The Motorola PHOTON 4G is a high-end Android phone for Sprint customers. For those who don’t have an upgrade to spare, or just cannot afford to make a switch, Motorola might be able to bail you out. A new contest that the manufacturer is calling the Lightning Hour, will run from now through August 31st and gives players one hour to enter every day. At least one handset will be given away daily, but according to the information from Motorola, 96 units of the red hot PHOTON 4G will be awarded, valued at $549.99 each. Other prizes include $100 in Live Nation Concert Cash (480 will be given out), Motorola Roadster speakers (48 will be given away, valued at $99.99 each), and both the Motorola H17txt Bluetooth Headset and Motorola Oasis Bluetooth Headset (72 of each will be awarded  as a prize, valued at $99.99 and $79.99 respectively).

Announcements about the contest will be made from Motorola’s Twitter page (@Motorola) and Facebook page (Facebook.com/Motorola). Keep checking in and who knows? You might find yourself winning one of Sprint’s hot new Android Gingerbread powered Motorola phones.

source: Motorola via AndroidGuys

t was January 5th when we first told you about the Motorola DROID Bionic. Back then, it was projected that Verizon would launch its first dual-core LTE handset in the beginning of the second quarter. Along with that story was a rendering of the device that captured everyone’s attention. Later in January, stories circulated that the model had a power management bug and at the end of April came the shocking story: the model was being pulled. But the very next day came the word from Motorola that the DROID Bionic was actually still going to be released, it would just be a different model.

After it was hinted that Motorola was replacing the Etna version of the Motorola DROID Bionic with the Targa variant of the device, we have seen a number of pictures that culminated with this past weekend’s potpourri of DROID Bonic snapshots. As we get closer to the possible September 8th launch, even more photos are disseminated including the series of four that you see below. The picture of the front clearly shows off the 4.3 inch qHD display and the 4G LTE icon on top, while the picture of the back lets you see the soft touch coating, the 8MP camera and the flash. The side shots are a bit blurry but let you see the volume rocker and the Micro HDMI and Micro USB ports.

Each day brings us closer to the expected September 8th launch and a possible show down with the Samsung Stratosphere, which we believe could be the Samsung Galaxy S II in disguise. All we need is the official introduction of these two handsets and it will be just like Ali-Frazier I all over again.

source: GottaBeMobile via AndroidCentral

As of last night, there were three major questions left pertaining to the Motorola DROID Bionic. What we didn’t yet know about this eagerly awaited smartphone was the official launch date, the price of the phone and the size of the screen. But after FCC documents leaked the DROID Bionic’s user manual, we can not only scratch that last question off the list, we can even add some new information about the phone.

According to the user manual, the Motorola DROID Bionic will be rolling out with a 4.3 inch qHD display, not the 4.5 inches that some had extrapolated from leaked photographs of the handset. Furthermore, the manual seems to indicate that the DROID Bionic will be a World Phone. There is a section of the manual that discusses World Phone GSM functions. This would make the device the first CDMA/LTE/GSM smartphone which could be quite stressful to the battery. As an LTE device, the DROID Bionic was going to need a SIM card anyway, so why not add that GSM radio for roaming?

Also discovered in the leaked material is the micro-HDMI port, right under the micro USB port. Now all we need is an official launch date from Verizon and the price. After we get that information, it will be just a matter of will power to keep that Verizon upgrade in your pocket until the Motorola DROID Bionic can be purchased at last.

source: FCC via AndroidCentralForums

**UPDATE**

Just adding a couple of more pictures from the FCC documents

It seems like Motorola has been busy registering domains lately, and all of them happen to revolve around the same key word – “Kore”. MotorolaKore.com, KoreMotorola.com, Moto-kore.com, MotoKore.com, and Motorola-Kore.com – all of these domain names belong to Motorola now, but what is that “Kore” thingamabob exactly?

The thing is that nobody has even the slightest idea yet, which is why the rumors have now started multiplying like rabbits. According to speculations, however, the Motorola Kore might be not just any device, but a LTE-packing, Ice Cream Sandwich-flavored successor to the Motorola XOOM. This claim, of course, is nothing more but a guess with pretty much no evidence to back it up. On the other hand, if the Kore turns out to be a tablet indeed, its name raises the possibility of seeing a quad-core Kal-El chipset beating under the device’s hood. Finding an ultra high-resolution display listed on its specs list is not impossible either.

Nevertheless, you should take all of the above with a huge grain of salt for now. The Motorola Kore shall remain a mystery, at least until the rumor mill strikes again.

source: Fusible via SlashGear

There is no doubt that the Motorola XT531 Android 2.3 Gingerbread phone is cute as a button, which begs the question why it won’t be seeing the shelves in the US.

Its affordable nature is going to Europe, under the moniker Motorola Fire XT (no associations with eXTinguisher, please), and to Latin America as the Motorola Spice XT some time this fall.

We guess that leaves the uninspiring XT531 name for China, where the handset will be available as soon as this month. Buyers in Hong Kong and Taiwan will have access to Motorola’s SHOP4APPS service, besides Android Market.

Motorola XT531 carries a 3.5″ display, 5MP camera with flash, 800MHz processor and 512MB of RAM, with all the requisite connectivity options and a microSD expansion slot. Special attention has been paid to the battery, which is the generous 1540mAh, promising eight hours of talk time out of the handset, and 28 days of standby, even with 3G left on.

Another point for the phone is that it will have a dual-SIM version in certain Asian markets, where this feature is extremely popular.

source: Motorola

If you are one of those brave souls that are always poking around your phone despite that the warranty period just started, you might have gotten unlucky with the Motorola PHOTON 4G and hard-bricked the device, trying to go above and beyond what its creator and carrier intended.

Fortunately, if your Motorola PHOTON 4G had been lying at the bottom of your drawer after unsuccessful attempt to root or apply some other voodoo on it, now XDA-Devs have a solution.

A System Boot File (SBF) leaked on a thread in the forum, and the process to apply it to your comatose device is fairly straightforward, considering some others we’ve come across with. The Motorola PHOTON 4G (gently referred to as MoPho on XDA-Devs) will require activation again after the SBF is applied

Working through the SBF will restore your phone and, naturally, you will lose that root you’ve applied, but you can solve this problem afterwards.

source: XDA-Devs via BriefMobile

Even though we recently reported about the September 8th launch date for the Motorola DROID Bionic, ever since Motorola sent the phone back to the plant to be re-designed, we never really had a firm idea of what the phone would look like. But DroidLife has obtained some pictures said to be that of the much awaited device and now we have a much clearer idea of what every Verizon customer with an upgrade in his pocket is waiting for.

The back consists of the soft touch material that you can find on the back of the Motorola DROID 3. The hump on the device that is near the top of the device on the DROID X and DROID X2 is more in the middle of the phone instead of being by the camera’s housing. This could be for the 4G chip. Compared to the Samsung DROID Charge, the Motorola DROID Bionic is bigger with a squared-off design as opposed to the former’s rounded corners. The difference in size could mean that the DROID Bionic will present with a 4.5 inch qHD display, and how glorious would that be?

Verizon’s first dual-core LTE enabled device is just a tad more than a month away, and for those who just can’t wait, just keep looking at the pictures. As we move closer to launch, we are sure that there will be some more photographs of the device that many thought would never get here.

source: DroidLife

Photographs of the Motorola DROID Bionic and the Samsung DROID Charge

Verizon was the first one to bring it to market, then soon after came Sprint, but now it’s Cellular South’s turn to scoop up its own version of the high-powered portrait QWERTY handset in the Motorola DROID PRO.

Specifically, it’s called the Motorola Milestone Plus, and it is available for purchase starting today for the 2-year contract price of $199 after a $50 mail-in-rebate. Although its specs now deem it as a mid-range device, we’re certain that customers will nevertheless think of it as something in the upper echelon of the spectrum seeing that we don’t see too many dual-core handsets on the regional carrier’s lineup. In terms of specs, we greeted with the same old assortments – like its 3.1” display, 1GHz processor, 5-megapixel auto-focus camera with dual-LED flash, and 4GB of internal storage.

As much as we’d love to see smartphones nowadays being launched with Gingerbread from the onset, the Motorola Milestone Plus is still sporting Android 2.2 Froyo instead.

source: Business Wire via Android Central

The Motorola DROID X2 has received its Gingerbread update

Many an eyebrow was raised when Verizon launched the Motorola DROID X2 with Android 2.2. After all, considering that the first-generation of the phone had a nice run as Verizon’s flagship handset, you would expect the sequel to come out dressed in its Sunday best. But as it turned out, DROID X2 owners didn’t have to wait terribly long as on Tuesday, the Gingerbread update was rolled out to the handset.

Besides Android 2.3, the update brings some enhancements to the phone such as a Download Manager app, a new app that manages the downloads on your phone from web browsing, email attachments and from other apps. When inputting numerals from the keyboard, shortcuts can be used instead of having to change to the numeric function mode. Word selection and copy/paste are both improved. Press-hold on the screen will now help you select a word. Press twice and the word can be copied. Although the device is too new to be boring for its owners, the update brings a revised UI and a new color scheme as well as new widgets and icons.

Some new features are now available to the Motorola DROID X2 calendar. When traveling, you can view events in your home time zone. Other changes allow you to dial one number to set up a conference call, Google Books is now pre-installed and lastly, any images captured with your camera app can be geo-tagged. Check the sourcelink for a complete list of changes that the download brings. And DROID X2 owners, please let us know what you think of Gingerbread on your device by leaving some comments below.

source: Verizon via AndroidCentral

The ever elusive Motorola Droid Bionic. We first saw you in Etna form at CES earlier this year, but you were scrapped months later and replaced by the new Targa version.

Up until now, there has been little solid info regarding the release date, though there was some rumors and an earlier screen-shot pointing to August 4th. Now it appears that Verizon stores have received official notification informing them that they will receive the Droid Bionic later this month and to have it on public display starting July 29th, and will most likely be placed here. The email also points to August 4th as the release date. It does not give a price, though most believe it will be around $299 with contract.

Hopefully this will all happen, and the Droid Bionic will hit on August 4th, as the it will be the first dual-core smartphone to run on Verizon’s 4G LTE network.

source: Droid-Life and Android Forums