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Mini review video: Our verdict on the Droid Turbo 2 in about a minute

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On paper, Motorola's Droid Turbo 2 looks like an upgraded version of the Moto X Pure Edition, which was already one of our favorite Android phones. In particular, the Turbo 2 brings more powerful components, a big battery and a shatterproof screen. I...

Motorola Droid Maxx review

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Motorola Droid Maxx review

Motorola's Droid phones tend to arrive in packs. The original Droid RAZR was released just a couple months before the Droid RAZR Maxx -- essentially, the RAZR with a larger battery. The next year, the company followed up with the Droid RAZR HD, the RAZR M and the RAZR Maxx HD, the latter of which promised longer battery life. Then, after a long silence, the OEM finally broke its silence this past July. At a press event co-headlined by Verizon, Motorola announced its first products since being acquired by Google, once again choosing to launch three devices. We've already taken a look at the Droid Ultra, and in this review we'll focus on the largest of the trio, appropriately called the Droid Maxx.

Despite the fact that all three offer roughly the same mid-range specs, the Maxx stands out from the rest of its siblings thanks to its build, wireless-charging capability and -- surprise! -- its larger battery. But are these three factors important enough to justify paying $300 on-contract, when the Moto X, Droid Ultra and other flagships all cost $100 less? Let's find out.%Gallery-slideshow83998%

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Verizon announces first US pre-order date for Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy Gear: September 6th at 9AM ET

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Verizon announces first US preorder date for Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy Gear September 6th at 9AM ET

The Big Four (that'd be Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile and AT&T) have all confirmed that they'll be stocking Samsung's newly-introduced Galaxy Gear and Galaxy Note 3, but none of 'em have been bold enough as to give us two precious details: pricing and availability. We're still waiting for the damage, but VZW has come forward and alerted its customers that pre-orders will open up on September 6th. Given that the Note 3 just sailed through the FCC (and that the Gear is due to land in October), we're guessing that you'll have to wait anywhere from one to eight weeks for shipment. We'll keep you posted if we hear anything more concrete.

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Via: Droid-Life

Source: Verizon Wireless

Moto X for Verizon officially available online August 29th, at stores in the coming weeks

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Moto X for Verizon officially available online August 29th, in stores in the coming weeks

If you've been eyeing a Motorola device on Verizon without the Droid branding, the Moto X is ultimately your best (and only) choice -- but when exactly will it be available to the masses? According to Verizon's official Twitter account, this Thursday, August 29th will be the day you can grab it online for $200 on-contract. As for stores, the company isn't willing to give a specific date just yet, so all we've been told is that we can expect it in the coming weeks. Still, this will come as good news for Big Red fans who have been patiently awaiting their turn, even if it means early adopters have to settle for a black or white option.

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Source: Droid-life

Leaked photos: Samsung’s Galaxy S4 Mini is headed to Verizon

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Leaked photos show Samsung's Galaxy S4 Mini heading to Verizon

Here is it: the Galaxy S4 Mini... for Verizon? As of now, Samsung's smaller Galaxy S4 sibling is an international-only device; in other words, no US carriers have officially signed on to offer it. That said, a Samsung SCH-i435 recently made its way into the Bluetooth SIG's website, and those who follow VZW's classifications of Samsung products are all-too-familiar with the "SCH" prefix. Of course, a handful of leaked photos can't confirm a release date nor a price, but if it's already popping up with that label on the rear, surely the wait won't be much longer. Hop on past the break for a side-by-side shot with an iPhone 5.

[Thanks, Anonymous]

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Motorola Droid Ultra and Droid Maxx for Verizon hands-on (video)

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Like clockwork, Motorola and Verizon have refreshed their joint Droid lineup, and we're here to check out all three devices. The two more premium handsets, the Droid Ultra and Droid Maxx, are the most promising of the bunch for advanced users, replacing last year's Droid RAZR HD and RAZR Maxx HD and offering the requisite 4G LTE connectivity. Both of those smartphones were at the top of their game in 2012, and that trend appears to continue here -- the Ultra and Maxx are very similar, with the latter boosting the battery capacity, enabling power users to make it through a full day.

Like its predecessors, the Ultra and Droid Maxx (pictured above) sport Kevlar bodies, both of which look sleek and feel sturdy. The Ultra we saw has a glossy red finish, which Motorola helpfully suggested is "a lot like a sports car." The Maxx, on the other hand, has a soft-touch black finish. At any rate, we prefer the Maxx's look; as we've said about Samsung's Galaxy lineup, a glossy, plasticky finish tends to look cheaper. Both phones feature a 10-megapixel camera with a f/2.4 lens; we'll have to wait for our review units to test the shooter's mettle.

What the Ultra's design does have going for it, though, is an extra-thin profile. At 7.18mm, it's already being touted as the "thinnest 4G LTE smartphone available." At 4.94 ounces, it feels very light, and though it sports the Droid family's usual boxy form factor, the edges are gently curved to make for a nice fit in the hand. It packs a 5-inch, 720p Super AMOLED display, which, while not quite as pixel-dense as the Mini's 4.3-inch TFT panel, offers crisp images, vibrant colors and wider-than-average viewing angles. The Ultra is priced at $199, 100 bucks higher than the Mini and 100 lower than the Maxx.

Gallery: Motorola Droid Ultra hands-on

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Verizon smartphone revenue up in Q2 2013, half of all 7.5 million activations were iPhones (updated)

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Verizon's latest quarterly report reveals a carrier chugging along nicely, thank you very much. Total revenue (including wireless and wireline) is up slightly to $29.8 billion, while wireless service revenue on its own grew by 8.3 percent compared to the same quarter last year. Nearly a million (941,000) new retail postpaid customers joined the VZW brigade, some of whom may have been drawn to the carrier's expanding LTE service, which is now available to 301 million Americans, as well as to new handsets like the Nokia Lumia 928 and possibly even the BlackBerry Q10 (or maybe not). In any case, those high-margin subscribers helped to increase profit by 14 percent -- so long as you're the kind of person who's content to be guided by "non-GAAP consolidated adjusted earnings per share." There's also no sign of the pension-related issues that affected the company last quarter, which leaves this carrier high and dry, regardless of how smartphone saturation may be affecting others along the food chain.

Update: In its earnings call, Verizon added that 59 percent of traffic on its network is on 4G LTE, and 52 percent of its smartphone activations (around 3.8 million device activations) were iPhones.

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Via: CNBC

Source: Verizon (PDF download)

Verizon’s Innovation Center: Incubating the next generation of connected devices keeps the ‘dumb pipe’ naysayers at bay

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Verizon's Innovation Center incubating the next generation of connected devices keeps the 'dumb pipe' naysayers at bay

It's no surprise, really. Offline devices just don't carry the allure that they once did, and in fact, yours truly would argue that they simply lack the requisite functionality to become runaway hits in the modern era. It's genuinely difficult to think of a flagship consumer electronics product, with a display of any kind, being engineered in the year 2013 without at least some level of internet connectivity in mind. Even a Kickstarter dream dubbed Pebble would be borderline useless without an online link, and as consumer demands shift dramatically towards expecting more for less, it's the carriers who have found themselves positioned to take advantage.

Verizon has joined a host of other megacorps in launching so-called innovation centers across the world. Earlier this year, Samsung committed $1.1 billion to create a pair of Open Innovation Centers -- temporary homes for upstarts looking to woo Sammy's check writers into believing in their technology. In 2011, AT&T's Palo Alto, Calif.-based Foundry innovation center joined similar entities already running in Texas and Israel. In a nutshell, these facilities exist solely to ensure that pretty much everything with a circuit board also ships with an AT&T radio. Microsoft, Intel and Vodafone have all done likewise in the past three years.

I recently had the opportunity to visit Verizon's first Innovation Center -- a sprawling facility located squarely in Massachusetts' famed Route 128 technology corridor. The center opened in Waltham in the middle of 2011, and now enables roughly 25 employees to "largely operate outside" of what you probably associate with the word "Verizon." What I found was the world's greatest case against the existence of a "dumb pipe" -- a phrase often used to describe carriers that do little more than provide access to a network. No structured technical support, no humans on the other side, no bloatware on the devices they sell. Companies who show up looking for aid in the art of interconnectedness face no fees, no risk of surrendering intellectual property and no requirements of exclusivity. This is the future of the wireless carrier: an increasingly vital component in making tomorrow's whiz-bang gadget one that this generation will actually crave.

Gallery: Verizon's Waltham, Mass. Innovation Center gallery

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HTC One coming to Verizon later this summer

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HTC One coming to Verizon later this summer

Verizon just announced that the HTC One will finally make its debut on the network later this summer. Pricing and exact availability -- not to mention unique features or other specifics -- are yet to be determined, but this is a solid confirmation to a rumor that's been floating around for the last few months, ever since the One officially launched worldwide. Its availability on all four US carriers should be refreshing news to HTC, as this puts it on level ground (stateside, at least) with the immensely popular Samsung Galaxy S 4. The fight between these two flagships is far from over, but having the largest carrier in the US onboard certainly makes that battle much more interesting.

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Source: Twitter