Motorola Working on 4:3 Aspect Tablet with 2048 x 1536 Resolution

The R&D team at Motorola seems to be on to something big, at least they believe so. Fudzillahave received confirmation about the company hard at work on their next big tablet project, which is a bit different from the current herd. Motorola will go old school on this one by offering a 4:3 aspect ratio on a 10-inch slab of glass. Not only that, it will sport a crazy high 2048x1536 resolution, that’s higher than any HDTV or 24-inch PC monitor currently available. Could this be the next Xoom? Sources at Fudzilla apparently have had a go at the prototype and say that it will run Ice Cream Sandwich when it comes out which means we are looking at a Q4 or early 2012 announcement. There’s no telling why Motorola would go with a 4:3 aspect when the entire world has moved on to the wide screen format. Maybe they are taking a cue from Apple, I mean, it’s worked brilliantly for them so it’s worth a shot. No word on what hardware it will be packing but my guess would be either Nvidia’s Tegra 3 or AMD’s Fusion APU.

Mysterious Motorola Droid HD Reveals Itself...Accidentally

Could this be a mischievous prank or the real deal? We’ll only know for sure with time. PocketNow stumbled upon the EXIF data of some Flickr images that reveal a mysterious Motorola Droid HD. The photographs were taken somewhere in Libertyville, Illinois, where Motorola just happens to have a campus.

Real or fake?

Going by the name of the phone alone, it may just have an HD ready screen. This could make it better than the Retina Display on the iPhone 4 and even some qHD screens found on high end Android handsets. As far as we are aware, the next jump in screen resolution would come in the form of the Nexus 4G that would feature a 1280 x 720 resolution touch screen and will run Google’s Ice Cream Sandwich. For now, let’s just wait and watch.

Motorola XOOM Officially Hits India, Starting at Rs. 34,490

We recently reported that the XOOM was making its way to the Indian shores and now, well, it’s officially here. The world’s first Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) powered device has finally come to India. The Motorola XOOM is the latest entry in the tablet market here. Available in Wi-Fi and 3G variants, the XOOM comes packed with a 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core processor and 1 GB RAM making it one of the fastest tablets.

Finally here..

The XOOM boasts of an interactive, customizable home screen, complete with moveable widgets, tabbed browsing and notifications. The XOOM comes with a 10.1-inch touchscreen, which offers a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels. It also features a 2 mega pixel front-facing camera and a 5 mega pixel rear-facing camera, complete with 720p video recording capabilities. The tablet supports 1080p FullHD video playback, and an HDMI port. Additionally, the XOOM will also be available in 16GB and 32GB capacities upgradeable via micro SD cards.

Indian users will have the option to choose from the Wi-Fi and 3G versions, across handpicked stores in the country. The Wi-Fi version of the Motorola XOOM will be available to users for an MRP of Rs. 34,490 and the 3G version has an MRP of Rs. 41,490.

Unknown Motorola Smartphone Spotted

Now here’s something nice for Motorola enthusiasts. There’s a mystery device that’s been spotted, but unfortunately the angle from which the picture has been captured doesn’t reveal much of this smartphone.

What can it be?

The handset looks like it has a pretty large screen (possibly somewhere around 4+ inches) and if you can notice the faint horizontal seam, it might look like this is a QWERTY device but that can also make the display component a tad too slim. There’s an orange ribbon cable sticking from the left side of the handset which PocketNow says might be used to JTAG (Joint Test Action Group) the handset. JTAG is meant to test printed circuit boards.

Apart from that, the front panel doesn’t seem to have any physical buttons whatsoever. The capacitive buttons on a Motorola are usually visible even when not lit up, but as you can see that whole row doesn’t seem to be present. Now what exactly can Motorola be coming up with? We certainly hope it won’t be exclusive for the Western market only.

Motorola Defy Now Available for Rs. 15,000

Price cuts are in and it looks like the mid-range segment of smartphones is going to balloon with some really neat handsets. Only recently we saw the Nexus S’ price going down to Rs. 20,000 and we also have the Ideos X5 and Spice Mi-410 falling in the 15K price bracket. The latest to join the mid-range smartphone scene is the Motorola Defy.

Set to Defyne the mid-range segment...

The smartphone has been listed on Letsbuy.com for Rs. 15,000, and will be delivered at your doorstep within 4 working days. Maybe if you search around (online or in retail shops), it’s quite likely that you might find the handset being priced a little lower as well. At this price, the Defy certainly seems to be a good option. The smartphone’s USP of being rugged and water resistant is quite suitable for our weather conditions as well. Also, with the Defy getting a FroYo update, the deal gets a lot sweeter.

Since the Defy has seen such a price drop, we definitely hope to see more handsets in the Rs. 20K range coming down by a few thousands. Should it be the Samsung Galaxy SL I9003? Time will tell.

20 essential Android 3.0 tips and tricks

So you've bought an Android tablet and can't quite figure out how things work in this strange new desktop environment?

It's not like Windows, and doesn't spoon feed you like iOS, but Android 3.0 is amazingly powerful and highly customisable.
Here's our top 20 Android 3.0 tips to tune and tweak your tablet, and you won't have to root it to do a single one.
1. See the normal web (pt1)
Android's phone-based heritage means that many websites see it come and serve up mobile versions of their content that looks terrible on a 10inch screen. You can get around this by changing the way the Browser identifies itself - go to the Browser settings (in top right-hand corner of the screen) tap Advanced and change the 'User agent string' to desktop or tablet.

2. See the normal web (pt 2)
Not all tablets have the user agent option available. Acer's Iconia A500, for example, needs a bit of a hack. Open up the browser and type 'about:debug' into the address bar. Now when you go to Settings, you should see a menu for 'Debug' - the user agent switch is in here.
3. Speed up web browsing
The beauty of Android is that it can handle Flash-based web content. But websites with lots of interactive banner ads will still slow it down. Go to Browser > Settings > Advanced and change 'Enable plug-ins' to 'On demand'. Flash applications will appear as an arrow you must click to start them off.
4. Speed up your browser
Do web pages take ages to render, or does typing on the keyboard feel laggy when filling in web forms? Try opening up the Browser Debug menu in tip 2 and turning off OpenGL rendering. Success varies from site to site, but it can give you a bit of a boost.

5. Sync your bookmarks with your desktop
If you use Chrome as your desktop browser, one of the big advantages of Honeycomb is that you don't need an app like Xmarks to sync your bookmarks. It's all done via Google's sync tools, hidden on Preferences > Personal Stuff on the desktop version of Chrome and Settings > General in Honeycomb's browser.
6. Get the 3.1 browser
Fire up the browser and go to Settings > Labs and you'll notice an option for 'Quick Controls'. This gives you a little thumbwheel at the side of the page for navigation and will be turned on as standard in the next update.
7. Make your own wallpaper
All 10-inch Android tablets so far have a screen resolution of 1280x800, but with Android's Holographic UI and its swipe-able homepages, the background image has to be bigger than the visible area. You can use the in-built cropping tool to create your own desktops, but if you're preparing a pic for others the ideal resolution is 1920x1408.
8. Take control of your desktop PC
Want to get at your Windows apps while you're on the go? Asus' Transformer ships with a skinned version of Splashtop's remote access client, and it works brilliantly on a Honeycomb tablet. You can get it on other tablets from the market; just download the server to your PC at home from Splashtop.

9. Encrypt your data
One of Honeycomb's killer features for business users is the ability to encrypt the built-in storage, so if someone takes off with your tablet they can't pull your data off the hard drive. You'll need to fully charge your battery and set a password or pin number to the lock screen, then go to Settings > Location and Security.
10. Find network shares
Android's built-in File Manager is OK, so long as you can wrap your head around Linux's unusual way of structuring its hard disk, but for some reason Google decided the ability to browse shared folders on your network was an optional extra. Download File Expert from the Market instead.
11. Get a browser with plug-ins
Look, this isn't a phone, alright? Your tablet is more than capable of handling browser plug-ins like LastPass and Xmarks for easy net navigation, but the default browser can't do it. Get Dolphin HD from the Market.
12. Filter the apps menu
Hunting for a particular app and don't know where you installed it? You may not have spotted this, but if you open up the full list of installed apps by touching the menu button in the top right of the desktop, there's an option to show 'All' or 'Downloaded' at the top of the screen.

13. Transfer files in MacOS or Linux
A baffling design choice in Honeycomb was to use the Microsoft MTP protocol for connecting via the USB lead. What does that mean? If you plug a tablet into a Mac or Linux machine, you can't browse its hard drive. Either get the File Transfer Utility (for MacOSX) or the Android SDK for Linux.
14. Search by voice
Another shortcut you may not have noticed is the microphone icon next to the search bar on the main homepage. This opens up Google's Voice Actions, which lets you control your tablet or search the net without using your hands.
15. Quicklink to Dropbox folders
Got the Dropbox app? Of course you have. Did you know you can create quicklinks to your online folders on the Honeycomb desktop though? Tap and hold the desktop to bring up the customisation screen and scroll right to 'More'. You'll find the icon in here - it vastly speeds up working with files if you don't have to open up a separate app first.
16. Make your battery last longer
Go to Settings > Wireless & Networks > Wireless Settings > WiFi Sleep Policy, and change it to 'When screen turns off'. That'll disconnect the wireless antenna while the tablet is in standby: you won't get new email alerts, but your battery will last for days.

17. Add folders to your desktop
Why did Google remove the ability to create desktop folders for apps in Honeycomb? It's there in Froyo et al. Must be because they thought five huge homescreens was enough space - but it's not. Get Smart Shortcuts from the Market and organise your workspace the way you want.
18. Use your phone as a modem
There's some confusion over whether or not Honeycomb supports tethering in the normal manner. The good news is that yes, it does. Go into Settings > Wireless & Networks > Bluetooth turn on Bluetooth and pair it with your phone. Now click the spanner icon next to the phone's name in the list there, and you'll find an option for internet tethering.
19. Uninstall apps the easy way
If you've used Android before, you might recall that uninstalling apps is a bit of a laborious trawl through the settings menu to find the right control panel. In Honeycomb, just open up the full launcher, hten drag and drop app icons to the trash can to fully remove them.
20. Encode video the right way
A lot of fuss has been made about Tegra 2's ability to decode HD video, but the truth is that Honeycomb and Tegra aren't as well matched as they could be for accelerated playback. If you're going to copy videos over to your tablet, re-encode them using Handbrake and the settings shown here.

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Motorola Quench XT5 - Won't Leave you Thirsty

Motorola is aiming to be Android top dog and to achieve that takes not only awesome high-end smartphones like the Atrixes, but also phones that take potential buyers’ wallets into consideration. This resulted in the Quench XT5, a phone that takes on the LG Optimus One P500 and the Samsung Galaxy 3. We clearly liked both of the aforementioned devices, so the XT5 has quite the task ahead of it. Let’s find out just how well it fares, shall we?

Design
The candybar XT5 just screams cool the moment you lay eyes on it. The exterior is mostly comprised of a matte black finish, with a dash of chrome thrown in for good measure on the rims. The front is mostly glossy and it houses the 320x480 3.2-inch Gorilla Glass encased display, which is pretty high quality for the resolution it runs at. Below the display lies the four generic touch-sensitive keys, but Motorola have also included call answer/end keys, as well as a trackball below that. The power button and the 3.5mm audio jack are on top, a flapped micro-USB port is on the left and the right houses the volume rocker and the click button used for the 5 megapixel fixed focus camera which is located on the back. The Motorola logo also doesn’t take up the usual spot centered above the display, but is instead positioned on the top left, which is pretty cool if you ask me.

Well designed and built

The phone doesn’t feel rugged but it does feel extremely solidly built. It’s not bulky either, which is a bonus as a solid light phone is pretty hard to come across these days. Overall, the XT5’s design gets a major thumbs up.

Features and Performance
Interface
The XT5 is powered by a Qualcomm MSM7227 processor, which is clocked at 600MHz, and comes with stock Android 2.1 Eclair. Eclair’s a bit of a bummer, not by itself, but simply because the Optimus One ships with FroYo out of the box, and even the perennially slow Samsung have announced a FroYo update for the Galaxy 3. Motorola on the other hand, are being rather defiant about updating their phones, and there’s no news on if/when the XT will get an OS update.

One might expect the 600MHz processor to cause a performance bottleneck, but contrary to expectations, the XT5 performs admirably. The touchscreen, even when using multi-touch, is responsive and there’s minimal to no lag present and even that only shows up when the phone’s undergoing heavy multi-tasking. The accelerometer is also quite responsive and it recognizes tilts quickly and accurately.

Performs pretty well, too!

The call answer/end buttons are a bit of a headscratcher. While the OS can be configured to allow those buttons to activate the display (it’s not enabled by default), the call end button doesn’t take you back to the home screen. It’s not a dealbreaker by any means, but I would have liked to have at least an option that enabled that function. The clickable trackball, on the other hand, works fine and is a real help while browsing the web.

There are three different keyboard layouts for text input, which can be changed at will by swiping over them. These include the standard QWERTY layout, the numeric keypad and even a half-QWERTY keypad. The keys are well spaced out, especially in landscape mode, so typing isn’t much of a hassle.

Media
The video player on the XT5 is decent, as its augmented by a pretty good screen. It only plays files of resolutions of up to 640x480 (640x360 for 16:9 videos), but the codec support is pretty good, with DivX and H264 both supported.

Where the Quench surprisingly shines is the music department. The DAC is high-grade stuff for a phone in this budget range and sounds better than most PMPs – it’s loud enough and provides a decent soundstage with good bass and treble levels. Of course, the problem that music players on most Android Phones have – complete lack of EQ Settings – returns, but a quick install of any of the third-party music players available on the Android Market will unlock the true potential of the XT5’s DAC.

Jack it in

The bundled handsfree is of an earbud design so it could be either a good or a bad thing, depending on your preference, but they are built decently and sound decent too. They’re obviously no match for a good pair of earphones, but as bundled handsfrees go they’re fantastic.
Connectivity
The Quench XT5 is 3G enabled, HSDPA even, along with the other standard connectivity options like EDGE and GPRS. WiFi and Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP is also included.

On the software front, the phone comes pre-loaded with Gtalk, MySpace and Facebook apps, you’ll have to get the Twitter app yourself. E-mail support includes your standard POP/IMAP accounts, along with Gmail.

The phone ships with GPS, a-GPS support and even has a GPS tracker that, as the name gives away, tracks your movements if you enable it. This is in addition to the pre-loaded Google Maps app.

Misc. Features
There are quite a few handy tools thrown onto the XT5. There’s Documents-to-go, a notepad, a file browser and an RSS reader. Being a stock OS, it also has access to virtually every application on the Android Market.

Camera
The 5 megapixel fixed focus camera comes with a bunch of options. There are options to change the white balance, colour effects and even parameters such as sharpness, contrast and saturation.

Click to Enlarge

As for performance, the camera doesn’t do dim lighting very well but the well-lit pictures are pretty decent.

Click to Enlarge

Battery
The 1270mAh battery manages to hold its own against the XT5, providing talktime of about five hours on an average. Off a full charge, it lasted for around two days with regular usage which includes WiFi, music, videos and calls and three days with light usage, so I’d say that’s pretty impressive.

Of course, the functionality of the auto-brightness feature goes a long way to help this. However, the phone lasted that long without any app killers or battery saver apps, so one could probably go even higher with those installed.

Verdict
The Motorola Quench XT5, which is available at some places for Rs. 13,000, is quite the sleeper hit. The OS is smooth as butter, music playback is excellent and the Gorilla Glass-encased display ensures scratches don’t affect your viewing experience. Add to that the quality build and the good battery life and the XT5 becomes a fantastic mid-range Android option.
                                              Specifications

Display
Form Factor	Bar
Screen Resolution	320 x 480
Number of Colours	262k
Type
Input Type	Touchscreen
Screen
Screen Type	TFT
Screen Size	3.2
Hardware
Processor	ARM 11
Speed	600 MHz
Memory
Internal	256
Maximum capacity	32
Extendable Memory	Yes
Memory Type	microSD
Resolution
Sensor Resolution	5 MP
Camera Features
Resolution	2592 x 1944
Optical zoom	No Information
Video resolution / frame rate	320x480 / 15 fps
Front facing camera	No Information
Video Recorder	Yes
Zoom
Digital Zoom	No Information
Sound
Speakerphone	Yes
Audio connector	3.5mm
Audio Features
FM Radio	No
Connectivity
Infrared	No
2G	SM 850/900/1800/1900
3G	WCDMA 850/1900/2100
A2DP	Yes
Dual Sim Support	No
WAP Enabled	No Information
Interface
WiFi	Yes
Connection Options
USB Connector	Yes
EGPRS or EDGE	Yes
GPRS	Yes
Software
OS	Android
Version	2.1
Type of Camera
Type
Battery
Type	Li-Po
Capacity	1270
Talk Time with Standard Battery	390
Standby Time with Standard Battery	545
Dimensions	56.8 x 114.9 x 12.6
Weight	114
Multimedia
Music Player	Yes
Music Format	MP3, H.263, H.264, MPEG-4, WAV, AAC, MIDI, AMR NB, AAC+
Email and Messaging
Email Client	Yes
Type of Email Account Support	POP3/IMAP embedded, Google Mail
Additional Features
MMS	Yes
Dual Band	Yes
Tri Band	No Information
GPS	Yes
Java Type	No Information
Network
Quad Band	No Information
Type
Sound Settings
Ringtone Type	MP3, WAV
Volume
Volume
More Features
Unique Feature
After Sales Service
Warranty Period	1