RAZR i
Latest
How would you change Motorola's RAZR i?
Here's how it is: Intel is king of the PC hill, but in smartphones and tablets, you're more likely to be using an ARM chip. For a tech behemoth to be beaten by a tiny firm in Cambridge is unacceptable, so Intel started cranking out mobile chips to redress the balance. For the Droid RAZR i, Motorola scooped out the guts of the RAZR M in favor of Intel's Medfield chip and an "Intel Inside" sticker on the back. When we reviewed it, we found that it was fine at meeting similar mid-range devices head on, but that was about it. But what about you, gentle readers? What did you think? Why not head over to the forum and share your experiences with this device.
Refresh Roundup: week of October 15th, 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!
Motorola RAZR i review: how does the Droid RAZR M fare with a 2GHz Intel processor inside?
More Info Motorola and Intel hold hands for multi-year, multi-device partnership Motorola announces Intel-powered RAZR i, launches in Europe next month Motorola's RAZR i: benchmarking Intel's first 2GHz Medfield smartphone If you're getting a serious dose of déjà vu, we're right there with you. The RAZR i is a version of Motorola's Droid RAZR M that's headed to Europe and South America with a few differences. For the most part, though, it's cut from the same Kevlar cloth: you get a 4.3-inch AMOLED screen with qHD (960 x 540) resolution, an 8-megapixel rear camera, a 2,000mAh battery and 5GB of built-in storage -- with a microSD slot for expansion. So what's different? On the outside, the RAZR i gets a physical, two-stage camera button. It's a welcome addition, but Intel reckons that its 2GHz processor is what you should be concerned with. It's the highest-clocked Medfield processor we've seen yet -- and perhaps more importantly, it's been placed in a core phone-maker's device. We've already come a long way from the Orange-branded San Diego. So how does this compare to the Qualcomm-powered (and LTE-capable) RAZR M? Will this Intel iteration charm us the same way? Join us after the break to find out.%Gallery-166372%
Motorola's RAZR i arrives in the UK at Phones4U
Motorola's RAZR i has landed on British shores, and is available today from Phones4U. The handset, the first born of a union 'twixt Moto and Intel, skates pretty close to the competition in the performance stakes and promises vastly improved power efficiency. The handset is free to anyone grabbing a plan costing £21.50 or more, while the first 500 to snap up the phone will also get a complimentary pair of MOTOROKR headphones, too.
UK pricing begins to filter out for Motorola's Intel-powered RAZR i smartphone
Soon after it's unveiling, the Intel-based RAZR i showed up in Clove's listings with a SIM-free price of £342, and now it looks as if a few more outlets are pushing pricing details to the world. Expected to storm the UK in October, the phone should ship to Virgin Media customers for around £23 per month on its Premiere Tariff, while T-Mobilers will be able to score one for £0 to £31 per month depending on the contract. All told, not too shabby for the world's first 2GHz Atom-backed Android phone, and if you're eager to push all of this iPhone 5 stuff aside, at least you know precisely how many quid to save up between now and next month.
Motorola's RAZR i: benchmarking Intel's first 2GHz Medfield smartphone
Motorola were quick to tell us that we're testing on pre-release RAZR i here -- software updates may arrive before the device does, but these figures below should give you a good estimate at what the 2GHz Intel processor can do. We've pitched it against the US-bound Droid RAZR M, with a capable dual-core Snapdragon S4 clocked at 1.5GHz, and ZTE's Grand X IN, which houses Intel's 1.6MHz Medfield Z2460 and Android ICS. Motorola Droid RAZR M Motorola RAZR i ZTE Grand X IN Quadrant 4,944 4,125 2,710 Vellamo 2,442 1,906 1,550 SunSpider 0.9.1 (ms) 1,951 1,062 1,355 AnTuTu 6,364 6,175 N/A GLBenchmark Egypt Offscreen (fps) 56 41 N/A CF-Bench 9,392 2,973 873 SunSpider: lower scores are better So what do all these numbers mean? Well, Intel's 2GHz processor is pretty capable. Although the RAZR i only bests the RAZR M on SunSpider browser performance (something that Intel's been focusing on with its mobile hardware), it's a substantial score difference. Otherwise, the Europe-bound RAZR skates pretty close, if behind the RAZR M's benchmarks. There's a hiccup on the CF-Bench score, something that we also noted on the Grand X IN. While both the ZTE and Motorola devices are running Android 4.0, there's still a tangible difference in these early benchmarks -- perhaps testament to both Motorola and Google's proximity and the debut of Intel's faster 2GHz Medfield processor. We'll be testing out those power-saving promises from the chipmaker over the next few days.
Motorola RAZR i: hands-on with the 2GHz Android phone (video)
While we've seen similar things from the RAZR M already -- and even reviewed it -- we reckoned those 2GHz Intel internals and HSPA-only radio inside the RAZR i (as well as European availability) warranted another tour of the hardware. In summary, there's decently bright, if a little jaggy, 4.3-inch AMOLED screen, with a water resistant coating covering the already hardy Kevlar backing. There's space for microSD expansion, and thanks to that tiny bezel, it's a phone that very happily resided in the palm of our hand. Some Intel assistance has added a new 10-frame burst mode, and also sped up the boot-time of the camera app itself, not forgetting that this RAZR model has a dedicated camera button on the side. We're booting up our benchmark toolkit to assess how Intel's processor fares, but until the final scores are revealed, take a look at our hands-on video after the break. Update: We've added our initial benchmarks -- check them here. %Gallery-165704%
Motorola announces Intel-powered RAZR i, launches in Europe next month
Motorola's revealed the first smartphone to be borne from its team-up with Intel. Here in London, UK, it's a familiar-looking Android smartphone with an important internal difference. The RAZR i will be running on one of Intel's latest mobile chips (2GHz processor), differentiating it from what we saw from the Google-owned phone-maker a few weeks earlier. Motorola's calling the phone its biggest launch in the UK since the original RAZR. Motorola's touting the (almost "edge-to-edge") 4.3-inch AMOLED display, 2,000mAh of battery and the same Kevlar coating -- it's water repellent this time. But this event is also about Intel's 2GHz processor inside. The chipmaker says it's optimized the architecture for web browsing, especially for Java-based activities. It's also pushing for power consumption even on processor-intensive activities like gaming -- but we'll have to wait for our own tests to check it out. The RAZR i also packs a similar 8-megapixel camera and interface to those other new Motorola phones, with under a second start-up to get the camera app running -- we bet that dedicated camera button helps there. Intel made similar promises with the Orange San Diego, but were already intrigued by that Vanilla-looking interface. NFC is already baked in, with Android Beam taking control of what you need, while its bootloader arrives unlocked. The RAZR i appears to be packing some iteration of Android 4 -- but we're still checking on whether it'll be coming with ICS or the newer Jelly Bean. The phone will arrive in the likes of UK, France, Germany and Brazil -- but no news on whether it'll appear inside North America's borders. In the meantime, you'll find a galley of pics below, plus a press release and publicity video right after the break. Update: According to retailer Clove.co.uk stock should be arriving (in the UK at least) on October 1st, with a SIM-free price of £342 (about $555). %Gallery-165704%
