Motorola’s Droid Razr line of Android phones is getting a facelift, with three new handsets coming to Verizon Wireless this year.
The Droid Razr HD, Razr Maxx HD and Razr M all share some common specs, such as processing power, camera quality and data speeds, but they differ in size, battery life and price. Let’s go through the differences first:
Droid Razr HD
The Razr HD is like a larger version of the original Droid Razr from 2011. Yes, Motorola’s getting in on the humongous screen trend with 4.7-inch, 720p display, compared to a 4.3-inch display in last year’s model. That boost in screen size allows for a 40 percent larger battery, but we’ll have to see if that translates to better battery life overall.
Droid Razr Maxx HD
The Razr Maxx HD is nearly identical to the Razr HD, but has a much bigger battery–3,300 mAh, compared to 2,500 in the Razr HD–despite a mere 0.35 inches in added thickness. Motorola promises 32 hours of normal use on a charge, 13 hours of straight video playback, up to 21 hours of talk time or up to eight hours of 4G web browsing. (Motorola says the regular Razr HD gets 24 hours of normal use and six hours of Web browsing.)
Droid Razr M
Think of the Razr M as a redesigned version of the original Droid Razr. Like last year’s model, it has a 4.3-inch display with 960-by-540 resolution, but the bezels around the sides of the screen are much thinner, so the phone won’t feel as monstrously wide.
Three New Razrs, Similar Specs
Here’s what all three phones have in common:
- 1.5 GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor, the same as several other high-end phones on the U.S. market right now
- 1 GB of RAM
- 8-megapixel rear camera
- Front-facing camera (1.3-megapixels for the Razr HD and Maxx, 0.3-megapixels for the Razr M)
- 4G LTE data speeds, of course
- MicroSD slots for extra storage (built-in storage capacities unspecified)
- “Global Ready” for voice and data service in 205 countries
- They all use on-screen buttons for home, back and app switching, instead of physical buttons.
All three phones run Android 4.0, not the latest Android 4.1, but perhaps in a sign of Google’s influence, Motorola promises to upgrade all three phones by year-end, and will pre-load them with Google’s Chrome browser. Motorola also says it will upgrade most 2011 phones to Android 4.1 very soon, and for phones that can’t get the new software, Motorola will offer a $100 credit on a new handset.
Motorola and Verizon only revealed pricing for the Razr M, which hits stores next week for $99 after a $50 mail-in rebate. The Razr HD and Razr Maxx HD will arrive before the holidays.