Verizon Wireless is launching three new large-screen Android phones. The Droid Maxx, the Droid Ultra, and the Droid Mini include some of the same features expected in Motorola’s upcoming Moto X, the first smartphone to be made in the United States. The three new Droid phones will feature voice control, as well as active notifications that let users see messages on the home screen without touching it.
With the launch of the three new Droids, Google’s Motorola will become Verizon’s exclusive Droid supplier. Verizon Wireless launched the Droid brand in late 2009 to help Google’s Android operating system compete with Apple’s iOS. Samsung and HTC have also been Droid vendors in the past.
The Droid Ultra and the Droid Maxx both have 5-inch screens, so they are the same size as Samsung’s Galaxy S4. The Ultra is just 7.18mm thick and the Maxx is 8.5 mm thick. The extra room accomodates its 3500 mAh sealed battery, which Verizon says provides almost two days of battery life on a single charge; the company says the Droid Maxx will be the longest-lasting 4G LTE smartphone available.
The Droid Mini has a 4.3-inch screen, making it the same size as the recently announced HTC One mini. It’s an LTE phone with 16GB of storage and a 2000 mAh battery that supports wireless charging.
Motorola is using its own X8 chip to power the trio of new phones. The X8 is an eight core system-on-a-chip reportedly built using Qualcomm Krait CPU cores and Adreno GPU cores. Two cores function as the applications processor, four function as graphics processors, one handles “contextual computing” and one handles “natural language processing.” Samsung’s Galaxy S4 also features an 8 core processor, using four cores for basic applications and four for video processing. Manufacturers assign discrete tasks to different cores in order to increase battery life and boost performance.
The Droid Maxx will retail for $300, the Ultra will be $200 and the Mini will be $100. All three phones require a two-year contract with Verizon. The Ultra and the Maxx go on sale August 20, and the Mini goes on sale August 29. Customers can pre-order the phones on Verizon’s website.
Next week, Motorola is set to unveil the highly anticipated Moto X smartphone. That announcement is set for August 1.
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