Motorola Droid Razr HD (Verizon)
Motorola's first event as a Google unit has the company unveiled the predecessor to its popular Droid Razr and Razr Maxx smartphones.
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The ultra-thin Motorola Droid Razr and the long-lasting Droid Razr Maxx were hit phones for Verizon Wireless, so it makes sense that Motorola Mobility would want to quickly follow up.
Enter the Droid Razr HD and Droid Razr Maxx HD, which both feature better specifications, a bigger, crisper display, and of course, better battery life. The phones, announced today at an event in New York, mark the first products unveiled by Motorola under parent Google, which acquired the company last May.
Unsurprisingly, the Razr HD takes its design cues from its predecessor. Like the original Droid Razr, this phone has a thin profile, features a Kevlar backing, and is nice to hold. But rather than the more angular design of the original, which featured a slight bump at the top of the phone, the Razr HD is flatter and consistently round. As a result, the Razr HD looks even thinner than before. The Maxx HD looks fairly similar, and is just a hair thicker to accommodate its larger battery.
There's no question here, the Droid Razr HD's display is a big deal. Motorola is following the trend of the other handset manufacturers and going bigger with its display. The Razr HD features a 4.7-inch high definition-quality screen, compared with the 4.3-inch screen of the original. With a resolution of 1,280x768 pixels, this handset is HD all the way.
Motorola boasts that it has been able to fit its 4.7-inch display into a body that's smaller than that of the Samsung Galaxy S3 or HTC One X, a boon to anyone who hates carrying large phones in their pocket. Both the Razr HD and Maxx HD offer the same display.
Both phones run on Qualcomm's latest 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor and have 1GB RAM. The Droid HD comes with 16GB of storage, while the Maxx HD comes with 32GB of storage, although both are expandable through a micro SD card. Both come with an 8-megapixel camera capable of shooting 1080p HD video.
Both phones will run on Android 4.0, also known as Ice Cream Sandwich, but will be upgraded to 4.1, or Jelly Bean, by the end of the year. They will also run on Verizon Wireless's 4G LTE network.
Bigger battery
Motorola wants to be known for battery life, and the original Razr Maxx was a good step in that direction. The Razr HD and Maxx HD follow up with that. The Razr HD comes with a 2,530mAh battery for 16 hours of talk time, or 24 hours of "mixed use," Motorola's own proprietary rating that calculates the normal daily use of a smartphone. The battery is larger than the 1,780 mAh battery of the original Razr.
The Maxx HD comes with a 3,300 mAh for 21 hours of talk time, 27 hours of streaming music, 10 hours of streaming video, or 32 hours of "mixed use" time. The battery is equal in size to the original Razr Maxx.
Outlook
The Razr HD and Razr Maxx HD packs in better specs for phones that were already fairly attractive to begin with. The company seems to have polished up the design and improved the battery life on the HD, which is a key feature for heavy users. Unfortunately, there's no word on pricing or availability. But with an expected heavy push by Verizon Wireless, which saw the original Droid Razr as its flagship phone for last year's holidays, and Motorola could have two hits on its hands.
