Motorola Droid RAZR HD Makes Way Through the FCC

[dgstorm]

This news is from late last night, but we didn't quite get to it, so here it is this morning. Things are looking up for the possibility of the Motorola Droid RAZR HD coming to Verizon very soon. The newly improved RAZR variant just passed its FCC tests with Verizon LTE radios and NFC included. There's still no word on whether we will see the device with the larger battery from the RAZR MAXX or not, but we can keep our fingers crossed.

Source: Engadget

 

[94lt1]

Its got an nfc chip.. hmmm. I wonder how widely it will be supported.... I hope this will be released soon.

DROID RAZR MAXXIMIZED!!!! PREPARE TO BE VANQUISHED!!!

 

[huskur]

Think I will sell the SG3 and hold my cash for this one!!

 

[94lt1]

Apparently the new ATRIX has supposedly beat the s3 in benchmarks... and the ATRIX isn't half the device the HD is supposed to be...

DROID RAZR MAXXIMIZED!!!! PREPARE TO BE VANQUISHED!!!

 

[huskur]

Apparently the new ATRIX has supposedly beat the s3 in benchmarks... and the ATRIX isn't half the device the HD is supposed to be...

DROID RAZR MAXXIMIZED!!!! PREPARE TO BE VANQUISHED!!!

Good signs showing Motorolas progress then right? The RAZR HD should be off the hook!

 

[94lt1]

I think so... but the next moto device will be hard to resist... the s4 is awesome.... what about the Intel chip in the December model.. or the February model...:drooling:

DROID RAZR MAXXIMIZED!!!! PREPARE TO BE VANQUISHED!!!

 

[droidbionicmaster]

At my job we support Google wallet

 

[Garemlin]

Battery is what is gonna make it a buy or pass for me. If it doesn't have at least the Maxx battery I will not bother. This battery life has spoiled me. Can't imagine going back to being charger dependent.

Tap'd from my Maxx

 

[liftedplane]

and probably a locked bootloader... however IF it really is that amazing I'd still get it

 

[94lt1]

Yeah I hope its got a maxx battery or better... that would be sweet...

DROID RAZR MAXXIMIZED!!!! PREPARE TO BE VANQUISHED!!!

 

[huskur]

I really think Moto has set precidence with the Maxx battery. It's pretty much a given now that they have 24 hour or so batteries. Just my opinion

 

[94lt1]

I'm with ya on that.

DROID RAZR MAXXIMIZED!!!! PREPARE TO BE VANQUISHED!!!

 

[mustangdroid]

Thank God i didn't get GSIII. The RAZR HD will be my next phone.

 

[bacK_N_87]

Thank God i didn't get GSIII. The RAZR HD will be my next phone.

Indeed!!!

 

[nleksan]

Having read so many other news articles relating to this new phone, it's amazing that people have been getting so excited about NFC, as the Galaxy Nexus brought that into the clutches of the regular population over 8 months ago!
And I am not "hating" on the Razr HD, but it just seems to me like Motorola is being lazy and releasing the same phone multiple times and tacking on different "techie"-sounding "worlds" or abbreviations at the end, such as "MAXX" or "HD", without really doing a whole lot to improve the phone in other ways. Now, don't get me wrong, I understand that it's good business to be able to produce one primary product but market it as three (yes, I know that Moto makes thousands of products...), but come on!
While iOS and the iPhone may have put a touch-screen easy-to-use "smart"-phone in the hands of the average consumer, Android has rocketed past the slowly rotting fruity phone as people have realized the immense versatility and usefullness of a truly open-source operating system. Honestly, a number of friends/acquaintances with iPhones have asked "Where can I get one of those?" when they see my GNex, but I have yet to encounter someone who says "Where can I trade in my SGS2/GNex/RAZR/etc for an iPhone?".
The point of this is that while Motorola may be expanding their own product lineup, generating another significant revenue stream with relatively little cost put into R&D, at the end of the day they are just selling the same phone with a slightly different name.
Where is the innovation? Where are the unique and risky phones, the ones that push the boundaries of our perceptions of what a mobile device should be? I sit here with the last four phones I have had, over the past 8 years, and it's amazing to see how things evolved; first an LG flip-phone that at the time was amazing (color screen AND a camera!), the original Motorola RAZR which was a truly awesome and ground-breaking phone, the LG Voyager which was a decent phone for the time and while it couldn't mimic the iPhone it did have an awesome keyboard, the original Motorola Droid also known as the phone that put Android on the map (or at least helped launch it into the stratosphere!), and my current phone the Galaxy Nexus.
Looking at those phones, there is a clear pattern of evolution, from the flip/camera phone to the super-slim flip phone with double the screen size, to the "hybrid" touchscreen/full-keyboard phone, to the full touchscreen smartphone with a slide-out keyboard, to the giant 4.7" HD AMOLED touchscreen and 1.2Ghz dual-core processor of the Galaxy Nexus; it is pretty obvious which features succeed and which fail.

Sure, some of the "boundary-pushing" phones have been failures, with the one that comes to mind being the glasses-free 3D-screen Android phone, but the fact that it was done is still pretty amazing and fun to use (but not so fun when you're staring at it for hours a day). That phone was a bold move, and while it may not have been "revolutionary", it at least helped the manufacturer in terms of attention and product awareness.
Now that 4G is becoming the norm, a new WiFi band has JUST been introduced (publicly, in that there are now 2 routers and an AP that support it), USB 3.0 has become a key feature for almost all new computers sold today, and Solid State Storage via MLC and SLC NAND Flash is literally getting faster AND cheaper every day!
Not to mention:
Intel has proven the viability of a 22nm 3-D transistor-gate fabrication process resulting in very small chips that are very energy efficient yet very powerful (and would run very cool if Intel hadn't been "cheap" and had used Solder/Flux between the chip and IHS like they should have), a new form of DRAM is on the horizon with Samsung already having sent out samples of DDR4 RAM which compared to DDR3 offers little speed benefit but drops the required voltage significantly (from 1.5-1.65v to 1.0-1.2v), the entire architecture of both (ATI/NVIDIA) GPU manufacturers' chips have been revamped (and combined with a die-shrink) resulting in the ATI/AMD 7xxx (notably the 7970) and NVidia 6xx (notably the 680 and 670) series of GPU's that are not only a significant leap ahead in performance compared to the prior generation but also consume FAR less power (and thus emit less heat; it is possible to run 3-way SLI with GTX680's on a 750W PSU, although an 850W is the ideal minimal amount to account for overhead; to run 3x GTX580's one would need a minimum of a 1000W PSU)...
IPS Panels are becoming more and more common with 27" 2560x1440p displays available for $250-300 (vs $1000 for the Dell Ultrasharp 27" IPS), LED backlighting has come a long way since its introduction and now produces much warmer light with no bleeding on good displays, individually-dimming or local-dimming with LED-lit displays allows for a ridiculous increase in contrast as blacks can now be a true black and whites can be blinding white and the two can even be next to one another with almost no loss in detail, Organic LED displays have made their debut and while expensive for the moment they will very soon be as common as LED-LCD or AMOLED panels (remember when the first Plasma TV's came out?), and of course there is the fact that "4K" resolution WILL become the new "norm" for physical-media playback (i.e. Blu-Ray or possibly streaming internet video) and eventually for cable/satellite/fiber-optic television as well.

Lastly, we are at the brink of an internet speed crisis in many parts of the US, where people are paying more for broadband than in almost any other first-world nation yet are receiving speeds that are lower than almost any other first-world nation. Sweden, Korea, and Japan are examples of nations with internet infrastructure done the way it SHOULD BE; fiber optic cables, direct lines to customers or at least very minimal "sharing" of lines, and cheap prices making it easily affordable for almost everyone to have speeds well over 100Mb/s Up/Down, with many ISP's being significantly faster.
This is made worse by the fact that a great number of people reading this will be able to pick up their 4G phone and log onto SpeedTest.net with both their phone and their computer, and watch as their 4G-connected smartphone gets speeds 2-10x faster than their hardwired connection!!! With enough towers, truly "mobile data" could eliminate the need for "cable" or DSL internet, thus giving people significantly higher speeds while not containing it to their home.


I apologize for the rant, but I get frustrated when I see these "HUGE ANNOUNCEMENTS" from giant companies like Motorola announcing some "new, world-shattering, amazing, lose-your-virginity-by-looking-at-it-awesome" phone that turns out to be nothing be a rehash, a remake, a first-party knockoff. We don't put up with this from Hollywood, from musicians, or other consumer electronics so why do we let cell phone manufacturers do it, while we stand here smiling and clapping in unison?
Isn't it about time for some change???