Motorola Droid Mini

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If you're a Verizon customer looking for an affordable yet compact Android smartphone, the $99.99 Motorola Droid Mini sure sounds tempting. And on the whole it delivers just what you'd expect from a $99.99 phone. It has the same fast processor as the Droid Ultra and the Droid Maxx, battery life is long, and call quality is excellent. Of course, you'll notice that Motorola did cut corners, but the company had to do something to knock the Mini's price down under $100.

In my book, though, those corners, specifically the cheap build quality and the unimpressive display, don't add up to a bargain. Sure, the phone is small, but unless you absolutely can't pay more than $99 for a phone, I strongly advise resisting the Mini's low price. You're much better off saving up for the handsome $199.99 Motorola Moto X. The X is almost as small yet packs essentially the same slick Android features into a beautifully crafted chassis. It even boasts a bigger screen with superior image quality.

Design
Besides being very affordable, the main selling point for the Motorola Droid Mini is its extremely pocket-friendly size. Measuring 4.8 inches tall by 2.4 inches wide and a mere 0.35 inch thick, the Mini's moniker is certainly fitting. The device is tiny enough to slip hassle-free into tight jeans and is so small it disappears in large bags.

The Mini is tiny enough to squeeze into tight places.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

As a matter of fact, the Droid Mini takes up less space than Motorola's own pint-size flagship, the Moto X (5.1 inches tall by 2.5 inches). That said, the Moto X sports a roomier 4.7-inch screen despite weighing the same 4.6 ounces. I also prefer the Moto X's design, which is leaps and bounds ahead of the Mini's in terms of both quality and comfort.

The Moto X uses a handsomely curved back with a premium soft-touch finish that fits my hand like a glove. By contrast, the Droid Mini's back side is relatively flat. That shape coupled with rounded corners and an extremely smooth surface give the Mini a cheap mass-produced feel that's far from ergonomic. Worse, the Mini's plastic texture is so glossy it's downright slippery causing me to fumble the phone a few times. Also distasteful is how the handset smudges with unsightly streaks and fingerprints within minutes of picking it up.

The back side is smooth, glossy, and a fingerprint magnet.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

Above the display is a 2MP front-facing camera, while below sit three capacitive buttons for basic Android control.The only physical keys are on the right edge: a volume rocker and power button. They're both cross-hatched, contoured, and raised well above the phone's surface, making them a cinch to operate by feel. Interestingly, pulling the volume buttons out reveals that they double as the device's nano-SIM card tray.

The volume buttons double as the phone's SIM card slot.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

The bottom lip of the Mini holds a Micro-USB port and up top is the Mini's 3.5 mm headphone jack. Around back is the phone's main 10MP camera with LED flash. Encircling the camera lens is a large speaker which like the Droid Ultra and Droid Maxx pumps out a remarkable amount of volume.

Display
It's plain to see that another area where the Motorola Droid Mini cuts corners is in its mediocre LCD screen. Measuring 4.3 inches, the phone's display may be bigger than the iPhone's (4 inches) but is relatively small compared with most high-end Android phones, including the Droid Ultra and the Droid Maxx (5 inches, 720p).

The Mini's screen lacks high contrast or accurate colors.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

Indeed, its more expensive Droid siblings have screens that are not only bigger, their AMOLED displays have much higher contrast, more lively colors, and deeper blacks. That makes a significant difference when viewing photos, movies, or other visual content.

I also noticed that the Mini's screen had uniformity issues with light distractingly bleeding along its edges, a problem that plagues budget LCDs. Colors, especially fleshtones, looked unnatural as well, with a reddish almost orange tinge.

The Droid Mini's screen even pales when viewed side-by-side with the compact Moto X. The X also boasts AMOLED technology and at a more sizable 4.7 inches across. As a result it delivers superior image quality similar to Motorola's step-up handsets.

Additionally, the Mini's display also has a lower 720p HD resolution (1,280x720 pixels) than competing Verizon devices, namely the Samsung Galaxy S4 (5-inch AMOLED, 1920x1080), and HTC One (4.7-inch LCD, 1,920x1,080), That said, the Droid Mini's screen does get pretty bright and has vibrant (if inaccurate) colors.

Core components
Inside the Droid Mini is the same exact hardware you'll find driving the Droid Ultra and Droid Maxx, the X8 Mobile Computing System. Constructed around a dual-core 1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro CPU, on paper it lacks the sheer processing prowess of true quad-core chips, the likes of which propel the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4 (Snapdragon 600).

Don't be disheartened though since the X8 is designed to be efficient rather than screamingly swift. As it happens the X8's main dual-core application CPU is backed by potent quad-core Adreno graphics, along with two additional "cores": a natural language processor and one for contextual computing.

Helping this hardware is a healthy 2GB allotment of RAM but like the Droid Ultra the Mini has only 16GB of internal storage. If you want more, consider splurging on the Droid Maxx, which boasts a roomy 32GB of storage. In keeping with all the new Droid handsets, however, there's no SD card slot on the Mini for increasing storage.

Software and interface
If you're a fan of stock Android, the Droid Mini's software probably won't irritate you all that much. Motorola took a similar hands-on approach as it did with its other Droids and the Moto X. The phone runs the same Android operating system (version 4.2.2) as those devices, an essentially vanilla version of Google's OS.

You unlock the Mini in typical Android fashion, by sliding a padlock icon outside of a virtual ring on the phone's screen. After this you'll immediately see the main home screen along with four additional panels to populate with app shortcuts and widgets.

Those who have used Motorola's smartphones from last year, namely the Droid Razr and Atrix handset lines will certainly recognize the Circles widget. It's smack dab in the middle of the central home screen, and I'm happy to see this tool, because in addition to providing a quick way to check the time, it also displays weather, and is a shortcut for system settings, too.

Wireless Display technology can send screen content to compatible TVs and monitors.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

You'll find a few new tricks tucked inside this widget as well. Swiping the largest clock circle uncovers fresh functions such as Droid Zap and Wireless Display. Droid Zap lets you share images and video with other Android phone users nearby; Wireless Display will duplicate the Ultra's screen to compatible HDTVs and monitors.

View the original article here

Motorola Droid Maxx

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Sitting at the top of Motorola's new Droid lineup, the $299.99 Droid Maxx is more than just a capable device -- it's also a hair from being the best smartphone Verizon has ever sold. It boasts the biggest battery available in a handset, a full 32GB of internal storage, not to mention Google's impressive list of futuristic Android extras. The Maxx's build quality is also light years superior to the thinner Motorola Droid Ultra.

That said, the Maxx's sky-high sticker price and quirky battery-charging snafus give me pause to recommend it just yet over its rivals the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4.

Design
Aesthetically speaking, the differences between the Motorola Droid Maxx and its more svelte sibling, the Droid Ultra, are huge, though you won't notice them at first. At 5.4 inches tall by 2.8 inches wide thick, the Maxx is just as tall and as wide as the Ultra, but also a bit thicker (0.34 inch vs. 0.22 inch).

The Maxx's big size makes it a lot of smartphone to hold.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

Still, you don't notice the change in girth when the phones are side by side on a table. It's only when you pick them up that you'll notice that the Maxx packs some serious heavy hardware. Tipping the scales at almost 6 ounces (5.9 to be exact), the Droid Maxx has more heft and feels way more substantial than the Ultra (4.8 ounces). In fact, the Maxx is about an ounce heavier than the all-metal HTC One (5.04 ounces) and certainly heavier still than the svelte Samsung Galaxy S4 (4.6 ounces).

Moto gets big points for giving the Maxx a back surface coated in Kevlar fiber -- similar to the previous generation of Droid handsets. I dug that treatment then and I dig it now. Smooth to the touch and possessing a soft matte finish, it repels smudges and streaks while simultaneously protecting against scratches. I certainly prefer it to the Ultra’s glossy and slippery backside, which accumulates greasy fingerprints.

The Maxx's back is coated in soft-touch but tough Kevlar fiber.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

The only physical buttons on the Maxx are located on the phone's right edge, a power key and a thin volume bar. Both are contoured and cross-hatched for easy manipulation by feel alone.

The Maxx only has physical controls on its right side, a volume bar plus a power key.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

Above the screen is a 2-megapixel front camera and below it sit three capacitive buttons for basic Android control. Around back is the Droid Maxx’s 10-megapixel main camera and LED flash. There's a big speaker here, too, which pumps out a huge amount of volume. Just as I found out on the Droid Ultra, this speaker serves up bigger audio than the HTC One and its hyped BoomSound technology.

Take self portraits with the 2-megapixel camera.

(Credit: Brian Bennett/CNET)

Display
The Droid Maxx boasts the same exact big, bright 5-inch HD OLED screen as the Droid Ultra. Its 720p resolution (1,280x720 pixels) doesn’t pack the same pixel density as the HTC One (4.7-inch, 1080p LCD) and Samsung Galaxy S4 (5-inch, 1080p OLED), its primary competition. That said, the Maxx's high-contrast display has lusciously saturated colors and impressively dark black levels.

Detail in photos, Web sites, or documents with lots of text wasn’t any less sharp to my eyes on the Maxx than the same content viewed on phones with full 1080p screens. For instance, the Maxx's 720p display didn't negatively affect my serious mobile Netflix streaming habit. The same goes for losing myself in a random HD YouTube movie trailer. Yes, I'm still strangely drawn to that "Riddick" flick since I checked it out on the Droid Ultra.

Core components
For internal electronics, Motorola has made a very unconventional move with its 2013 smartphone lineup. Instead of engaging in the brutal processor arms race like practically every other handset maker, the company decided to sidestep the issue completely. All the new Droids, including the Droid Maxx, are powered by a proprietary processing solution Motorola calls the X8 Mobile Computing System.

You'll find the same collection of cores and specialized processors in the new Motorola flagship, the Moto X. To be blunt, the X8 is a dual-core 1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro CPU and doesn't have the raw horsepower of true quad-core processors, which drive the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4 (Snapdragon 600).

As it turns out, however, this is less of a factor than you might think. Designed to be efficient rather than blazingly fast, the X8's main dual-core application CPU is backed by muscular quad-core Adreno graphics, plus two additional "cores": a natural language processor and one for contextual computing.

Helping this hardware is a healthy 2GB allotment of RAM. Also, unlike the Droid Ultra, which has only 16GB of internal memory, the Droid Maxx comes with 32GB to play with. That said, there's no SD card slot for increasing storage.

The Maxx runs Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

Software and interface
Thankfully, Motorola didn't mess with the Droid Maxx's software that much, a similar tactic it did with the Moto X and Droid Ultra. Running the same Android operating system (version 4.2.2) as both devices, the Ultra's OS is practically stock Jelly Bean. I have a feeling the fact that Google now owns Motorola has something to do with this.

You unlock the Maxx by sliding a padlock icon outside of a virtual ring on the phone's screen. After that, you're greeted to the central home screen plus four other panels to populate with app shortcuts and widgets as you see fit.

If you're familiar with Motorola smartphones of the last few generations, you'll recognize the Circles settings widget. Sitting at the center of the main home screen, it's left over from the company's previous Droid Razr and Atrix handsets. Personally, I'm glad this tool is here since besides a quick way to check the time, it also displays weather, and is a shortcut for system settings.

The widget flaunts a few new tricks, too. For instance, swiping the largest clock circle uncovers fresh functions such as Droid Zap and Wireless Display. Droid Zap lets you share images and video with other Android phone users nearby; Wireless Display will duplicate the Ultra's screen to compatible HDTVs and monitors.

As an Android device, the Maxx comes preloaded with all the major Google apps and services. Of course you can delve into the vast Google Play online store for more to download. Unfortunately, because this is a Verizon-branded Droid device, the carrier couldn't say no to filling the Max with unremovable bloatware. Highlights include NFL Mobile, VZ Navigator, Verizon Mobile Security, and Verizon Tones, to list a few.

Active Display lets you view alerts without waking up the screen.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

View the original article here

Micromax outs canvas Doodle 2 droid cheap quad-core

Micromax has introduced the latest addition to its Smartphone lineup, German canvas Doodle 2. The device is used for INR19, 990 (approximately $310) retail in all over India, which being available as of today.

The Micromax canvas-Doodle-2 has a 5.7 "IPS-LCD with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels, resulting in a density of around 257 PPI. Te screen Doodle 2 is powered by a MediaTek 6589 chipset with quad-core 1.2 GHz cortex-A7 CPU and 1 GB RAM. A 2600 mAh battery provides the whole.

Micromax canvas Doodle 2 pin

It runs on Android 4.2.1. Imaging is done via a 12 MP rear - view camera and a 5 MP front-a. There are also 1080 p video recording. There are 16 GB of internal memory, which seem to be sadly non-expandable.

That comes equipped with a pen, in the retail package, you can... now the canvas-Doodle-2 images with the M-doodle!Doodle app. There is also a flip-cover accessory that moonlights as a side stand.

Micromax canvas Doodle 2 comes with M! doodles, M! life, M! zone and M! security among other apps pre-installed. Yet absurd Note: you can zoom on the device it wake up and shake even if more should be displayed normally.

View the original article here

Motorola Ultra Droid

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The Droid Ultra's $199.99 price and even its very existence baffles me. Standing smack dab in between the affordable $99.99 Droid Mini and pricey $299.99 Droid Maxx, the only reason to choose the Ultra is either because you value trimness above all else, or don't care to spend $100 more for the Maxx's massive battery and 32GB of storage. The Ultra's limited 16GB of internal memory also makes it less enticing than other superphones such as the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4.

Design
Up until the Droid Ultra landed on my desk, my most recent mobile companion was the compact Moto X. And since I've become accustomed to its petite build, when I first picked up the Ultra I was immediately struck by its large, wide frame.

Measuring 2.8 inches wide by 5.4 inches tall, the phone seemed positively gargantuan. By comparison the Moto X is a narrower 2.6 inches wide and a shorter 5.1 inches tall.

The Droid Ultra is certainly a handful.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

That said, while the curved edges of the X begin at a very thin 0.22 inch, at its thickest point the pint-size phone swells to 0.4 inch thick. That's a lot fatter than the Droid Ultra's flat chassis, which is a uniform 0.28 inch in thickness. At 4.8 ounces, the Droid Ultra is also relatively light considering its size.

The Ultra is under a third of an inch thick.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

Of course being superthin doesn't automatically make a phone ergonomically superior. As I've learned from handling the smoothly tapered backs of the HTC One and Moto X, what matters most is how a handset fits in the palm.

Both devices may be thicker and heavier (4.6 and 5 ounces, respectively) but are a joy to hold. That's because they possess a solid feel and natural shape that's extremely comfortable to grip. Just imagine a river rock honed by millennia of flowing water and you get the idea.

Compared with these gadgets, the Droid Ultra is another story altogether. It is so trim is almost feels two-dimensional, and comes close to being too wide to hold in one hand. Like the Samsung Galaxy S4, the Ultra does sport smooth, rounded edges and corners, a tactic other wafer-thin devices would do well to adopt. Case in point: the Sony Xperia Z, which has a classy all-glass chassis but also painfully sharp corners and straight right angles.

Like Sony's latest flagship, the Droid Ultra's glossy surfaces make it a fingerprint magnet. Just a few minutes were enough for me to cover the Ultra's screen and back panel in slimy streaks and prints.

Another design detractor is that the phone feels downright slippery, almost like a bar of wet soap -- not exactly a quality I seek in a smartphone. Motorola does claim that the Ultra uses Kevlar unibody construction for greater strength so hopefully it'll survive If you drop the device by accident.

Glossy surfaces act as a print magnet.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

The Droid Ultra doesn't have many physical buttons, just a power key and volume rocker on the device's right edge. There are three capacitive buttons below the screen to control basic Android functions. Above the display is the earpiece and 2MP camera for vanity shots and self portraits.

Around back you'll find the Droid Ultra's main 10-megapixel camera lens and LED flash. Ringing this imaging array is a sizable rectangular speaker grille. It belts out a surprising amount of volume, even more than the HTC One with its vaunted BoomSound -- quite a feat for a handset so thin.

Capacitive buttons sit under the screen.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

Display
Undoubtedly the Droid Ultra's star attraction is its big, bright 5-inch HD OLED screen. With a 720p resolution (1,280x720 pixels) it may not boast the same amount of pixels as its competition, namely the HTC One (4.7-inch, 1080p LCD) and Samsung Galaxy S4 (5-inch, 1080p OLED). Even so, the Ultra's high-contrast display produces vibrant colors that pop and deep, dark black levels.

I honestly didn't notice any absent detail in photos, Web sites, or text-heavy documents. I also enjoyed viewing my typical choices for mobile entertainment on the device, a copious amount of Netflix movies sprinkled with the odd HD YouTube trailer. By the way, that new "Riddick" flick looks mighty tempting.

Movie trailers are fun to watch on the Ultra's big screen.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

Core components
In terms of internal electronics, Motorola has made a very unconventional move with its 2013 smartphone lineup. Instead of engaging in the brutal processor arms race like practically every other handset maker, the company decided to sidestep the issue completely. All the new Droids, including the Droid Ultra, are powered by a homegrown processing solution Motorola calls the X8 Mobile Computing System.

The same silicon engine pushing the new Motorola flagship along (the Moto X) at its heart, the X8 is a dual-core 1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro CPU. It doesn't have the raw horsepower of the true quad-core processors ticking inside the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4 (Snapdragon 600).

What the X8 lacks in brawn, it makes up for by being efficient. The main dual-core application CPU is backed by muscular quad-core Adreno graphics, plus two additional "cores": a natural language processor and one for contextual computing.

Aiding this hardware is a healthy 2GB allotment of RAM. Internal memory, though, is the Droid Ultra's weakness. As with the Moto X and Galaxy S4, the Ultra comes with just 16GB of storage space. There's no SD card slot for upping your storage options, either, which is huge bummer. Keep in mind that the Ultra's big brother, the Droid Maxx, features a full 32GB of internal storage.

Software and interface
Motorola took a similarly light-handed approach with the Droid Ultra's software as it did with the Moto X. Running the same Android operating system (version 4.2.2), the Ultra's OS is essentially stock Jelly Bean. That's understandable given Motorola's recent acquisition by Google, the technology wizards behind Android.

You slide a padlock icon outside of a virtual ring on the phone's screen to unlock the device. With that accomplished you're greeted to the central home screen plus four other panels to populate with app shortcuts and widgets as you see fit.

The Circles widget finds new life in the Ultra.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

Motorola managed to hold on to the Circles settings widget, placed at the center of the main home screen, a leftover from the company's previous Droid Razr handsets. Aside from offering quick access to time, weather, and system settings, the tool flaunts a few new tricks.

View the original article here

Motorola Ultra Droid

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The Droid Ultra's $199.99 price and even its very existence baffles me. Standing smack dab in between the affordable $99.99 Droid Mini and pricey $299.99 Droid Maxx, the only reason to choose the Ultra is either because you value trimness above all else, or don't care to spend $100 more for the Maxx's massive battery and 32GB of storage. The Ultra's limited 16GB of internal memory also makes it less enticing than other superphones such as the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4.

Design
Up until the Droid Ultra landed on my desk, my most recent mobile companion was the compact Moto X. And since I've become accustomed to its petite build, when I first picked up the Ultra I was immediately struck by its large, wide frame.

Measuring 2.8 inches wide by 5.4 inches tall, the phone seemed positively gargantuan. By comparison the Moto X is a narrower 2.6 inches wide and a shorter 5.1 inches tall.

The Droid Ultra is certainly a handful.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

That said, while the curved edges of the X begin at a very thin 0.22 inch, at its thickest point the pint-size phone swells to 0.4 inch thick. That's a lot fatter than the Droid Ultra's flat chassis, which is a uniform 0.28 inch in thickness. At 4.8 ounces, the Droid Ultra is also relatively light considering its size.

The Ultra is under a third of an inch thick.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

Of course being superthin doesn't automatically make a phone ergonomically superior. As I've learned from handling the smoothly tapered backs of the HTC One and Moto X, what matters most is how a handset fits in the palm.

Both devices may be thicker and heavier (4.6 and 5 ounces, respectively) but are a joy to hold. That's because they possess a solid feel and natural shape that's extremely comfortable to grip. Just imagine a river rock honed by millennia of flowing water and you get the idea.

Compared with these gadgets, the Droid Ultra is another story altogether. It is so trim is almost feels two-dimensional, and comes close to being too wide to hold in one hand. Like the Samsung Galaxy S4, the Ultra does sport smooth, rounded edges and corners, a tactic other wafer-thin devices would do well to adopt. Case in point: the Sony Xperia Z, which has a classy all-glass chassis but also painfully sharp corners and straight right angles.

Like Sony's latest flagship, the Droid Ultra's glossy surfaces make it a fingerprint magnet. Just a few minutes were enough for me to cover the Ultra's screen and back panel in slimy streaks and prints.

Another design detractor is that the phone feels downright slippery, almost like a bar of wet soap -- not exactly a quality I seek in a smartphone. Motorola does claim that the Ultra uses Kevlar unibody construction for greater strength so hopefully it'll survive If you drop the device by accident.

Glossy surfaces act as a print magnet.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

The Droid Ultra doesn't have many physical buttons, just a power key and volume rocker on the device's right edge. There are three capacitive buttons below the screen to control basic Android functions. Above the display is the earpiece and 2MP camera for vanity shots and self portraits.

Around back you'll find the Droid Ultra's main 10-megapixel camera lens and LED flash. Ringing this imaging array is a sizable rectangular speaker grille. It belts out a surprising amount of volume, even more than the HTC One with its vaunted BoomSound -- quite a feat for a handset so thin.

Capacitive buttons sit under the screen.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

Display
Undoubtedly the Droid Ultra's star attraction is its big, bright 5-inch HD OLED screen. With a 720p resolution (1,280x720 pixels) it may not boast the same amount of pixels as its competition, namely the HTC One (4.7-inch, 1080p LCD) and Samsung Galaxy S4 (5-inch, 1080p OLED). Even so, the Ultra's high-contrast display produces vibrant colors that pop and deep, dark black levels.

I honestly didn't notice any absent detail in photos, Web sites, or text-heavy documents. I also enjoyed viewing my typical choices for mobile entertainment on the device, a copious amount of Netflix movies sprinkled with the odd HD YouTube trailer. By the way, that new "Riddick" flick looks mighty tempting.

Movie trailers are fun to watch on the Ultra's big screen.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

Core components
In terms of internal electronics, Motorola has made a very unconventional move with its 2013 smartphone lineup. Instead of engaging in the brutal processor arms race like practically every other handset maker, the company decided to sidestep the issue completely. All the new Droids, including the Droid Ultra, are powered by a homegrown processing solution Motorola calls the X8 Mobile Computing System.

The same silicon engine pushing the new Motorola flagship along (the Moto X) at its heart, the X8 is a dual-core 1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro CPU. It doesn't have the raw horsepower of the true quad-core processors ticking inside the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4 (Snapdragon 600).

What the X8 lacks in brawn, it makes up for by being efficient. The main dual-core application CPU is backed by muscular quad-core Adreno graphics, plus two additional "cores": a natural language processor and one for contextual computing.

Aiding this hardware is a healthy 2GB allotment of RAM. Internal memory, though, is the Droid Ultra's weakness. As with the Moto X and Galaxy S4, the Ultra comes with just 16GB of storage space. There's no SD card slot for upping your storage options, either, which is huge bummer. Keep in mind that the Ultra's big brother, the Droid Maxx, features a full 32GB of internal storage.

Software and interface
Motorola took a similarly light-handed approach with the Droid Ultra's software as it did with the Moto X. Running the same Android operating system (version 4.2.2), the Ultra's OS is essentially stock Jelly Bean. That's understandable given Motorola's recent acquisition by Google, the technology wizards behind Android.

You slide a padlock icon outside of a virtual ring on the phone's screen to unlock the device. With that accomplished you're greeted to the central home screen plus four other panels to populate with app shortcuts and widgets as you see fit.

The Circles widget finds new life in the Ultra.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

Motorola managed to hold on to the Circles settings widget, placed at the center of the main home screen, a leftover from the company's previous Droid Razr handsets. Aside from offering quick access to time, weather, and system settings, the tool flaunts a few new tricks.

View the original article here