Motorola Droid Bionic is a powerful, sleek and fast smartphone that offers nice sleek and slim design, 4.3 inch qHD screen, double whammy of dual core processor, Verizon 4G LTE support, assortment of business and entertainment features, high definition 1080p video capture, plethora of compatible accessories and stylish form factor. High resolution on Bionic’s large 4.3 inch capacitive touchscreen display is the perfect way to blow away boredom. It is the first 4G LTE dual core smartphone of Verizon that turns minutes into seconds by downloading, browsing, multitasking and streaming at speeds up to 10x faster as compared to 3G. One of the extensive and exquisite features found in this model is the ZumoCast application, which allows you to stream, view or download content from your work or home PC.

The Motorola Droid Bionic is a 4G LTE Android based smartphone, which is designed and developed by Motorola Company. It was formerly scheduled to be revealed in second quarter of 2011, but was delayed till September 2011. The Droid Bionic was launched at 2011 Consumer Electronics Show with Motorola CLIQ 2, Motorola Atrix 4G and Motorola Xoom. It includes 4G LTE, front facing camera capable of Video chat, Wi-Fi, eight-megapixel low light capable camera with 1080p high definition video capture, HDMI output, GPS, 1GHz OMAP dual core processor, 3G/4G hotspot capability and 4.3 inch qHD display. Its sleek design, powerful processor and high end features will please both business users and consumers.

With its dual core processor, 4.3 inch capacitive touchscreen, Verizon LTE speeds, high definition video recording and HDMI port, the Motorola Droid Bionic is a revolutionary smartphone in plenty of ways. Since its introduction, plenty other dual core smartphones have been introduces including Droid X2 of Motorola and T-Mobile G2X. The all new Droid Bionic is sleeker and slimmer and surely more polished. You will find these features on Motorola Photon 4G and Atrix models as well, but you will like its multimedia abilities, powerful Webtop application, which helps turn the phone into portable computer and enterprise friendly applications. The Droid Bionic is available for the price of $299.99 with two-year agreement with Verizon Wireless.

The Motorola Droid Bionic measures five inches long, 0.43 inch thick and 2.63 inches wide, which means it is the slimmest LTE smartphone in the lineup. The glass on the screen goes from edge to edge with slight curve at side resulting in sleek and smooth appearance. The understated chin and metallic housing provide a polished look to the handset. Its 4.3 inch qHD display is identical to that of Droid 3, which is quite colorful, crisp and clear, offering sharp 960 x 540 pixel resolution and vibrant graphics. The Droid Bionic features a Corning Gorilla Glass that boasts dual layer anti-reflective coating. Its 1GHz dual core processor is faster as compared to before.

The Motorola Droid Bionic gets a scaled down version of Motoblur with social networking connected gallery and widgets. The main menu remains the same with side to side navigation instead of vertical default. Underneath the screen, you will find four Android shortcuts for search, menu, back and home functions. The volume rocker button is located on the right hand side of the device, while the micro HDMI and micro USB port on the left. The screen lock/power key and 3.5mm headphone jack is on the top of the smartphone, while the front facing VGA camera above the screen as notification LED. At the back, you will find a camera with single LED flash.

The Motorola Droid Bionic comes packed with AC adapter, reference material and USB cable. You can also buy various accessories to take the benefit of Webtop application of Droid Bionic: laptop dock, Webtop adapter and HD station. The laptop dock is a complete package that fuses keyboard and screen with few USB ports, while the HD station allows you to charge handset and gets quite a few USB ports with Bluetooth functionality. The Webtop adapter can be used with Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. It combines two speedy technologies in one complete package dual core processor and 4G LTE of Verizon. It comes packed with HTML5 support along with full Adobe Flash support. Some of the connectivity options include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS. It also allows you to use mobile hotspot for up to 5 different gadgets with activation of Mobile Broadband plan.

Other features on Motorola Droid Bionic include speakerphone, multimedia and text messaging, speed dial, Skype Mobile, voice commands and conference calling. It gets an eight-megapixel camera with single LED flash and offers tack sharp images with excellent color accuracy. It offers 16GB internal memory and ships with 16GB microSD card. Powering the Droid Bionic is an Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread operating system, which means it provides advantages like great multitouch virtual keyboard. Some of the Google mobile services include Gmail, Google Search with voice, Google Maps Navigation, Latitude, YouTube, Places, Google Talk and Books. It is well-suited with Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, which means it allows you to sync corporate email, calendars and tasks.

The Motorola Droid Bionic is preloaded with plenty of applications and software, which include Quickoffice Suite, the Amazon Kindle application for VideoSurf, Blockbuster, Android and Slacker. As it is a Verizon smartphone, the Droid Bionic comes with plenty of Verizon service applications including V Cast Music, VZ Navigator, Videos, Media Manager and Tones. Standard features on Droid Bionic include 2G Network: CDMA 800 / 1900; 3G Network: CDMA2000 1xEV-DO / LTE; 4.3 inch TFT capacitive touchscreen that boasts 16 million colors and 540 x 960 pixel resolution; Multi-touch input method; Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate; Proximity sensor for auto turn-off; Touch-sensitive controls; Vibration; MP3, WAV ringtones; 16 GB storage, 1 GB RAM, 2 GB ROM; microSD, up to 32 GB, 16 GB included and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot.

The Motorola Droid Bionic is also equipped with Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP and EDR; 8 megapixel camera with 3264×2448 pixels, autofocus and dual-LED flash; Geo-tagging, face detection, image stabilization; Android OS, v2.3.4 (Gingerbread) operating system; Dual-core 1GHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor, ULP GeForce GPU, Tegra 2 AP20H chipset; SMS (threaded view), MMS, Email, IM, Push Email; GPS with A-GPS support; Digital compass; SNS integration; Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic; HDMI port; MP4/WMV/H.263/H.264 player; MP3/WAV/WMA/AAC+ player; Google Search, Gmail, Maps, Google Talk and YouTube; Document viewer; Photo viewer/editor; Organizer and Adobe Flash 10.1.

Also standard on Motorola Droid Bionic are Voice memo/dial/commands; Predictive text input (Swype); image editing tools: Cropping, rotating, Geo Tagging, brightness, color, enhance, flip, resizing, and effects; EMAIL4: Corporate Sync, Google Mail, Push Email, Yahoo Mail; Bluetooth technology5: AVRCP, A2DP, GAVDP, GAP, HFP, GOEP, HSP, HID, OPP, MAP, PBAP, PAN and SPP; caller ID; automatic redial; call waiting; conference calling; google services: Gmail, Google calendar, Google contact sync, Google latitude, Google maps street view, Google maps, Google maps navigation, Google quick search box, Google talk, Google ebooks, Google search by voice and YouTube; light-responsive display; keypad lock; haptic feedback; dedicated keys: back, volume control, menu, search, home and power/lock; backlight; pinch to zoom; touch screen; virtual keyboard; voice commands; calculator and calendar. The estimated battery life of Droid Bionic is 10.4 days in standby mode and 10.8 hours in talktime mode. Overall, it is an exceptional choice for those who are in the market looking for a smartphone with enterprise friendly features and great multimedia capabilities.

The Motorola Titanium features an identical candy bar silhouette like Motorola XPRT and Motorola Droid Pro with vertical keyboard and huge touchscreen display. It is particularly more rugged as compared to other two and like other Nextel cellphones; it is developed tough and is engineered for meeting Military Specification 810G for low and high temperatures, dust, solar radiation, shock, low pressure and vibration. The Titanium is slightly heavier as compared to previous models, measuring 4.71 inches tall, 0.53 inch deep and 2.44 inches wide. It looks similar to Motorola XPRT and Droid Pro and features a 3.1 inch capacitive and resistive touchscreen display that boasts 320 x 480 pixel resolution and 16 million colors. However, the screen isn’t that sharp like AMOLED or WVGA displays, but the text is legible and crisp and graphics are colorful and bright.

The Motorola Titanium’s screen also comes with built in proximity sensor, pinch to zoom functionality and accelerometer. It is equipped with understated and simple shortcuts at the bottom for phone dialer, contacts and menu. It allows you to tailor the home screen with wide array of widgets of Motorola for One Touch DC, Airplane Mode, Direct Talk, Bluetooth Toggle, Data Sync, Wi-Fi Toggle and more. Beneath the screen, you will find five different physical buttons for Send, Power/End, Menu, Back and Home keys, and just underneath that is a four-row QWERTY keyboard, which is similar to BlackBerry Bold. The keys are sloped towards the middle and rectangular for easier typing. On the left hand side of the device you will find a large push-to-talk and volume rocker button, while the micro USB port and camera key on the right. The small LED indicator is on the upper left of screen.

The speakerphone keys, screen lock keys and 3.5mm headphone jack is located on the top of Motorola Titanium, while the flash and camera at the back. As it features Android 2.1, so you won’t get plenty of sophisticated features like application sharing, voice dialing over Bluetooth, Flash support, application storage on microSD, Facebook Syncing and more. However, it comes with solid compatibility of services and applications of Google including Gmail, YouTube, Maps, Voice Search, Latitude and Google Talk. Some of the exquisite features found on this model are corporate email support, POP3 and IMAP4. Some of the basic features include calendar, file manager, alarm clock, multimedia and text messaging, voice recorder and more.

The Motorola Titanium comes preloaded with applications of Sprint and Motorola including Facebook, Direct Talk, a push-to-talk functionality, Twitter, Nuance voice control, NASCAR, Quick Office, Sprint Football Live, Sprint Zone and TeleNav. You will also find couple of push-to-talk features such as Group Connect, NextMail, voice message to email system, International Direct Connect, Group messaging and Direct Send.

Standard features on Motorola Titanium include BlackBerry-style QWERTY keyboard, Document Viewer Supported formats: Office 2003, Office 2007 and PDF; 3.1 inch touchscreen capacitive display, Screen Lock, Remote Data Wipe; Military Specification chassis resilient to shock, dust, low pressure, vibration, high temperature, solar radiation and low temperature; Compass; 5 megapixel camera with camcorder, 2592 X 1544 pixels, Auto Focus; LED Flash and 4x Zoom; Facebook, YouTube, Twitter; Push to Talk support; Google Voice Search, G-Mail, G-Talk; GPS navigation; Android market, Adobe Flash Player 10.1.

Also standard on Motorola Titanium are 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi; Google Maps navigation; 2GB card inserted; Audio Formats: MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AU, WMA, MIDI, Ogg Vorbis; microSD card slot for memory expansion up to 32GB; Video Formats: MPEG4, H.263, H.264, WMV; powered by Li-Ion 1800mAh battery; built in GPS with A-GPS; iDEN: 800, 900 MHz; Browser & Messaging: HTML, SMS, MMS, Push Email and Email; accelerometer Sensor For Auto UI Rotate; 512MB Internal Memory; Android 2.1 Éclair operating system and 1GHz Processor. The estimated battery life of Titanium is 9.8 days in standby mode and 6.8 hours in talktime mode. Overall it is one of the most sophisticated iDEN smartphones that comes with corporate email support, great keyboard and military certified durability.

Motorola V8 Luxury is the successor to Razr V3 which sold really well in the market for three years. This phone is also called Motorola RAZR2 V8. It comes with a full metal jacket along with gradating dark pearl gray hues. This phone is made for fashion enthusiasts and certainly makes a good first impression. The phone has two high quality screens having QVGA resolution along with GSM quad band support, stereo Bluetooth and 2 megapixels camera. This cellphone delivers both style and functionality. The luxury edition of this phone has gold plated body along with soft back that is snake like. People who drool on exotic glamour will certainly drool on the design.

The silhouette of Motorola V8 Luxury is graceful and my favorite feature of this handset is the mere 11.9 mm thickness. It is really impressive considering that it is a clamshell phone. Rounded edges and clean shape makes the slim phone look quite solid.

I was pleased with the solid feel and the ergonomics of the phone. The dimensions and shape make it quite good for talking. But there is one minor flaw which needs to be noted. There is no recess to open the flap smoothly with one finger. What’s more, my fingers slipped a lot on the metal polished casing of the phone. Mechanism of folding works really well. The hinge folds softly and ensures smooth opening too.

Motorola V8 Luxury is a handset with dual displays and the outer display is big enough. This is a bit rare, most of the dual display phones that I get in my labs have small external screens. In fact, I am hesitating to call it secondary as the difference between the screens is just 0.2 inches diagonally. The color legibility and rendering under the direct sunlight is really great. Also noteworthy here is that both the screens have same source of backlighting. But only the internal screen can be customized and you cannot adjust the brightness for the external display.

Motorola Z6c is a dual band cell phone that uses Verizon Wireless CDMA network when you are in US and when you are traveling abroad, it uses the GSM network of that country. This is a good idea if you are traveling abroad frequently.

The camera of this phone is located on the rear face but I was disappointed to see that there wasn’t flash or self-portrait mirror. Controls on the sides include volume rocker and Motorola smart key on left and on the right spine, you have microUSB port, handset lock button and voice dialing button. I was disappointed to see that the manufacturer moved the memory card slot behind the battery cover. You will have to dig inside every time you want to access the memory card. The SIM card slot is located behind the phone’s battery and it is for the GSM networks.

Motorola and Verizon have given a lot of accessories in the box of this phone. There are electrical outlet adapter for UK, Australia and Europe. Motorola Z6c is made for use outside North America and hence inclusion of these adapters is really good. There is also an adapter for plugging in to the 2.5 mm headphones jack but you will have to buy the headphones separately.

Motorola Z6c has a 1,000 memory contact book and a single entry can store multiple phone numbers, notes, and multiple e-mail addresses. The callers can be saved to groups and you can pair them up with photos for the caller ID feature. There are 11 polyphonic ringtones and you can assign one to particular contact. Features worth mentioning here include vibrate mode, multimedia and text messaging, speakerphone, voice recorder, calculator, call timers, calendar, alarm clock, notepad, and world clock. Advanced features here include USB mass storage, e-mail, instant messaging, stereo Bluetooth, and voice commands.

The biggest highlight on the Motorola Z6c is the dual mode GSM/CDMA support. You can use this phone in both US and other countries. CDMA networks are available in about 22 other countries and you can use them there but otherwise, you will need to be on GSM.

The global broad coverage is a big benefit to people who have a well-stamped passport but there are some catches just like everything else from this carrier. It has support for only 1800 and 900 GSM bands and you won’t be able to use the US or Canada GSM networks.

Below the display, there is a five way selection button with 4 application keys including the standard call/hang up options. On the top, there is a 3.5 mm headphones jack which is nice and you can put any standard headphones on the device for grooving to music.

Motorola ROKR E6 is a tri-band phone and there is no HSDPA or 3G. This will certainly disappoint smartphone enthusiasts especially looking at the business features of the phone. Also noteworthy is that the phone is running Linux instead of Windows Mobile. Due to this, the phone doesn’t support a wide range of application most notably Excel or Word. What you do get is built-in business card reader through the two megapixel camera located on the back. The device has support for Bluetooth and it includes A2DP so you can listen to music wirelessly but there is no Wi-Fi.

For multimedia enthusiasts, the Motorola ROKR E6 has RealPlayer and the card slot supports SD cards of up to 2 GB. This is plenty of space for storing music, data, videos and photos on the phone. File transfers is done through USB and the phone battery starts charging when you connect it to a computer. I had this phone in my labs for a week and found that it was a OK for general use but a bit sluggish even while answering the calls.

Applications too run a bit slow and this is a deal breaker for heavy business users. The business card scanning works well but I found it a bit too fiddly for the real-world applications. When I first heard of this feature, I thought it would quickly take snapshot of the Bcard on the fly but instead, I had to fiddle with the macro settings and the hands too had to be held still for getting acceptable image. The Motorola ROKR E6 screen is bright and nice and it is pretty enjoyable to use as a basic multimedia phone. However, I must say that there are better multimedia phones out there.

The Motorola Grasp share uncanny similarities with the BlackBerry. Both have the same candy bar design with curved corners and full QWERTY keyboard. You also have an optical trackpad. Inspect closer and you will notice the differences. The handset is 0.51 inch thick, 2.4 inches wide, and 3.7 inches long. This device is thicker and shorter as compared to most of the BlackBerrys. The plastic shell also makes it look a bit cheap.

The design of the Motorola Grasp has a few problems. The keyboard and display are placed towards the right side of the phone. It doesn’t affect the usablity much but I thought it made the phone look askew. The company must be praised for keeping this phone free from pollutant materials and the manufacturer says that this handset is 100 percent recyclable if you want to get rid of it.

The Motorola Grasp’s display too is pretty small at 2.2 inches. The resolution is pretty low at 220×176 pixels with support for just 65k colors which leaves a lot to be desired. The graphics look pretty lackluster and the text too is not as smooth as I’d have liked. You can change the menu font size, main menu layout, clock format, brightness and backlight.

Beneath the Motorola Grasp’s display, there is an optical trackpad, two skinny soft butons, send key, back key, messaging key and end/power button. The optical trackpad is pretty similar to that of the BlackBerry handsets.  It is responsive and nice but is a bit crowded with the buttons placed too close to each other. Below the full QWERTY keyboard, there is a discrete camera button. The buttons are adequately raised above the surface of the phone and the curve dome shape is similar to the Motorola Charm’s buttons. Typing was easy and there were not much errors. The buttons are a bit stiff to press and this slowed me down a bit.

On the Motorola Grasp’s left, there is a speakerphone button and volume rocker. On the right, there is the voice command key. The keyguard lock and the 3.5 mm headphones jack is located on the top and the camera lens sits behind the phone. The microSD card is inconveniently located behind the battery cover.

The rule is that messaging phones are sliders are boxier than this, so to hear of one that was designed as a clamshell was puzzling and interesting. These phones are oddities and rarities but the Rambler tries to make the most of this by being rectangular and stretching things out as much as it can. Head-on, it looks reasonably compact but its when you lay it on its side that you realize its girth. This makes holding it within your hand an odd affair since it ends up feeling distinctly out of place thanks to its size and QWERTY keyboard.

Like many clamshells, it has a 1.6 inch external display which is colorful and shows the usual indicators such as battery and signal strength plus the date and time. This also acts as a means to see Caller ID easily and if you look just above this little display you’ll notice the camera lens sitting quietly. If you’re particularly narcissistic, you can use the external display as a viewfinder to take your own photographs. Located on the left are the volume rockers, external speakers and MiniUSB charger jack, while to the right you will find the voice command key and 2.5mm headset jack.

The hinge on the Rambler is sturdy, maybe too sturdy. It makes one handed operation a bit impossible unless you’re the Hulk but it does click into place nicely which is a sign of quality craftsmanship. The larger 2.2 inch display is located on the inside of the phone but the display itself lets it down with a 65k color display offering an underwhelming 176×220-pixel resolution. With so many new mobile interfaces out in the wild, this iteration of Motorola’s interface seems Jurassic with chunky text and dated graphics greeting your every move. It’s a stark reminder of how different this phone is from the more intelligent of Motorola’s breed. Navigation is done by the usual soft key plus a four way directional keypad with an oversized central key. If you so wish, you can the directional keypad to four shortcuts of your choice.

The keypad is well stocked with options, but it’s all laid together so tight as to make it seem akin to Sardines in a tin can, which brings us to the QWERTY keypad. The keys are nicely raised but the overwhelming feeling is that the keyboard is just a bit low on space due to the slim body of the phone and this carries on to the keys itself, too narrow for almost anyone with human fingers unless you slow down typing considerably. There’s no issues with dialing, but text entry is impaired and given the fact this is a messaging phone, that comes as a disappointment.

The 1.3 Megapixel camera too shows its age, and it may have settings such as a self-timer, picture frames, brightness and white balance presets, but it is of no use when picture quality is sub-par. Colors were faded and tired and video didn’t perform much better, with size limited to four lengths: 2 minutes, 5 minutes, fitting it to memory, or fitting it to an MMS. There’s no card slot available, so you’re limited to the phone’s 256MB memory limit. All in all, the Rambler offers up some good features but is let down by poor ergonomics and a disappointing camera.

There is a shortcut bar having a collection of shortcuts for the applications that you use the most on the phone. For moving through this bar, you just have to press the right and left direction buttons. Beneath the display, there is a navigation array which consists of the four way navigation toggle with OK button in the middle, two soft keys, music and Talk/End buttons. I didn’t have a good experience with these buttons, they were a bit spongy and pressing them wasn’t difficult.

On the Motorola Debut i856’s left side, there is the charger jack, the aforementioned push-to-talk button, volume rocker and the speaker key. On the right, there is a 3.5 mm headphones jack. I was glad that the manufacturer put in a 3.5 mm phone jack; you can connect any standard headphones on this jack. The phone has slider interface and for accessing the numeric keyboard, you just have to slide the phone up. Typing on this keyboard was not comfortable even though there was a plenty of spacing between the keys. The keys felt squishy just like the buttons on the navigation array. I didn’t have mishits but the keypad didn’t register my presses occasionally and it was quite frustrating. I won’t recommend this phone for people who lack patience.

Motorola Debut i856 has a 1.3 megapixel camera and it is located behind the slider. You will have to open the phone everytime to access the camera. I don’t mind this much but I was concerned about the low resolution of camera. I usually trash even 2 megapixel cameras on phones and was crestfallen to see that this device had a poorer resolution of 1.3 MP. The camera can also record video. Both the photos and videos are poor in quality. The memory card is located inconveniently behind the battery cover and you will have to open it everytime to swap cards. I would have liked it somewhere on the sides or bottom like the Nokia N73.

Features on the Motorola Debut i856 include the Push-To-Talk and there is also a good collection of messaging features and music player for grooving to your tunes when you are on the move. The cost of this phone is $170 but you don’t have to sign any service agreement with the service provider.

Intuitive and responsive capacitive touch screen, decent call quality, rugged build.

Against:

Currently runs on Android OS 1.5 which is quite dated, if you are not using Wi-Fi, you are stuck with Opera Mini. The photo quality is not that good for a 5 MP camera

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

Motorola i1 runs on iDEN (900/800 MHz) network, it is 4.65 x 2.28 x 0.50 inches (118 x 58 x 12.8 mm) and weighs about 4.62 oz (131 grams). The phone is powered by a 1400 mAh battery. The rated talk time is 3.5 hours an the standby time is 100 hours. The display is 3.1 inches big and has a resolution of 320×480 pixels with 262k color support.

The Motorola i1 has a five megapixel camera with features like Auto focus, Flash: LED, Digital zoom, White balance, Geo tagging, Panorama and Effects. It captures video too, at maximum resolution of 352×288 pixels. Supported video formats are RealVideo 10, H.263, MPEG4, H.264, RealVideo 8, WMV, RealVideo 9. Supported music formats are MP3, WMA, AAC, MIDI, WAV. The phone has microSD/microSDHC card slot with built in memory of 256 MB. The device is based on Android 1.5 OS and the phone is powered by Freescale Zeus 2.0 ARM1136, 500 MHz processor. There is 512 MB ROM and 256 MB RAM. For internet, there is Flash Lite and Opera Mini 5.0, HTML. Wi-Fi options include 802.11b/g. There is 2.0 stereo Bluetooth and a 3.5 mm headphones jack. PIM features include Calendar, Alarm, Calculator, Tasks/To-Do and World Clock.

Phone book capacity depends on phone memory and there are features like Picture ID, Ring ID, Multiple numbers per contact, Search by first/last name and Caller groups. Email features include POP3, IMAP, Microsoft Exchange, SMTP, Push e-mail. Voice features include Recording, Commands, Push-to-Talk, and Speaker Phone. There is also GPS on the phone.

Razzle Dazzle:

The handset is made for rugged use and that explains the hard plastic and rubber casing all around it. The phone feels very sturdy and it will certainly survive accidents. This device is 4.65 inches long, 0.5 inch thick, 2.34 inches wide and weighs about 4.63 ounces which is quite light. On the back, there is a soft touch surface and the handset feels quite comfortable in the hand.

Inside Dope:

When it comes to prepaid phones, we usually assume that they are going to be simple low end handsets with barebone features. But we were pleasantly surprised when we saw the Motorola i1. This device is available with prepaid carriers. For Boost Mobile, this is the first phone based on Google Android and this is also the first Google Android phone to run on the Nextel’s iDEN network. The phone has a touch screen display but it still feels pretty rugged. It is the only Android device in the market which supports push-to-talk. There are a few disappointments though, this phone is running on Android 1.5 which is an outdated version and iDEN network’s speeds are not fast enough. Motorola may give software updates in the near future so things are not that bad as they look. We wont say that this is the best Anroid phone ever but you certainly won’t get a better handset in the market if you are a iDEN fan. This phone costs $349.99 which is a lot of money but you don’t have any contract obligations.

Rugged design

Some of the ports and buttons of the Motorola i1 have rubber surfaces and this is done to minimize the water damage. Motorola says that this device is military certified and it withstands solar radiation, humidity, salt fog, low pressure, extreme temperatures, vibration, shock, dust and rain. It cannot survive in a swimming pool so we won’t recommend you carrying it under water.

Display

Motorola i1 has a 3.1 inch HVGA screen which dominates the front face. You get a resolution of 320×240 pixels with 262k color support. This screen has a capacitive touch screen technology so scrolling feels as smooth as the iPhone. The screen responded quite well to our taps and we didn’t have to apply much pressure. You can change the brightness, screen time out, vibration feed back and orientation sensor.

Navigation array and keyboard

The phone dialer on the Motorola i1 is similar to other Android devices. You have both standard virtual keyboard and Swype method for entering the text. For the latter, you just have to drag your finger on the keyboard; point at the letters that you want and the phone does the rest. We don’t like the Swype method much but you might think other wise.

Beneath the display, there are buttons for speaker phone, back key, home screen and pop-up menu hot keys. There are also the physical buttons for Send and Power/End functions but it is a bit skinny. In the center, there is a five way D pad which can be used as an alternative to the touch screen,

Dated OS

Motorola i1 is based on Android version 1.5 which is a bit old and you don’t get the goodies for Android 2.1 or 1.6. Motorola says that they deliberately put in the old OS since it was known for its stability and the company wanted the first iDen Android handset to be really solid. Motorola say they are offering over-the-air upgrades so you can upgrade it when you want.

Applications

Google and Android is a marriage made in heaven and this is reflected in the Motorola i1 too. The i1 has apps for YouTube, Google Maps, Google Talk and Gmail. We tried accessing other e-mail accounts on the phone and had no problems. Microsoft Exchange Server synced quite quickly too. For non-Gmail e-mails, there is a universal in-box and the phone integrates all the appointments in to a single calendar.

Web browser

The Motorola i1′s default browser is Opera Mini 5 and not Android Webkit browser which is a bit surprising. Maybe this is done to combat iDEN’s network which is a bit slow and Opera does a good job on a slow speed network. We tested this and it gave the expected results. Web pages loaded relatively quickly.

Verdict:

This is not best product from the stables of Android but it will still make Boost Mobile customers happy.

3.5 mm headphones jack, using the built in music player is easy with the dedicated music buttons on the body, keypad is comfortable to use.

Against:

Call quality could have been better

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

Motorola VE440 is 1.9 inches wide, 0.6 inch deep, 4.4 inches high and weighs 2.64 Oz. The handset is based on CDMA2000 1X technology and is based on CDMA2000 1X 1900/800 / AWS 1700/2100 band. Additional features on the phone include Intelligent (T9) typing, GPS, microSD card slot, USB and internal antenna.

The phone has 51 MB internal memory and the phone book can take is 500 names and numbers. Supported formats for ringtones are MIDI and MP3. The phone has 1.3 megapixel camera. The display is 1.9 inches big and has a resolution of 176×220 pixels with support for 65k colors. Supported audio formats are AAC+, MP3 and AAC. Connectors on the phone include microUSB, and 3.5 mm headphones jack. The 940 mAh lithium ion battery has a rated talk time of 270 minutes and standby time is 396 hours.

Razzle Dazzle:

Motorola VE440 has an interesting design. The limited edition phone has two graffiti style back covers and it is designed by someone called, Mister Cartoon. The right spine is tilted at an angle of 45 degrees and it slopes towards the display. Because of this, the three controls for music player are pretty easy to access.

Inside Dope:

There are tons of smartphones out there in the market right now and we as tech enthusiasts drool on all of them. But if you are not tech savy, purchasing a high end smartphone will mean nothing for you. All you need is a handset to make a few calls, click some snaps and maybe listen to music sometimes. It makes no sense to buy a high end smartphone for this. We conducted a survey for this and found that most of the people who own a smartphone don’t use all the features that it has to offer. Some are not even aware that the gadget has specific features. There are lots of varieties when it comes to step down phones. Some come with pretty basic features while some give you a few features like music player and camera put in. Motorola VE440 belongs to this category; it has a different body design. We have never seen this design before in a cell phone. On the body, dedicated buttons for camera and music. All these keys are pretty easy to access.

Display

The display of the Motorola VE440 is pretty basic, just like the phone. It is 1.9 inches big and has a resolution of 176×220 pixels along with support for 65k colors. It is pretty much low end but there is not much to expect in an entry level handset like this. You cannot adjust the display font but there are options for premium and free wallpapers.

Dimensions

The phone is 4.4 inches high, 0.6 inch deep, 1.9 inches wide and eights about 2.64 ounces. It is not that heavy but we did notice the bulk when we put the phone in our pocket. It is a bit heavier as compared to other handsets.

Navigation array and keyboard

There is a four way direction keypad with OK button in the middle and this makes navigation easy. There are two soft keys but they are not that easy to pressing owing to the plastic which surrounds them. There is also a discrete camera button and a back button. The red and green ‘off’ and ‘on’ buttons are quite small so make sure you press them properly. If you have wide fingers or cropped nails, you might get frustrated easily. Fortunately, the keypad buttons are domed and this makes things much easier. They are a bit plasticky and the bubbly dimensions make it easy to press. The keys are backlit and quite easy to press. We could compose text messages on it quite easily.

Phone book and PIM features

The Motorola VE440’s phone book can take in 500 contacts. A single entry can take five numbers and two addresses for e-mail. There are options for customization which include caller groups, selecting ringtone, picture, and message ringtone for each contact. All standard cell phone features are there but we are still happy with them in here. There are staid tunes of computerized clangs along with doorbell chimes. Apart from that, you get theme based ringtones which are made for street cred and this is clear with names like Snoop Pick Up Your Phone, Tatoo Gun (this has the tattoo gadget’s hum) and Going to the Carshow. Speaker phone is also there.

Feature set on the Motorola VE440 include voice commands, alarm clock, calendar, world clock, notepad, world clock, and stopwatch. There are a few advanced features like stereo Bluetooth, WAP browser, text and MMS. Finally, you get MetroPCS’s ChatLINK IM service and GPS.

Music player

Motorola VE440 has a basic music player which will work only if you have put in a microSD card. Fortunately, Motorola gives a 1 GB card bundled along with the package and the phone can take in up to 8 GB cards. Supported player formats are AAC+, MP3 and AAC.

Camera

Motorola VE440 comes with a basic 1.3 megapixel camera so don’t expect high quality photos from it. You get self timer, digital zoom, multishot mode which lets you take more options for photo taking. There are also some basic editing features like color effects and white balance. The shutter sound can be personalized.

Verdict:

Motorola VE440 is phone made for the punk rock crowd, it is a stylish candy bar phone and we also liked the dedicated music control buttons. However, the handset disappoints on call quality.