At its event today in New York City, Verizon announced three new Motorola DROID devices coming to the carrier, which isn’t much of a surprise if you have been following the latest rumors. When Verizon sent out invites to the event earlier this month, the carrier hinted that we’d be seeing new Droid devices, and we speculated we’d be seeing the Ultra, Mini, and Droid MAXX that had floating around in recent leaks. Confirming our suspicions, Verizon just made things official and announced pricing and availability for three new devices:
DROID MINI: A compact design with an edge-to-edge 4.3-inch HD display and wireless charging capabilities.
DROID ULTRA: The thinnest 4G LTE smartphone available, measuring 7.18mm, and with a 5-inch HD display. The ULTRA will be available in Black and Red models.
DROID MAXX: Features wireless charging and a 3500mAh battery that gives users nearly two days of battery life on a single charge, making it the longest lasting 4G LTE smartphone available.
The devices pack in much thinner dimensions than their predecessors, as well as some new software features and many of the upgraded specs we’ve been hearing about leading up to today’s launch. Motorola confirmed that the MAXX will come with the 48 hour battery life that was previously rumored, while still coming in at 9 percent thinner than the last generation MAXX. As for software, we see some of the new features we’ve seen in leaks for the Moto X, including: quick access to your device’s camera by twisting your wrist twice, and the ability wake the device hands-free with the “Ok Google Now” command. Also included is the new Touchless Controls and Active Display alerts:
These Touchless Controls and Active Display let users make calls, send texts, get directions, play music, set a reminder and preview notifications hands-free without having to unlock the phone, giving DROID users a whole new way of interacting with their phones.
The new Droids will be available to preorder starting today from Verizon’s website, with the Ultra and MAXX going up for sale on August 20 and the Droid Mini on August 29. The Ultra will sell for $200 in both red and black, while the MAXX will be available for $300 and the Mini for $100, on the usual two year agreements.Verizon confirmed to CNET that Motorola will now be the only manufacturer to build Droid devices.
Motorola also announced today that the new devices are being powered by a new in-house SoC, the “X8” 8-core processor with a dual core CPU and quad-core GPU.
Full press release below:
Trio of New DROID Smartphones Coming to Verizon Wireless
MINI, ULTRA and MAXX: Cutting-edge design meets strength and agility.
A new family of exclusive DROID smartphones is coming soon to Verizon Wireless: DROID MINI, DROID ULTRA and DROID MAXX by Motorola. Keeping up with the DROID tradition, these devices give users what’s expected from a DROID on Verizon – intelligence, strength and endurance.
It starts with DROID Command Center, an exclusive homescreen widget for users to easily access notifications for text messages, missed calls, battery level and weather. It also serves as the gateway to new features including Wireless Display to mirror what’s on the screen onto a compatible HDTV to play games, browse the web and share pictures on a big screen.
Taking a picture and sharing it is now as easy as shake, tap and swipe. Quick Capture lets users access the 10-megapixel camera by shaking the phone twice, then tapping anywhere on the screen to snap a pic or a selfie. Sharing with a friend or a group of friends nearby is simple with the DROID Zap feature. Swiping up on a picture instantly shares it with fellow new DROID owners nearby, all they need to do is swipe down on their screen to receive it.
Hands are full or messy? Wake up the DROID by saying “Ok Google Now” and then tell it what you want to do. And for those users who constantly lose their phone under the couch or around the house, they can simply say “Ok Google Now, call my DROID” and it will start ringing. And Active Notifications lets users preview messages and app alerts without waking their phone.
These Touchless Controls and Active Display let users make calls, send texts, get directions, play music, set a reminder and preview notifications hands-free without having to unlock the phone, giving DROID users a whole new way of interacting with their phones.
The first DROID launched in November 2009 and included features new at the time such as Google Maps Navigation. It was also the first smartphone to feature Android 2.0. The new trio of DROID devices continues to give innovative features.
DROID MINI: A compact design with an edge-to-edge 4.3-inch HD display and wireless charging capabilities.
DROID ULTRA: The thinnest 4G LTE smartphone available, measuring 7.18mm, and with a 5-inch HD display. The ULTRA will be available in Black and Red models.
DROID MAXX: Features wireless charging and a 3500mAh battery that gives users nearly two days of battery life on a single charge, making it the longest lasting 4G LTE smartphone available.
These DROID smartphones are made with DuPont Kevlar fiber unibody design and will be available for pre-order online starting today, July 23, at 1 p.m. ET. The DROID ULTRA and DROID MAXX will be available for purchase starting Aug. 20 and the DROID MINI will be available starting Aug. 29. The DROID MINI will be $99.99, the DROID ULTRA will be $199.99 and the DROID MAXX will be $299.99, all with a new two-year customer agreement.
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