Motorola phones

Seven 'Motorola phones' stories May 2011 - August 2011

The march continues as Android gains share and Google eyes the prepaid market

9to5 Staff Aug 22 2011 - 10:26 am PT

In the battle for mobile supremacy, Apple and Google are winning as competitors continue to lose ground, finding it increasingly difficult to compete with the strong iOS and Android ecosystems (can you say ‘duopoly’?), per latest survey from the NPD Group. The results came by tracking U.S. consumers aged 18+ who reported purchasing a mobile phone and exclude corporate purchases. In the June quarter, iOS grabbed 29 percent of the U.S. smartphone share versus Google’s 52 percent share. Both tech behemoths have grown their platform share at the expense of BlackBerry maker Research In Motion.

Cross-posted on 9to5Mac.com

RIM’s been on a serious decline amid poor sales and delays related to their QNX-based superphones. Their BlackBerry OS software share fell to just eleven percent in the U.S. Meanwhile, Hewlett-Packard’s webOS is in a state of limbo as the world’s leading computer maker announced intentions to exit the hardware business. Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 and Windows Mobile grabbed five percent of the market each.

The emerging prepaid market is the next battelground for iOS and Android. Google, however, has the first mover advantage here…

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Motorola ships 400,000 Xoom tablets and 4.4M Android smartphones in June quarter

9to5 Staff Jul 28 2011 - 4:03 pm PT

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Motorola Mobility reported June quarter earnings today, nearly hitting Wall Street estimates with the reported GAAP net loss of $56 million, 19 cents a share. Revenues for the quarter topped $3.3 billion and non-GAAP earnings were nine cents a share. One of the noteworthy highlights includes shipments of 400,000 Xoom tablets, although the company wouldn’t divulge actual sell-through numbers. Xoom shipments amount to some 2.65% June tablet market share, per Strategy Analytics’s cumulative figures.The company also shipped eleven million mobile devices in total, including 4.4 million Android smartphones. Analyst Tomi Ahonen wrote on Twitter that Android shipments amount to an eight percent market share, making Motorola “8th biggest smartphone maker and 5th biggest Android”.

Xoom aren’t bad at all, actually a bit higher than the 300,000 units investors were expecting. Furthermore, the Xoom, Motorola’s inaugural Honeycomb tablet, arrived to market with little or no support from third-party developers plus devices from rivals ensued soon thereafter. Motorola benefited from an expanded distribution of the Atrix 4G smartphone and Motorola Xoom tablets in Latin America, China, Korea and Europe. They also rolled out four new smartphones in China. Moving forward, the company previously pledged to launch ten new devices in 2011 with Sprint, including Motorola Photon 4G which launches this weekend. Other tidbits right below…

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Nielsen: Android top phone OS in the US, HTC #1 Android vendor

9to5 Staff Jul 28 2011 - 8:26 am PT

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Research firm Nielsen chimed in today with a survey that puts Apple as the leading handset maker in the United States whilst Android is portrayed as the top mobile operating system in the country. Those findings follow a recent analysis which had Apple overtaking Nokia to become the world’s leading smartphone vendor in July, also corroborated by IDC figures. According to Nielsen’s June data, Google’s Android remains the nation’s top phone platform with a 39 percent of the country’s consumer smartphone market. Apple’s iOS follows with 28 percent and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion continues to bleed share, down to 20 percent in the second quarter of 2011. Windows Mobile and Windows Phone combined grabbed nine percent, webOS and Palm OS were barely a blip with two percent, as was Nokia’s dying Symbian OS.

Apple on the other hand is the top smartphone maker in the United States that controls 28 percent of the market (excluding iPods and iPads). That’s partly “because Apple is the only company manufacturing smartphones with the iOS operating system”, Nielsen argues. HTC shares second spot with Research In Motion with a fourteen percent share of Android devices and six percent of Windows Phones for a total of 20 percent share of the whole market, same as the BlackBerry maker. HTC is also the nation’s leading Android and Windows Phone vendor with 14 percent and six percent share, respectively. No wonder Apple is suing HTC and seeking to ban import of their phones into the US…

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Motorola Droid 3 does the BOGO dance

9to5 Staff Jul 18 2011 - 9:13 am PT

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BOGO, an acronym for “Buy-One-Get-One”, is a marketing tactics some (perhaps iOS fans) are adamant helped boost daily Android activations to over 550,000 handsets. The strategy is again at play at Verizon Wireless, the nation’s leading carrier which put Google’s platform on the map with the original Droid. And now, less than two weeks since the Droid 3’s arrival on the Verizon Wireless network, the carrier is offering the device in a hard-to-resist BOGO deal, reports The Phone Arena. You can take advantage of the offer at Verizon’s web site.

The reason? We’ve heard that there is another 4-inch slider coming to Verizon, but with some LTE’s in the very near future.

The carrier is also taking sign-ups for the Droid Bionic, a Motorola LTE phone which could launch August 4. The Gingerbread-powered Droid 3 features a four-inch qHD display, a slide-out full QWERTY keyboard, a back camera that can record 1080p clips, all thanks to a dual-core 1GHz OMAP processor from Texas Instruments. It costs $200 after a two-year service agreement or $460 contract-free. Would-be buyers should remember that Verizon no longer offers unlimited data plans.

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Motorola, Sprint unveil Photon 4G, Triumph smartphones, confirm eight more devices in 2011

9to5 Staff Jun 9 2011 - 12:12 pm PT

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At a Sprint press conference which took place half an hour ago, Motorola pledged to launch more than ten new wireless gizmos this year, including the flagship Motorola Photon 3G and Motorola Triumph smartphones. The Photon 4G files as Motorola’s first 4G device and the Triumph is their first Virgin Mobile USA device.

The Photon 4G, pictured above and available this summer, sports a dual-core 1GHz Tegra 2 chip from Nvidia, a 4.3-inch qHD display, dual cameras and a kickstand. The device runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread, features international GSM capabilities and has the Motorola webtop application that lets you access desktop-class applications while hooked up with a Motorola accessory dock. Go past the break for the Triumph info and official specs.

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Motorola’s Droid 3 caught on tape

9to5 Staff Jun 6 2011 - 5:03 am PT

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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtXZXhTpywY?rel=0]

Motorola’s upcoming handsets are leaking all over the web. The latest? How about three guided tour videos showing off the various features of the upcoming Droid 3 smartphone? The Droid brand has done very well reviving Motorola’s ailing phone business while putting Android on the map and Motorola Mobility recently refreshed the brand with the Droid X2 launch on the Verizon Network. With the third incarnation of the smartphone that started the Android craze Motorola is hoping to woe consumers with more oomph, a continuation of the strategy which has served them well thus far. Check out two more Droid 3 videos below the fold…

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The Droid X2 launches on Verizon next Thursday, pre-orders tomorrow

9to5 Staff May 18 2011 - 9:58 am PT

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The Droid saga continues as Motorola Mobility issues a press release announcing the Droid X2 launch on the Verizon Wireless network next Thursday, May 26, 2011. The Droid X2 is “double the power, double the does”, Motorola wrote. The phone looks nearly identical from the outside to its predecessor, sporting a large 4.3-inch capacitive touchscreen display.

The innards have been improved with an eight-megapixel camera with HD video capture, a dual-core 1GHz processor. It will come with Android 2.2 pre-installed, to be updated to Android 2.3 Gingerbread. The handset will retail for $199.99 after a new two-year service agreement. The carrier will be accepting pre-orders beginning tomorrow, May 19, 2011. Catch the full press release below the fold.

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