Motorola Mobility and Verizon Wireless began selling the Droid Razr Android smartphone on pre-order for $300, with shipments promised by Nov. 10. Meanwhile, a 3.5-inch Motorola Fire XT Android smartphone was announced in Italy; Motorola Mobility announced strong third-quarter earnings of $3.3 billion; and more evidence piled up regarding an imminent release of two Motorola Xoom 2 tablets.
Motorola Mobility's Droid Razr smartphone was placed on pre-sale by Verizon Wireless for $300. When the Droid Razr was announced two weeks ago, billed as the world's thinnest 4G LTE smartphone, $300 was said to be the approximate price. Now -- unfortunately -- the high price is for real. And the Razr also requires a two-year contract and a smartphone data package.
Other features include dual cameras, including an eight-megapixel model, plus a full range of wireless features, including 4G LTE. There's also a wide range of accessories including a new 14-inch Lapdock 500 Pro.
The device ships with Android 2.3.5, but Motorola was quick to announce that the Droid Razr will be updated to Android 4.0 by early 2012. Verizon is guaranteeing shipment no later than Nov. 10.
More thoughts on the Razr's chances against the iPhone and Samsung Galaxy S II may be found in this Oct. 27 story by Clint Boulton in our sister publication eWEEK .
Motorola Fire XT
Motorola Mobility announced a Motorola Fire XT smartphone for the Italian market, selling for 199 euros ($282) without contract by the end of November. Following that, the phone is slated for other European and Asian markets.
The Fire XT (pictured) is equipped with a five-megapixel rear-facing camera and a front-facing VGA webcam, and includes HSDPA/EDGE cellular support, as well as Wi-Fi and GPS. A 3.5mm audio jack and a 1540mAh battery with up to eight hour of talk time are also said to be available.
On the software front, the phone features a "Moto Switch" user interface that enables users to switch between friend and work-centric modes, says Motorola Mobility.
Mot earnings up in third quarter
Motorola Mobility reported strong third-quarter earnings of $3.3 billion, up 11 percent from third quarter 2010. Non-GAAP net earnings were listed at $0.12 per share, compared to net earnings of $0.13 per share in the third quarter of 2010. This beat analyst estimates, according to a report in BGR , and was due primarily to strong sales of the company’s Android-powered smartphones.
Revenue from device sales in the third quarter totaled $2.4 billion, up 20 percent year-over-year, says Motorola. Some 11.6 million devices were shipped during the quarter, including 4.8 million smartphones (but just 100,000 Xoom tablets ). Motorola shipped 400,000 Xoom tablets in the second quarter and 250,000 units in the first quarter.
Meanwhile, CEO Sanjay Jha announced that the company continues to make progress toward closing its acquisition by Google .
Xoom 2 tablets coming soon
The Xoom tablet may not have been a huge success for Motorola Mobility, hampered due to a high price and a buggy Android 3.0 operating system, among other issues, but Motorola is expected to soon unveil two "Xoom 2" models to try, try again.
After Droid-Life released some images of one of the alleged Xoom 2 models back in September, the publication in early October found them again in a Verizon database , listed as the Pasteur (MZ617) and Fleming (MZ609).
Now, Droid-Life has discovered another Verizon listing of the tablets, this time listed with "4G branding and storage size." The MZ617 is the flagship 10.1-inch version, listed with up to 64GB of storage while the MZ609 is a smaller "media edition" of the Xoom 2 with up to 32GB, says the story.