 comments

Droid Arrives Next Week

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 28, 2009 at 8:56 am

droidVerizon has stopped teasing us about its upcoming Android-based Droid phone and made it official: The Motorola phone goes on sale a week from Friday. It runs Android 2.0, has a slide-out keyboard and a 5 megapixel camera with flash, and comes bundled with a 16GB MicroSD card. It also has a beta version of the first edition of Google Maps to do turn-by-turn navigation. (Imagine what’ll happen to the navigation industry if every phone version of Google Maps does that for free.)

Droid is $199 on a two-year contract after a $100 rebate, which is pretty much the price it needs to be to be competitive with the iPhone 3GS.

Here’s a video from Google on Android 2.0, which looks like it’ll be a significant advance on the nice-but-sorta-spartan first version of the OS:

I haven’t seen a Droid in the flesh yet, but early buzz on the phone is exceptional. The only truly great next-generation smartphones to come along so far are the iPhone and the Palm Pre; on paper, at least, it sounds like there’s a chance the Droid will join them.

3 comments

Motorola Announces Android Social Networking Aggregator and Phone

Posted by Harry McCracken on September 10, 2009 at 11:15 am

Motorola

I’m at Gigaom’s Mobilize conference in San Francisco, where Motorola’s Mobile Devices CEO Sanjay Jha just announced an Android-based application, Motoblur, and the company’s first Android phone, the Cliq. He spent most of his time demoing Motoblur, which is a social-networking aggregation interface designed to weave Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, e-mail, and other services into one world. It’s got status updates that can span as many services as you want; widgets capturing content from your friends; a unified address book; hooks into other services such as maps; and more. It’s a hard service to judge from a demo–there’s a lot going on, and a lot of functionality delivered via varying user interfaces. But it’s ambitious and fancy, at least–and unlike anything Apple has built into the iPhone (but at least vaguely reminiscent of the social integration in Palm’s Pre).

Blur will be available on the Cliq, but also on other devices–apparently including another phone to be announced shortly.

Jha didn’t really give a thorough introduction to the Cliq, which will be available for the holidays from T-Mobile. (Yup, another Android phone that’s a T-Mobile exclusive.) Like T-Mobile’s G1, it’s got both a large touchscreen and a landscape-mode sliding keyboard; it also has a five-megapixel camera.

Everyone knows that Motorola needs to take a giant leap forward to be part of the future of smartphones. Unlike Palm’s showstopper of a Pre launch at CES, all Motorola’s unveiling did today is to whet the appetite. But that’s a start.

Here’s a fuzzy photo–more details to come.

Motorola Cliq

6 comments

A Blockbuster Deal for Motorola

Posted by Ed Oswald on August 18, 2009 at 12:32 pm

blockbusterSelect Motorola phones will gain the ability to stream “thousands” of movies to their devices from Blockbuster’s OnDemand video service under terms of a deal announced on Tuesday. An OnDemand application would be preloaded onto these phones from the factory.

Details are rather scant, and it is unclear at this time exactly which models would gain the new feature. Consumers would have the choice to either rent or purchase titles outright from Blockbuster.

The deal is potentially a very positive one for the movie retailer, considering the bruising battle with Netflix that left it in poor financial shape and near to bankruptcy. If successful, it would add a much-needed revenue stream and put the company ahead of competitors in a still largely-untapped market here in the US.

Blockbuster had made it a priority earlier this year to expand its reach to as many devices as possible. It appears that the service would be available regardless of cellular provider as it is a Motorola-offered feature.

4 comments

Yet Another Reason Not to Buy Motorola’s $2000 Phone

Posted by Harry McCracken on November 3, 2008 at 10:00 am

You’ve just spent two grand on Motorola’s Aura, the cell phone that thinks it’s a Swiss watch. You suffer sudden buyer’s remorse. No problem–you can just put it on eBay and recoup at least part of your dough, right?

Um, problem. According to the blogosphere, the Aura comes with a contract that forbids you from dumping the phone on eBay. Instead, you can sell the phone back to Motorola. Supposedly, the company thinks it would tarnish the Aura’s image if it were available on the second-hand market.

It reminds me of the contract that Oscar winners need to sign to get their statuettes. That one mandates that before they can sell their trophy, they must offer to sell it back to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences–for $1. I don’t know what Motorola’s buyback price is–I assume it’s more than a buck, but less than $2000.

Anyhow, it seems damned presumptuous of Moto to tell Aura buyers what they can with an Aura once they’ve plunked down their money. You also gotta wonder why a company that’s laying off thousands of people and trying to get out of the phone business altogether is devoting energy to the idiosyncratic Aura. I’m guessing that Aura will be short-lived–kind of like Sony’s equally preposterous Qualia line of a few years back, which included stuff like a $4000 2-megapixel digital camera. Which, as far as I know, you could do whatever you wanted with once you’d lost interest in it…

No comments

Motorola’s $2000 Aura Phone vs. the Rolex Submariner: The Ultimate Showdown

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 21, 2008 at 7:04 pm

In introducing its new $2000 Aura cell phone today, Motorola repeated comparisons to luxury watches. So contrasting it to an iPhone or a BlackBerry or even the Prada phone may not do it justice. How about facing it off against one of the most famous mobile status symbols of them all, Rolex’s eternally popular Oyster Perpetual Submariner? I did just that for this T-Grid, and found that it’s a close contest–the two gadgets have much in common, but both sport some attractive features that the other doesn’t. Bottom line: If you’ve got a spare $8K, you might want them both!

Continue Reading →

4 comments