Motorola DROID RAZR gets a white version for December

Nothing says “Happy Holidays” like the world’s most neutral color. In addition to a rather subdued DROID XYBOARD announcement, Verizon let slip that an all-white version of the Motorola DROID RAZR would be available this month. Aside from a frosty casing, there’s no difference from the model that launched last month – you’ll still need to fork over $299.99 and sign up for a new two-year contract, or be eligible for a renewal. A specific date was not mentioned.

If it’s bargains you’re after, and you happen to be in the market for both a new LTE smartphone and tablet, you may want to take advantage of Verizon’s upcoming promotion. Purchase a new DROID RAZR (presumably including the white model) and you can take $100 off any DROID XYBOARD, from the $429 8.2-inch 16GB version all the way up to the $729 64GB 10.1-inch version. You’ll also be eligable for $50 off “select Motorola accessories” – a perfect opportunity to stock up on cases, docks or what have you.
The DROID RAZR joins a host of white smartphones this Christmas, including the Samsung Galaxy S II, Galaxy S II Skyrocket, HTC Incredible II, HTC EVO 3D – suffice it to say, there’s a lot of white going around. Naturally, that other Verizon phone, you know, the one we’ve been waiting on for over a month, the one that seems to be available for everyone except Americans – hasn’t been announced. But we get a phone that’s in plentiful supply in white. Thanks a lot, Verizon.

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Verizon’s Motorola DROID XYBOARD gets official in 10.1 and 8.2 flavors

Yup, that’s the real name, folks, and there ain’t no going back now.Verizon announced the long-leaked Motorola DROID XYBOARD tablets in a press release today, with the expected 10.1 and 8.2 inch models ready to go sometime in December. The larger model starts at $529.99 for the 16GB version, then goes up to $629.99 and $729.99 for the 32GB and 64GB editions. The smaller XYBOARD 8.2 (no “Media Edition” branding here) will go for $429.99 and $529.99, in 16GB and 32GB versions. All prices are with a two-year contract.

As far as specs go, both tablets are solid, though not as eye-popping as the original XOOM when it was released earlier this year. The screens are “high-definition” (almost certainly 1280 x 800) IPS LCD panels, running on top of 1.2Ghz dual-core processors and 1GB of RAM each. Exact dimensions aren’t available, but Verizon assures us that the tablets are “lighter than a paperback book and thinner than a AAA battery.” A 5-megapixel camera adorns the back with a front-facing shooter thrown in for good measure. Both with have access to Verizon’s LTE network.
Both tablets will launch with Android 3.2 Honeycomb, though you can expect an Ice Cream Sandwich update sometime in the future. The standard Motorola and Verizon apps are included, and customers can add LTE WiFi hotspot functionality for an additional fee. THe exact release date is not available just yet, but a promotion will allow you to take $100 off a DROID XYBOARD when you purchase a DROID RAZR, plus $50 of free accessories.

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BlueStacks Android app player gets 550,000+ downloads

Just in case you were wondering, yes, ore excited about the prospect of running Android apps on their full-sized computer. BlueStacks, the startup software package that lets you easily run and sync Android apps to any Windows computer, has racked up more than half a million downloads since its October debut. 550,000 downloads is an impressive achievement for a program that was only released in alpha form seven weeks ago, and at the time lacked support for anything other than Windows 7.

Investors have started to sit up and take notice. Embattled chip maker AMD and virtualization/remote access company Citrix invested 6.4 million dollars into the small California startup to spur its development, and presumably highlight it for future products. With Microsoft on the verge of a big tablet push in late 2012/early 2013, having quick and easy access to hundreds of thousands of touch-enabled Android apps would be a boon for Windows 8.
The software itself is still in the early stages, with the basic version of the BlueStacks App Player in alpha and the Pro version, featuring unlimited paid app syncing, still unavailable. The software itself is Windows-only, and likely to remain that way for some time, considering the high hardware requirements. BlueStacks may have some exciting things to announce at CES in January – we’ll be on hand to see if this is the case.
[via TechCrunch]

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Free Motorola RAZR or Samsung Galaxy S II, T-Mobile, 300 minutes, 300 texts, 500MB data, £20.42PM 24M @ Tesco Phone Shop

Get this Motorola RARZ or Samsung Galaxy S II deal @ Tesco Phone Shop
Tesco’s quite often a good bet for mobile contracts, as evidenced by this deal for the Motorola RAZR and Samsung Galaxy S II. It’s £0 up front, and £20.42PM for 24 months, so that’s £490.08 over two years.

For your hard-earned, you get 300 minutes, 300 texts and 500MB of data on T-Mobile.
Free delivery.
(Thanks to spruceyb at HUKD)

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Google quietly pulls Gmail app for Symbian

Bad news Symbian owners, if you currently rely on the Gmail Java client for your phone, it seems that Google is quietly pulling the plug on the app and ceasing support for the app as far as Symbian devices are concerned. No official announcement from Google on this matter, but we guess since the app hasn’t been updated for the past two years, it was only a matter of time before the plug was pulled anyway.
When Symbian owners attempt to download the app via http://m.google.com, they are instead greeted with the screenshot above that directs the user to a barebones Gmail page. When we say barebones we mean barebones because apart from an image or two and some links, your emails will not load images or rich text information. The good news (?) is that for those who still have the app is that you can still use it, just don’t expect to be able to re-download it in the future.

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Asus’ goal for 2012 is to beat Samsung in tablets

Asus has offered up a glimpse of what it wants to do in 2012 at its global sales meeting held this week. Part of the goings on at the meeting was to set the shipment goals for the four major product lines next year. The company has announced that it expects to ship more than 22 million notebooks and netbooks next year reports DigiTimes. The specific number Asus is shooting for internally is 23.8 million units.

When it comes to tablet PCs Asus is a bit more specific. It wants to ship at least three million tablets shipped with an internal goal reportedly set at 6 million tablets. That would put Asus ahead of rival Samsung in the tablet market. Asus may well do that with the Transformer Prime looking like one of the best Android tablets to land so far.
The big number of notebook shipments that Asus expects next year would put it ahead of Dell and put it in the running for the third largest notebook vendor globally. The bulk of the shipments will be notebooks at 19.3 to 19.8 million units, netbook shipments are expected to continue to decline.
[via SlashGear]

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Engineer: Android Will Never Be Completely Smooth Thanks to Design Framework

Google+ user Andrew Munn claims to be a former intern of Google’s and a soon to be intern of Microsoft’s. He reportedly worked on Android for a short time and will be doing his work at Microsoft on Windows Phone 7 in a short time – just a small disclaimer before we move on.

Yesterday, we reported on a Google+ post by Dianne Hackborn who sought to set the record straight on hardware acceleration, stating that while full hardware acceleration didn’t get introduced until Android 3.0 and was further pushed in Android 4.0, they have always been using some form of hardware acceleration for drawing certain UI elements. She also admits that hardware acceleration isn’t as rosy as we’d like.
The aforementioned engineer Munn wants to tell you exactly why hardware acceleration in Android doesn’t, and may never, make for a very smooth experience up against iOS and Windows Phone 7, citing inefficient design frameworks in Android that keep it from using the CPU/GPU power necessary to ensure a 100% smooth experience. Take it with a grain of salt. It’s a good read if nothing else. [Google+, thanks phantomash]

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i.TV brings its local TV guide app to Android users in North America

i.TV has brought its free TV guide app to phones and tablets (including the Kindle Fire) running on Android, and is now available for download from the Android Market and Amazon’s Appstore for Android.
i.TV has existed on iOS for a long time now and the company claims that it is the most downloaded of all TV guide apps for the platform. It says that bringing the app over to Android was “the number one request we get”, which the company has now fulfilled.
The app detects your location and shows you local TV listing based on your service provider, as long as you are in Canada or USA. You can also type in a ZIP code manually if that is more to your liking.

It lets you log in to your TiVo account and remotely manage your scheduling. There’s a Netflix search feature built in and controls to add shows to your Netflix disc or queue.
You can browse through shows by lists, such as New Shows, Most Favourited, New Tonight, Emmy Winners, Staff Picks and You Gotta Be Kidding. The app lets you mark shows as favourites as well, so it is easier to keep track of them.
Finally, there’s news from the entertainment industry, which can be filtered by favourite shows, and inbuilt access to information about shows from the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) and Wikipedia.

Although the newest, i.TV is not the only app in town for Android-using TV lovers. Both the free ad-supported version and the premium version of TV Show Favs are also a hit among Android users, and you should be sure to check them out.
➤i.TV | Android Market | Appstore for Android

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HTC sees massive monthly sales dip, down 30% in November

Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC today announced its monthly sales figures for November, posting financials that highlighted a 30% drop in sales from October, and 20% down on the same period in 2010.
The world’s fourth biggest smartphone manufacturer reported consolidated sales for November dropped to T$30.94 billion ($1.03 billion) from T$38.48 billion ($1.27 billion) a year ago and T$44.11 billion ($1.46 billion) in October 2011.
In November, HTC revised its revenue estimates in the fourth quarter, warning investors that increased competition in the smartphone market and a hostile economic climate would affect revenues. The company slashed estimates by as much as 23% as sales slowed quarter-on-quarter for the first time in two years.
It’s a stark contrast to HTC’s sales performance earlier in the year; in August sales peaked at $1.56 billion, an increase of 83.3% year on year. It was a new monthly sales record for the company, which also saw it announce plans to acquire mobile service provider Dashwire for $18.5 million.
The Android and Windows Phone device maker posted a small increase on its June sales, which stood at T$45.05 billion ($1.55 billion), with sales reaching T$24.61 billion a year earlier.
Strong sales from Apple and Samsung led HTC to predict its fourth-quarter revenue would be the same as it was in 2010, reaching around $3.4 billion. It previously issued guidance that it would see sales upwards of $4 billion.
Today’s filing will do little to reassure HTC investors after the company’s share price yesterday plummeted to a 17-month low ahead of a potential device ban in the U.S as a result of a legal fight against Apple. The Cupertino-based company continues to squeeze HTC over its device designs but is also eating into its sales following the release of the iPhone 4S.

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