Engadget’s smartphone buyer’s guide: fall 2012 edition

Engadget's smartphone buyer's guide fall 2012 edition

Shopping for a smartphone can be an exciting and arduous experience. Along with the promise of something new and fantastic, it brings the fear of commitment, and even worse, the prospect of saddling yourself to a lousy device for two years. Fortunately for you, Engadget spends tons of time playing with the latest gear and we're constantly on the lookout for what's coming next. If you're wanting to take the pain out of shopping for a smartphone, you've come to the right place. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Engadget's smartphone buyer's guide: your one-stop resource to finding the best and most exciting handsets on the market today.

Before you dive in, however, we've introduced a few changes to the buyer's guide, so take a minute to prepare yourself for what's in store. First and foremost, you'll now find alternate selections to supplement our top picks. This should already be familiar to many of you, which is the same format we use for our seasonal gift guides. The next one is a biggie: we've dropped the QWERTY selection. By and large, manufacturers and carriers alike have shifted their focus away from keyboard-equipped smartphones, and you'll rarely find more than one option on any given carrier. That said, if you still insist on the tactile experience, you'll always find everything you need to know in our reviews. Finally, whenever possible, you'll now find prices from Amazon Wireless, which allows us to provide you with more compelling budget selections and highlight the substantial savings that you can score by circumventing the carriers. It's not like they need your charity, anyway.

If you're curious to see how it all unfolded -- and we know you are -- join us after the break, where we round up the very best smartphones of the season.

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Engadget's smartphone buyer's guide: fall 2012 edition originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Oct 2012 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Refresh Roundup: week of October 8th, 2012

Refresh Roundup week of October 8th, 2012

Your smartphone and / or tablet is just begging for an update. From time to time, these mobile devices are blessed with maintenance refreshes, bug fixes, custom ROMs and anything in between, and so many of them are floating around that it's easy for a sizable chunk to get lost in the mix. To make sure they don't escape without notice, we've gathered every possible update, hack, and other miscellaneous tomfoolery we could find during the last week and crammed them into one convenient roundup. If you find something available for your device, please give us a shout at tips at engadget dawt com and let us know. Enjoy!

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Refresh Roundup: week of October 8th, 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 14 Oct 2012 21:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola phases out Webtop, points to a Lapdock-shy world

Motorola phases out Webtop, points at a Lapdockshy world

When Motorola launched its Webtop concept alongside the original Atrix 4G, it had grand visions of replacing our PCs with a smartphone, a Lapdock and some optimism for a mobile-focused future. Most of us don't appear to have shared that rose-tinted view, as Motorola has confirmed that devices from the Photon Q 4G LTE and Droid RAZR M onward don't carry Webtop and won't get it in the future. The firm is blunt in explaining the cut and says that "adoption has not been strong enough" -- we just weren't buying those desktop- and laptop-oriented docks in the large numbers Motorola would need to devote further attention. As CNET explains, the move isn't surprising in light of Google's cost cutting as well as an initial $500 Lapdock price that likely chilled any momentum, even after prices dropped to as little as $200 in the Atrix 2 era. We'd also point to a market that still favors budget laptops and tablets: when $400 will get you an entirely separate Transformer Pad TF300, albeit without a keyboard, it's hard to justify buying what amounts to an empty shell. At least we'll still have our PadFone to keep us company while you read the full statement below.

Motorola's Webtop app helps users extend their smartphone experience to larger screens. While consumers around the world have adopted Webtop and the concept spurred a lot of innovation in the industry, the adoption has not been strong enough to justify continued resources being allocated to developing Webtop on future devices. We have also seen development of the Android operating system focus on the inclusion of more desktoplike features. Beginning with Photon Q and Droid Razr M/Droid Razr HD/Droid Razr Maxx HD, we will no longer be including Webtop on our products moving forward.

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Motorola phases out Webtop, points to a Lapdock-shy world originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 07 Oct 2012 13:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola Droid RAZR M torn down to its bare Kevlar essentials (video)

Motorola Droid RAZR M torn down to its bare Kevlar essentials video

Fall must be the season for surprisingly fixable thin smartphones. Repair part supplier DirectFix has posted a currently rare, video-based teardown of the Motorola Droid RAZR M that shows just how well Verizon's mid-range smartphone copes with surgery. In practice, it fares quite well: those unafraid of voiding their warranty can disassemble the Droid RAZR M from top to Kevlar bottom, replacing parts like the battery, cameras and flash with a minimal risk of damage. Not all is sunshine and roses, however. The display assembly is a single piece, which could be as costly to fix as it is easy to replace. We won't mind if it ever means dodging a full-price replacement in the event our RAZR meets the sidewalk.

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Motorola Droid RAZR M torn down to its bare Kevlar essentials (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Sep 2012 09:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nokia and Motorola event roundup

Nokia and Motorola event roundup

Boy, what a day. September 5th has been one for the books, as five new devices from Nokia and Motorola were exposed to the public eye. We were happy to bring you extensive coverage of everything that happened today, but if you're just getting home from work you may not have had the opportunity to keep up with the goings-on. To help you navigate the feeds a little easier, we've compiled all of the essential news in one place. So kick off your shoes, grab a bite to eat and meet us below the break to get caught up on the latest smartphones!

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Nokia and Motorola event roundup originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Sep 2012 18:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola’s new Droid range: Meet the Family

DNP Motorola's new Droid range Meet the Family

Has all of this talk about the RAZR M, RAZR HD and RAZR Maxx HD made you unreasonably excited? Well get in line, because so are we -- which is why we've just broken down the specifications of each handset for you to compare and contrast the key features. Head on past the break to find out what you'll expect to find when you open the box (which doesn't include Jelly Bean, which isn't coming until later in the year).

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Motorola's new Droid range: Meet the Family originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Sep 2012 17:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Droid RAZR M and HD dev editions bring unlockable bootloaders to the Android party

Droid RAZR M and HD dev editions bring unlockable bootloaders to the Android party

Motorola just released three new consumer phones today, but the company didn't want to leave developers out in the cold, so it also quietly rolled out a pair of developer handsets. A mere $550 gets you on the list right now for a RAZR M Developer Edition set to be shipped next week direct from Moto, and you can sign up for updates on the availability of a forthcoming RAZR HD dev-friendly handset, too. Each phone will bring an unlockable bootloader and the promise of immediate software gratification, though Motorola hasn't set an availability date or price for the HD version just yet. You can get on the list for either device at the source links below.

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Droid RAZR M and HD dev editions bring unlockable bootloaders to the Android party originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Sep 2012 15:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola Droid RAZR M hands-on (video)

Droid RAZR M handson

Motorola just took the wraps of the Droid RAZR M and, we've gotta say, the slender handset is quite the looker. The 8mm-thick body is plastic and Kevlar, just like its titular predecessor, but it adds some nice visual flourishes of its own, including rivets around the rim of the device. Despite its diminutive size, it has a nice heft in the hand, though we wouldn't say it's built like a tank. Overall, the device is frighteningly similar to the Droid RAZR, right down to the lock / power key with its concentric circle pattern. Also carried over from the OG Droid RAZR is the 4.3-inch screen. That means we are looking at a qHD Super AMOLED Advanced display, rather than some fancy HD panel and still saddled with a PenTile pixel layout. It also, as we harped on in the live blog, means that Android 4.0.4 has been slathered in Motorola's own skin. Though, we'll give credit to the new Google subsidiary for scaling back on the glitz and glam and letting Ice Cream Sandwich shine through a bit.

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Motorola Droid RAZR M hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Sep 2012 15:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Exclusive: Motorola Droid RAZR M 4G LTE gets hands-on treatment (video)

Motorola Droid RAZR M 4G LTE given proper handson treatment video

There's no stopping the torrential downpour of information coming out about the Motorola Droid RAZR M 4G LTE (codenamed Scorpion Mini), but we finally have some real pictures showing off the device that, this time last week, was nothing more than a mere rumor. Our source had the opportunity to play with the RAZR M for a solid amount of time, and told us that the Snapdragon S4 processor is "fantastic" and the lithium polymer battery resulted in a full day of heavy usage. We've got a few more images of the unannounced device below (it appears the top back panel experienced a run-in with a hard surface before the images were taken), and we also have a video showing off the boot-up process and settings menu after the break.



[Thanks, Anonymous!]

Continue reading Exclusive: Motorola Droid RAZR M 4G LTE gets hands-on treatment (video)

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Exclusive: Motorola Droid RAZR M 4G LTE gets hands-on treatment (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Aug 2012 12:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola Droid RAZR M 4G LTE spotted in white trim

Motorola Droid RAZR M 4G LTE spotted in white

We've had the chance to take a good, hard look at the Motorola Droid RAZR M 4G LTE (aka XT907) bathed in the standard black color option, but what about the rumored white hue? Wait no longer: we just got handed the above images showing the Kevlar-clad device complete with a bleached trim, a design choice that appears to follow closely after the original white Droid RAZR. It's unfortunate, however, that Motorola and Verizon have chosen to continue this trend of merely changing the color of the phone's edges and calling it a day. Does the new look change your overall opinion of the midrange smartphone? Feel free to sound off below.

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Motorola Droid RAZR M 4G LTE spotted in white trim originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Aug 2012 09:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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