Newsletter
I was, unfortunately, not in NYC for the Motorola/Verizon event this past week, however, I did end up watching the link for a youtube video. First of all, the presentation had pros and cons. They started with a weird band, not sure if this is a pro or a con but it did not seem that people in the audience cared too much about it. 30 minutes after the band finished we got to finally see Eric Schmidt who is no longer the CEO but instead Executive Chairman and he had a few things to say. Google, who now own Motorola took the opportunity to talk about phone and tablet sales and how well they are doing, Schmidt wrapped up and brought out the new Motorola CEO, former Googler Dennis Woodside.
Let me start this off by saying Woodside was a captivating guy, I was pretty interested in what he had to say. He threw in a few Apple burns and talked battery life as well as slimness, he also mentioned that this is the new Motorola and it starts now. This whole event had a more Google feel to it, which i think can be good, after a short video they gave the stage to a tech guy at Motorola who showed off the phone and told a LOT of bad jokes and never capitalized on any of them, no one really laughed and they generally seemed unimpressed, or that is what I got off of the video.
As for the impressions of the devices, I was impressed, some members of our staff have though otherwise. I thought they had a good showing, other than the jokes, and that overall Motorola will be going in a good direction very soon. The three devices announced where the Razr HD and Razr Maxx HD as well as the Razr M, a high quality phone for only 99 bucks. The two HD razrs did not come with a price tag, they focused mostly on battery life, comparing it to a few phones but mostly the iPhone 4s. The battery life did seem quite impressive.
- Razr Maxx HD – 3300 mAh claiming 21.00 hours of talk time and 13 hours of video playback
- Razr HD – 2530 mAh claiming 16 hours of talk time.
Niether of these will be true for me until I actually get hands on time, the batteries are that large but depending on the area of the United States you are in and carrier service etc etc, it is hard to judge. I am however excited at the prospect of big batteries that are capable of keeping up with me, lots of users don’t need more than 6 to 7 hours, but sometimes i just require a little extra. I think the design of the Razr HD and Razr Maxx HD are not quite what I would like, the full kevlar back is ok, but nothing I enjoy. The sliver bands around the sides of the phones are pretty awesome, some may say it looks iPhone-esque but that isn’t a problem.
These phones will be getting Jelly Bean. They had models there running early builds of Jelly Bean but said that they would not be getting Jelly Bean until later this year sadly. They also made a promise that if you had a phone that could not be upgraded to Jelly Bean (phones in 2010 and prior), you would get $100 towards a phone announced today… WOAH enough to buy a razr m.
The Razr M is actually one I am interested in, if it gets a phone similar to it on Sprint, I may just make it my next phone, especially since the start price on Verizon is a rather small and affordable $99. I prefer the design of the Razr M as well. I have to wonder what is missing from this phone as it is pretty nice and kind of desirable to a big audience, it checks all the boxes required to have a nice phone in 2012 and also meets the price point.
To wrap up, I would say Motorola had a pretty good event. The issues they had were minor and far from Bill Gates’ blue screen of death problem when showing off Microsoft, if your biggest issue is WiFi in the building not working, you are doing pretty well. You can tell Verizon is excited to get these phones, and I think users are excited as well. Keep doing well Google/Motorola, I want to see them succeed.
