Motorola Refreshing RAZR Line this Fall

In what looks like a deliberate effort to upstage Nokia and Microsoft, Motorola and Verizon held a press event in New York today to announce three new Droid RAZR phones. The RAZR M (budget), RAZR HD (mid-range), and RAZR Maxx HD (high-end) will all come LTE-enabled with Google's Chrome browser, but none of the phones will ship with the latest version of Android.

The $99 (with contract) RAZR M has the same 960 x 540 super AMOLED display as last year's Droid RAZR. It runs on a 1.5GHz dual-core CPU and 1GB of RAM, and features an 8MP camera. While the phone only has 8GB of internal storage, a microSD slot will let you expand it substantially.

Predictably, the RAZR HD ups the display quality to 720p, but under the hood it's pretty similar to the RAZR M (which is already pretty similar to last year's Droid X2). The HD quietly raises capacity to 16GB (plus microSD), but with the same processor, RAM and camera as the RAZR X2, the main internal upgrade here seems to be the battery. At 2,500mAh, you'll basically only ever have to charge it once. Just kidding, but that's a lot of battery.

So what's Motorola's strategy for setting its high-end RAZR Maxx HD apart? Give it an *even bigger* battery! Seriously though, it has the same processor, display, and camera as the RAZR HD. It doubles storage again, this time to 32GB+, but the RAZR Maxx HD's main selling point seems to be its 3,300mAh battery - the biggest in the business. Motorola could have run a quad-core processor on it, but they've opted for efficiency instead, promising a whopping 16 hours of talk time. If the only reason you've been going to sleep at night is to let your phone recharge, the RAZR Maxx HD is for you.

In all seriousness, the new RAZRs all look like totally decent phones; we're just disappointed to see a phone company owned by Google caught in a six month catch-up cycle with Samsung. We may even prefer the new RAZRs' kevlar framing and minimal bezels to the sort-of-ugly Galaxy S III, but the omission of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean at launch is just baffling, even if it is promised for all three phones within 2012.

With the Galaxy S III still selling strong and new smartphones from Nokia and Apple imminent, are immortal batteries really a selling point? Let us know in the comments.

Jon Fox is a Seattle hipster who loves polar bears and climbing trees. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN.

Source : ign[dot]com

FCC Forces Verizon to Allow Tethering Apps

A recent FCC investigation of Verizon's use of the "C Block" frequency spectrum it uses to operate its LTE network found the carrier's policy of banning 3rd-party tethering apps to be in violation of open-access provisions of its license. No more "This item is not available on your carrier" messages.

Given crystal-clear language like "[Licensees] shall not deny, limit, or restrict the ability of their customers to use the devices and applications of their choice on the licensee's C Block network," it's actually sort of amazing the investigation lasted almost a year, but the settlement is a step in the right direction.

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Verizon must pay $1.25 million to cover FCC costs.

In addition to re-enabling the 11 tethering apps they'd been blocking, Verizon must pay $1.25 million to cover FCC costs.

Verizon has "revised its service offerings such that consumers on usage-based pricing plans may tether, using any application," the FCC report states. No definite word yet on how the carrier will handle grandfathered unlimited data plans, but at least the apps are back.

Source: Engadget

Jon Fox is a Seattle hipster who loves polar bears and climbing trees. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN. 

Source : ign[dot]com