Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha on Tuesday launched the Droid RAZR on Verizon Wireless, the network’s second dual-core 4G LTE smartphone that boasts more power, faster speeds, and a thinner form factor than any of Verizon’s current smartphones, including the Apple iPhone 4S.
Pre-orders for the Droid RAZR begin Oct. 27 and the device will hit Verizon stores in November.
Priced at $299 with a two-year contract, the 0.28-inch-thin Droid RAZR packs a dual-core 1.2GHz processor, 4.3-inch Super AMOLED advanced qHD display, 8-megapixel rear camera with 1080p video recording, HD front-facing camera, and mobile hotspot support for up to eight Wi-Fi devices.
It will ship with Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread, even though Google is announcing the release of Android 4.0 in a few hours out of Hong Kong. the RAZR’S 1780 mAH battery gives you 12.5 hours of 3G talk time and 8.9 hours of video playback. Jha added that this was the first smartphone capable of streaming movies and TV shows through Netflix in HD.
The Droid RAZR also adds some unprecedented finishes to the Droid line, like diamond-cut aluminum accents, tapered corners, a stainless steel core and laser-cut woven Kevlar fiber that Jha said “gives it extra strength without adding weight.” It’s also Motorola’s first phone to come with splash-guard protection.
The Droid RAZR also debuts MotoCast, which he described as a “cloud” but basically just syncs all the photos, music files, videos, and more stored on your PC.
And of course, there are the numerous accessories, not included, that will transform your phone into other quasi-devices: laptop docks (similar to the ones available for the Motorola Atrix and Droid Bionic), wireless keyboards, a vehicle navigation dock, universal travel charger, gesture touchpad, Bluetooth headset, and a portable power pack. “Enough accessories to make the smartphone the digital hub of your life,” Jha said.
With Verizon’s LTE speeds, Jha said the Droid RAZR will take only three seconds to load, compared to 20 seconds with the iPhone 4S; you can upload a 5MB video in 12 seconds on the Droid RAZR compared to 76 seconds on the iPhone 4S, he said.
It’ll be called the Droid RAZR in the U.S. and the Motorola RAZR everywhere else in the world.
Also today, Motorola introduced Moto ACTV, a small MP3 player that pairs with your smartphone to become what the company calls the ultimate fitness tool. see the slideshow above for more.
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