It’s been just over nine months since Google announced their intentions to acquire hardware manufacturer Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, and now it seems that the final pieces of the deal have fallen into place.

According to a new report from the Associated Press, Chinese officials have finally given the Google-Motorola deal their blessing.

China’s official approval of the deal has been a long time coming — Google managed to score regulatory approvals from the U.S. Department of Justice and the European Commission back in February (on the same day no less), but China’s anti-monopoly bureau leapt into action just a few days later. That period of intense regulatory scrutiny is a routine part of the purchasing process, as every company that makes more than 400 million yuan ($63 million) in China and 10 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) globally is subject to the process.

Google and Motorola originally expected to close the deal in “early 2012″, and it turns out they weren’t too far from the market. With this final approval in place, Google has confirmed that they expect purchase to be completed some time next week.

With the long process of purchasing Motorola Mobility finally drawing to a close, Google seems to be shifting their attention to the process of selling hardware on their own. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that Google was looking at fleshing out the Devices section of the Google Play Store with unlocked smartphones and tablets — all of them “lead” devices —  from up to five major hardware manufacturers. Now that Google will have their own in-house hardware team, it stands to reason that they might soon offer their own devices alongside those from hardware partners like Samsung and HTC.

It would appear that Motorola is putting even more of an effort into its resurrected Razr line. Just a few months after the hotly anticipated Droid Razr stepped onto the scene, Motorola offered the same unit with an upgraded battery, making the Droid Razr Maxx my new favorite Android phone with an 8+ hour battery life (and that’s under extreme duress).

Today, just a few months after the Razr Maxx, we’re seeings signs of yet another Razr line upgrade: The Droid Razr HD.

You see, both the Droid Razr and the Razr Maxx are excellent handsets, but with both sporting a qHD display resolution it was somewhat inevitable that Motorola would have to go spec-to-spec with competitors at some point and put out a 720p display. After seeing the EXIF data left by a Motorola Mobility employee on a picture of his desk he posted to his Picasa account, we’re thinking the Droid Razr HD (codenamed Vanquish) may be the real deal.

EXIF data can, of course, be altered. But we’ve seen instances in which leaked EXIF becomes solid evidence for or against the existence of a phone. Remember that 8MP sushi picture the Internet freaked out over back in September?

Lending further to its credibility, we saw a leak a few weeks back on a 4.6-inch 720p Motorola handset called the Droid Fighter (pictured below) that looked a helluva lot like the Droid Razr. Methinks these are the same handset.

There’s only so much information we can get from leaked EXIF data, but the document does point to a f/2.4 aperture size and a 5mm focal length. And if that weren’t enough, we’re seeing Android version 4.0.3 ICS as well.

The Razr line has thus far really kicked ass for Motorola, and hooking up this design with a gorgeous display should only propel Motorola further forward.

Here’s that EXIF info:

[via Blog of Mobile]

Another development in the ongoing fight between Apple and Motorola Mobility over patent infringements in Germany: a court has decided against Apple Inc. in a case involving its push email service on iCloud and MobileMe services in the country. This is effectively an extension of the same ruling that was originally handed down in February against Apple International, a case that Apple is appealing.

A judge in a regional court in Mannheim, where the case was heard, has ordered Apple Inc. to pay damages, according to the Wall Street Journal. The exact value has not been specified.

Apple tells us it is appealing this case, based on the same points as the earlier one. In that case, Apple is appealing because it believes the patent in question — a patent (the ’654) that Motorola originally received in the 1990s around pager technology — is invalid. A spokesperson at the time of that earlier ruling dismissed it to me as an “old pager patent.” Since this case concerns the exact same patent, it is likely that Apple will also appeal in this newest case.

However, it’s important to remember that even if it seems easy to think that it’s crazy for a pager patent to be used in this case, this is not how patent law works: many patents revolve around generic ideas, used in hypothetical scenarios, and many times these are upheld. (Whether in this case the patent is invalid, of course, is another issue.)

The statement on today’s case from Apple: “This is the same case Motorola already brought against another Apple entity and the court’s decision does not impact product availability. Our customers in Germany should have no problem finding the iPad or iPhone they want. However, we disagree with the court’s decision and plan to appeal the ruling.”

As for why there are two different cases against Apple for the same thing: Florian Mueller, who was at the trial, noted Judge Voss explained that the Cupertino claims were separated from International because it took longer to serve the complaint(s) on Apple’s U.S. parent company than it did within Europe.

The push email function in iCloud and MobileMe is no longer in use in Germany — Apple had turned off the service back in February when the original decision was made — but it will have to pay damages to Motorola Mobility for the period when the service was operational.

At the time of the original decision, a spokesperson from Apple noted that that turning off the push email service affected a small (unspecified) number of users in the country. “This ruling only impacts customers in Germany who use a Push setting to get their MobileMe and iCloud email,” he said. “These customers will still receive email to their devices.”

Even so, as with other decisions made against Apple or others (like Samsung and Motorola) in these patent disputes, it is negative publicity for the companies in question, and cumulatively that can have damaging effects on the brand, if not actual unit sales.

However, even in some cases, these disputes can affect sales, too. Samsung effectively missed out on selling the 10.1-inch version of its Android-based Galaxy Tab in the crucial holiday period after a series of voluntary delayed launches and then court-enforced delays around a patent dispute with Apple in Australia, a strong market for Samsung.

Separately, there was a second case raised in court today, over a radio patent that Apple claims is standard-essential (and should be licensed under “FRAND” terms) and Motorola is claiming straight infringement. That case is more serious in that it could ultimately mean injunctions on iPhone and iPad devices if it goes against Apple. That case is still ongoing.

[Image: xcode, Flickr]

Those of you dutifully carrying around your HTC Vivids have probably already heard AT&T has officially started pushing out the handset’s Ice Cream Sandwich update. For all you other AT&T customers, fear not — the nation’s second largest wireless carrier has also announced which of their other Android handsets will be getting the Ice Cream Sandwich treatment.

There aren’t many surprises on the list (which can be found below if you’d rather not wait), but a few fairly recent devices have been don’t seem to have made the cut yet.

Take the HTC Inspire 4G for instance: it’s name is nowhere to be found even though it’s just a lightly-revamped version of the of the Desire HD (which is indeed getting ICS). Arguably, the LG Thrill 4G has it even worse — it’s only now getting Gingerbread while its international cousin the Optimus 3D has been confirmed for the Ice Cream Sandwich update.

AT&T says that these devices will be getting their long-awaited updates sometime in the “coming months,” so there’s plenty of time for those other devices to feel some love, but man AT&T– would a little extra specificity really kill you?

Phones:

• LG Nitro
• Motorola ATRIX 2
• Motorola ATRIX 4G
• Pantech Burst
• Samsung Captivate Glide
• Samsung Galaxy Note
• Samsung Galaxy S II
• Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket

Tablets:

• Pantech Element
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9

Do you know who Bubba Watson is? I sure don’t, but the internet tells me he’s a three-time PGA Tour winner — that’s right folks, he’s an expert at putting balls into cups.

As it turns out, Motorola Mobility thinks so highly of his skill that they’ve “teamed up” with him for a special golf-geared version of their MOTOACTV fitness gadget.

Really.

“The new Golf Edition of MOTOACTV has features that allows players to make better decisions on the course,” said Watson. Apparently, that includes the ability to track your distance from the green and nearby hazards, keep tabs on scores and stats, and sync your golf records for future perusal and analysis on the MOTOACTV website. Of course, all of the device’s usual fitness tracking features are still present and accounted for.

I was more hoping for something to tell people exactly where and how hard to hit the ball — having never played golf before, I’d appreciate that sort of unfair advantage if/when I ever hit the links.

I’ll admit that at first, this seemed like a very strange move on Motorola’s part. The MOTOACTV is a pretty niche device on its own, but to load it up with some very specific golf features (without even draping it in plaid) seemed to take it to another level entirely. That’s when it sunk in — golf junk can be really, really expensive. At $299 (same price as the golf-free variant), Motorola’s sporty little doodad may find its legs among pricey drivers and country club fees.

Motorola has really been stepping up lately. If you would have asked me six months ago to choose between a Samsung handset and a Motorola phone, I probably would have chosen Samsung hands-down.

But as Motorola evolves its design language and nails down some of our most necessary features — solid battery, thin profile, premium feel in the hand, and badass specs — I find myself more and more infatuated with the stuff Moto’s putting out.

Take this leaked Droid Fighter, for example. If information from the PhonesHK forums is correct, Motorola is improving on its already successful Razr design language with an even bigger HD screen. While the original Razr had a 4.3-inch 540×960 display, this new (officially) unnamed beast has a massive 4.6-inch display, boasting a 720p resolution.

After reading through the info provided at MFUNZ (the original source), it seems that not much else is known of the phone — in fact, we’re only guessing that this is the rumored Droid Fighter we’ve been seeing on leaked Verizon docs and such. If it is the Fighter, those same leaked documents peg this guy for a mid-April release on Verizon.

I’d also just like to take a second and talk about screen sizes. The trend is clearly moving towards larger displays, which I think of as a good thing most of the time. The Nexus is mostly comfortable at 4.65-inches, and 4.5-inch displays are damn near perfect when it comes to a nice balance between mobile video/gaming and usability. This 4.6-inch display should be just as wonderful.

Samsung is really the one to worry about. The 5.3-inch Galaxy Note tested my patience, and I can’t imagine that a 4.8-inch Galaxy S III will be much better (even if I am totally excited to get my hands on it).

[via Engadget]

When the Droid Razr Maxx first arrived I was filled with mixed emotions. On the one hand, I was truly excited that Motorola found a way to make the Razr a plausible option — the original battery life on that thing is atrocious. On the other hand, I felt bad for the folks who went out and bought a Razr only to have an (almost) identical device with twice the battery life land a couple months later.

But it turns out there may be a solution for you Razr owners after all. A senior member over at the XDA Developers forum has figured a way to slap a Razr Maxx battery and battery door onto the Razr, significantly improving battery life. But be warned, this is a rather dangerous mod with potentially devastating consequences, so do plenty of reading before you move forward and proceed with caution.

According to Wardo5757, the wizard who discovered this, putting the Maxx battery into the Razr leaves a little gap where the SIM card door and cover are. Both the Razr and the Razr Maxx are meant to have splash proof builds and be generally more rugged than other high-end smartphones, but after the mod chances are you’ll need to be a bit more careful around water and dust.

But the pros seem to far outweigh the cons. In my review, I found that the Razr Maxx lasted eight hours and fifteen minutes compared to just four and a half hours with the Razr. That’s almost twice the battery life.

More images and access to Wardo5757 can be found here. And if you decide to try it let us know how it goes, or if there’s anything else we should know.

Happy tinkering, everyone.

Another development in the very long and winding road of mobile patent disputes: Apple has now had to disable the mobile push email function used through MobileMe and iCloud, after a court ruled earlier this month that Apple had infringed on a Motorola patent claiming IP on push email.

A spokesperson from Apple told TechCrunch that the turn-off happened overnight, and that it will be appealing the ruling.

The block was first reported by the German blog Mobiflip.

As Apple did when the decision against it was first handed down earlier this month, it is once again downplaying the impact of not being able to offer push email through MobileMe and iCloud, saying that only a small number of German users will be affected:

“This ruling only impacts customers in Germany who use a Push setting to get their MobileMe and iCloud email,” he said. “These customers will still receive email to their devices. Apple believes this patent is invalid and is appealing the decision.”

TechCrunch understands that those who live and travel in Germany will not be able to get push email notifications on their Apple devices, but that this does not disable email altogether. There are rules that a user can still set up to check email regularly — Apple details how to do that here, on an information page it has made for users affected by this — although this will not be as instantaneous as those that are pushed.

When Apple first had the ruling on the pager case handed down earlier this month, a company spokesperson dismissed Motorola’s IP as an “old pager patent” — but even so, it represents a setback for Apple, in that it shows the company is not immune to roadblocks, either, when it comes to patent litigation.

Up to now, Apple has been successful at getting injunctions on Android-based Samsung tablets, both in Germany and Australia: Apple claims these rip off its designs and patents. Those cases are still in progress, and some of the injunctions have since been lifted.

Apple had another hiccup in Germany this month, when it had to remove older models of the iPhone and iPad from its online store after another ruling in a separate Motorola case. That block was lifted, however, less than 24 hours later.

The original ruling centered on a pager patent held by Motorola — going back to its earliest days as a mobile company, which now makes smart devices based on the Android platform and is in the process of getting acquired by Google, pending regulatory approvals still to be secured in China, Israel and Taiwan.

We are also reaching out to Motorola for comment for this story.

The Motorola Atrix line has been a big one for the company. Yet with two iterations out so far, the phones have yet to really wow anyone. But according to this specs/photo leak, the Atrix 3 may leave you humming a different tune.

Tian Jin Daily reports that the Atrix 3 will sport a 4.3-inch 720p display, which is a nice start but that’s not even where things get exciting. Under the hood, you’ll find a quad-core Tegra 3 processor, 2GB of RAM and a massive 3300mAh battery.

That’s the same battery we’re seeing on the Droid RAZR Maxx and let me tell you, even with a 4G LTE radio on the whole time that battery will last you all day, no problem.

Though we’re not 100 percent sure this is the Atrix 3, it makes sense based on the timing and the fact that this phone seems to be built around Atrix design language rather than that Razr-esque style Moto’s been so fond of lately.

The purported Atrix 3 should also pack a 10-megapixel camera with dual-LED flash. No word whether or not this bad boy will run Ice Cream Sandwich out of the box, but based on the fact that Moto already has a Medfield-powered ICS handset in the works, I’d say it’s officially safe to have hope.

Short Version

The Droid 4 doesn’t look much like its other Droid siblings, but it does promise the same stellar keyboard and a solid construction. At $199 it won’t break your wallet, but it will offer most of the same specs we’re seeing go for $300, including a 4G LTE radio. If thin and light is important to you, the Droid 4 probably isn’t what you’re looking for, but keyboard purists should start getting excited… right… now.

Features:

• 4-inch 540×960 display
• Verizon 4G LTE
• Android 2.3.6 Gingerbread
• 1.2GHz dual-core processor
• 8MP rear camera (1080p video capture)
• 1.3MP front camera (720p video capture)
• Sliding 5-row QWERTY keyboard
• MSRP: $199.99 on-contract

Pros:

• The backlit QWERTY keyboard is solid and comfortable
• Much better design than old Droids
• Highly print resistant, comfortable rear surface

Cons:

• Low quality photos
• It chugs a bit if you push it
• Battery’s a bust

Long Version

Hardware/Design:

The Droid 4 feels great in the hand, and in my honest opinion it sports a far superior design than its predecessors. It actually looks quite a bit like the Razr, save for a textured plastic back panel and the obvious added heft. Still, the same black bezel and boxy metal edges remain.

I wish that both the lock button and the volume rocker had depressed a bit more when pushed, but Moto got it right where port placement is concerned — both the HDMI out and microUSB are on the lower left hand edge. That shouldn’t bother anyone who’s tooling around while plugged in (and trust me, you’ll be plugged in quite a bit (more on that later)).

The removable battery door has a nice feel to it and is surprisingly resistant to prints, though for some odd(/stupid) reason Moto won’t let us get at the battery itself.

The size of the phone didn’t bother me at all. Obviously if thin and light are important to you than you won’t enjoy this, but it felt nice and solid to me. I prefer the 4-inch screen to stuff like the Nexus and Note’s giant displays, and the .5-inch waist line wasn’t that much of a bother either. See, the phone’s weight actually lends itself to a more premium feel in the hand and I wouldn’t have even minded an extra .1 inch if it meant a removable battery (hint hint).

Keyboard:

The Droid 4 keyboard isn’t going to give you any problems on the durability front. It slides in and out nicely and doesn’t seem to bend or crack at all when pressured. There is a little friction there when sliding it back and forth, but after a little getting used to I prefer that more than those ultra slippery sliders — feels a bit sturdier.

The buttons themselves lay nearly flush with the phone, which certainly looks nice, but I’d appreciate just a bit more of a hump or bump to help feel my way around. They’re non-slick keys which is nice on its own, but what’s even better is that they don’t seem to get all grubby and sticky either.

The buttons are placed well, with just enough space in between to at least feel a tiny groove (which is basically necessary since the buttons are so flat). They also offer a nice tapping noise and some solid tactile feedback when pressed, though textaholic teens may have some trouble going unnoticed in a classroom.

I still find the iOS virtual keyboard and Swype to be faster than this physical 5-row QWERTY (for me, at least), but keyboard purists likely won’t find anything better on the market.

Software:

The Droid 4 runs Android 2.3.6 Gingerbread along with some version of a Motorola overlay. It’s not MotoBlur exactly, but it’s certainly not pure Android.

The UI doesn’t seem terribly obtrusive, but it’s also not very useful either. The apps/widgets have this “flashy” effect when you swipe between home screens, which results in an annoyance at best and a headache at worst. There are social hubs and stuff, which is (how can I put it…) whatever, but the value proposition of the UI just isn’t good enough. Now that Googorola is almost in the bag we might start seeing a few more vanilla devices out of Moto, but that’s probably just a dream.

MotoCast is along for the ride here, which offers up a solid option for any cloud syncing/streaming you may want to do between phone and PC. You’ll also find Netflix, a lite version of Madden NFL 12, Kindle Reader, NFL Mobile, and Mog Music present and accounted for, along with a handful of bloatware apps from Verizon and Motorola.

Camera:

The camera on the Droid 4 didn’t live up to my expectations. The app itself is swell, on the other hand. There’s a little drop-down tab on the side that gives you access to plenty of settings, scenes, and modes. Not all of them are as useful as the others, but they’ll at least make for a good time playing around and taking pictures.

However, none of that really matters if the picture quality itself happens to blow. I tried to give it a few chances, switching between low-light and outdoor settings, but no matter what images just seemed to fall flat. I took the same shot with both my iPhone 4S and the Droid 4 and the difference in image quality is staggering.

Take a look:

Display:

The Droid 4 uses a TFT LCD qHD (960×540) display that measures 4 inches diagonally. Size-wise it feels just right. Since the phone itself is a bit thick, a screen any larger might make one-handed actions more difficult. Serious mobile gamers might be a little peeved at the smaller display, but if you’re a serious mobile gamer the Droid 4 probably isn’t right for you anyway.

In terms of quality I’m not all that impressed. Everything seems a bit fuzzier than it should. On the other hand, the Droid 4 screen allows for a nice wide viewing angle, but with a screen so small it’s doubtful you’ll be gathering around the 4 to watch a flick with friends. Could come in handy for the occasional group visit to YouTube, though.

Performance:

Call quality on the Droid 4 was just fine, though I did have a few issues whenever I tried to use microphone-equipped headphones. The usual Android lag is present, and this custom overlay (albeit lighter than TouchWiz) doesn’t help anything. For example, swiping between home screens packed with widgets and even scrolling in a the browser is choppy most of the time.

On the other hand the Droid 4 handled its benchmark testing rather well. Quadrant, which tests just about everything, gave it a score of 2430 on average. It scored an average of 86,544 on Browsermark, which benchmarks browser performance based on hardware. For some perspective, the Galaxy Note scored an averages of 2703 and 48,610 on Quadrant and Browsermark respectively.

Battery:

Unfortunately, the Droid 4 falls short in the battery life department. We test battery life on phones by running them through a program that simply performs a Google Image search each time a page loads. At any time we can pop out of that program and do other things, but the phone is always in use without sleeping from 100 percent battery life until it dies.

The Droid 4 lasted just three hours and forty-five minutes. For some perspective, the Droid Razr gave me a solid four and a half hours, while the Razr Maxx lasted for an impressive eight hours and fifteen minutes. Now, the Droid 4 didn’t seem to have such awful battery life when I let it breathe every once in a while, and the Razr Maxx’s main feature is its massive battery, but this Droid 4 battery life just isn’t adequate.

Head-To-Head With The Droid 3 And iPhone 4S:

Check out our thoughts on this match-up here.

Hands-On Video: Initial Impressions

Conclusion

Here’s the deal.

If you absolutely, 100 percent, beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt must have a physical keyboard on your phone, then yes, the Droid 4 is probably the best phone you’ll find. It’s far superior to any BlackBerry or QWERTY-sporting Android that I’ve ever come into contact with. But (and this is a big but)… I wouldn’t recommend the Droid 4 to just about anyone else.

The screen’s not all that impressive, the camera can’t hang, and the battery life won’t get you through the day. It’s pretty, that’s for sure, but simply not good enough unless your insistence on a keyboard is worth more than having a solid smartphone.

Remember, this is the next two years of your life. Who knows how awesome the virtual keyboards will be by then (or if we’ll even be typing with our fingers anymore)? Do you really want to be not one, but (probably) two steps behind everyone else?

Check out all of our Droid 4 review posts here.

It sometimes feels like an absurd story without an ending, trying to track who is attacking whom in the mobile patent game, and who is “winning.” But Google has now secured one patent that may just demonstrate that companies are figuring out ways of getting around would-be infringement issues — and possibly lead to producing more differentiated products in the process.

A Google patent, published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, looks like it could pave the way for a new way of unlocking a mobile device. The news comes just as Android-handset maker Motorola, which Google is in the process of acquiring, got a ruling against it in Germany for another mobile unlock patent, in an ongoing case filed by Apple.

Apple’s case in Germany rests on the slide-to-unlock gesture, something that Apple has been enforcing against other handset makers as well, such as Samsung — filing a case against the Korean handset maker in California just earlier this week.

In Germany, a court in Munich yesterday determined that Motorola violated those same Apple slide-to-unlock patents in its Android-based smartphone devices — although its Xoom tablets, for what it’s worth, were spared in the ruling.

Florian Mueller notes the ruling carries the possibility of a permanent injunction on it — although it will be up to Apple whether it decides to enforce it, and Motorola has already said it would appeal the decision and that it did not think the decision would have a material impact on sales. It could also modify this feature in its devices though a software update.

If what Motorola says is true — that sales would not be affected by this ruling — what else is at stake here?

There is an argument to be made that there are still too many features that are similar between different, competing smartphones. Android has so far been the clear winner in smartphone market share — with the operating system accounting for the majority of smartphone sales worldwide at the moment. But most individual device makers are not creating distinctive enough products to sell at volumes that compete with Apple and the very biggest of the Android makers, such as Samsung.

At the moment, with Android, some of the most distinctive implementations have been those where handset makers “fork” the OS, although that leads to fragmentation and difficulties further down the development chain.

That’s where Google’s new patent comes in handy. New methods for unlocking will include moving icons from one screen to another, text inputs and voice commands. But as Patently Apple notes, these elements could run together or separately.

This is the direction that Google will hopefully keep moving. If and when this patent gets implemented, it presents one more building block for Android handset makers not only to get around Apple’s legal complaints — but for them to figure out ways of making their products different from each other’s, while still remaining in Google’s ecosystem and not straying too far from the Android flock.

(Image: Glenn, Flickr)

Google has overcome two big regulatory hurdles in getting its $12.5-billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility approved by both U.S. and European regulators. China has until March 20 to decide whether or not it will wave through the deal, too.

The country’s Anti-Monopoly Bureau is now reviewing the deal — a routine part of the procedure for companies that make more than 400 million yuan ($63 million) in China and 10 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) globally. (Google reported revenues of nearly $38 million for 2011.) Now some think that China might use the opportunity to get Google to bring back its search business to the Mainland from Hong Kong.

Google has had a thorny relationship with China, and in 2010 relocated the bulk of its operations — its search business — to Hong Kong after allegations of hacking by Chinese authorities.

But China also spells a huge opportunity for the company: Android devices are selling like hotcakes on the mainland — with Q3 figures from Analysys International putting Android’s smartphone OS share in the country at nearly 60 percent (effectively swapping places with Nokia’s Symbian, which was 23 percent).

However, Google is, at the moment, missing out on a lot of the benefits of that, with every OEM, carrier, internet portal and their mothers offering forked versions of the OS, complete with third-party app stores, and other services that disintermediate the company.

Its search business, as of Q3 2011, had dropped to around 17 percent of the market, with local companies like Baidu dominating the space.

The Bureau will decide by March 20 whether to put the deal through another stage of the review process. Google first filed for approval in September 2011.

And according to a report in Reuters, there could also be a twist: citing two analysts in the area, it notes that regulators could use the deal as “leverage over Google” for its move to Hong Kong, to begin a “dialogue” with authorities over how Google could return to doing business more fully in China.

However Google’s negotiations go, it seems unlikely China will seek to halt the deal altogether. Edward Yu of Analysys International, speaking to Reuters, said that if China does object, the deal will fall apart. But with China gearing up to replace its party leadership, he said: “I don’t think there will be anything extreme” on the cards in terms of decision-making.

There have been a lot of question marks over what, exactly, Google wants most in a Motorola acquisition. There is the question of patents, for sure — 17,000 already in existence and applications for a further 7,500. But even if Google has said it would run Motorola as a separate business unit, owning a handset maker could give the company a crack at making its own range of Android devices that it could sell in countries like China, creating a foothold for other money-making services.

Bargaining over growing its business in China may well fit into a wider Google strategy anyway, with reports (like this one from the WSJ) that the company is on a hiring run in the country again, picking up engineers, sales people and product managers, as well as launching new services this year.

A life spent caught up in the drudgery of retail is usually pretty free of frills, but Verizon Wireless employees may soon be getting a shot at some swanky hardware if some newly-leaked images hold true. According to Android And Me, Verizon has reached out to their employees with an offer they may not be able to refuse: limited edition Droid RAZRs and Droid RAZR MAXXs.

And what’s so limited about these edition then? The employee-only Droid RAZR sports a red and black finish on its backside rather than the monochrome stylings of its more mundane brethren, along with the device’s number within the production run.

Meanwhile, the device’s front sports a “limited edition” engraving just so no one mistakes it for a more pedestrian device. Just to sweeten the pot, Verizon is also throwing in a free multimedia dock for any employee willing to take the bait.

Not a bad deal at all, especially considering the supposed price tags involved: employees will be able to snag a limited edition 16GB Droid RAZR for a scant $99, while a similarly tricked out MAXX will set them back $199.

No word on how big the production runs are or when they’ll be released, but I wouldn’t be surprised if all of these highfaluting handsets get snapped up in a hurry. Even so, I give it about 20 minutes before the first few enterprising Verizon employees try to flip their new toys for a profit on eBay or Craiglist, so the mobile collectors among you may want to keep yours eyes peeled.

Motorola’s latest handsets have been pretty impressive. The Razr and Razr Maxx, in particular, are excellent handsets. But it would seem that the (almost) freshly acquired company has no intentions of resting on its laurels.

Rather than sticking with its usual OMAP-powered devices, Motorola has slapped an Intel Medfield chip on to this anonymous device. And lest we forget, Ice Cream Sandwich is finally coming along for the ride. (It sure does pay off to be under Google’s wing, doesn’t it?)

Based on the renders, it would appear that Motorola is also changing up its design language yet again. With the Razr, things took on more of a boxey look, but maintained the classic Moto hump along the back. However, this unnamed device is in more of a teardrop shape, nixing the hump altogether and instead getting thinner and thinner as we move down the phone.

Pocketnow reports that the big selling feature on this phone will be its camera, which should supposedly boast instant-on and 15 frame-per-second burst mode. That sounds delightful alongside Moto’s stellar camera app.

A new version of MotoBlur should also be in tow (undoubtedly smearing the beauty of ICS), and is expected to first debut at Mobile World Congress in a couple weeks.

Further details are sparse, but we’ll but sure to clue you in once we know more.

Just hours after the European Commission announced their approval of Google’s $12.5 billion Motorola purchase, the United States Department of Justice has announced that they too have given the deal their blessing.

With this, Google is one step closer to closing the deal, although they’re still waiting on approval from China, Taiwan, and Israel before the transaction can officially be completed.

According to the DoJ’s Antitrust Division, who conducted the investigation, the purchase was “not likely to significantly change existing market dynamics” or “substantially lessen competition.”

That isn’t to say that they didn’t have their concerns though — like the European Commission, the Justice Department will continue to keep their eyes on Google for any signs of patent abuse. Reuters reports that the DoJ “would not hesitate to take enforcement action” in the case that Google were to manipulate the licensing of standard essential patents to their own advantage.

But let’s back up a minute here: what does that actually mean? Standard essential patents (also known as SEPs) are patents granted for technologies that are required to meet an industry standard. LTE, for example, is a networking standard for the wireless industry, and quite a few patented processes and technologies are required to make it work properly.

Because those standards in question are often ones that rival manufacturers need to make use of, companies that hold SEPs are usually made to license them under what are called RAND (reasonable and nondiscriminatory) or FRAND (fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory) terms by the organizations that create the standards in the first place. As you could probably guess, RAND/FRAND licensing terms are meant to ensure that the companies that have to license those technologies don’t get the shaft because some rival of theirs was originally granted the patent.

Being a major player in the mobile space thanks to the Android operating system, Google stands to pick up roughly 17,000 patents from Motorola Mobility when the purchase is complete. The Justice Department and the European Commission are fully aware that once Google has access to all of Motorola’s SEPs, they’ll be able to effectively screw other companies with unfair licensing costs. With all those new patents, Google has much more ammo they could use to screw rivals like Apple.

Of course, being able to do something and actually doing it are two completely different things. With both the European Commission and the U.S. Justice Department sniffing around, Google would never be able to pull off a feat without raising major eyebrows. Not that they’d want to anyway — for a company that prides itself on not being evil, using patents to stifle innovation seems patently un-Google. Even so, expect the rest of the bodies that Google need approval from to take a similarly tough stance on the patent issue.

As you’ll notice quite quickly from this infographic, we’re pitting the Droid 4 against its predecessor, the Droid 3, along with the iPhone 4S. For anyone who isn’t a die-hard Android fan, the iPhone 4S usually comes into the equation when it comes time to upgrade hardware. Since many of our reviews will be of Android devices (and Windows Phone) rather than iOS, we wanted to make sure to let you visualize the differences between the handset we’re reviewing and its biggest competitors.

Sorry for the announcement, but the boring part is over. Onward!

As you can see from our infographic, the Droid 4 is a solid step up from the Droid 3. It packs LTE, touts 1GB of RAM, has a bigger battery, and a front-facing camera. You’ll also see that Moto (awesomely) made the Droid 4 bigger than the Droid 3, while being lighter all at the same time.

As far as the iPhone 4S vs. Droid 4 comparison goes, these are two very different beasts. Obviously the Droid 4′s claim to fame is its physical QWERTY, which is fantastic, while the iPhone 4S’s big name feature is Siri. Clearly, these are two very different methods of interaction with your phone, so it’ll come down to what you need most.

Both the Droid 3 and the Droid 4 retail for $199.99 on-contract, though you can pick up the Droid 4 from Amazon for a cool $99. The iPhone 4S can be had for $200 on-contract, but that’ll only get you the 16GB version, while the $199 Droid 4 packs an extra 32GB of memory via a microSD card.

Before we chat out the Droid 4 there’s a bit of other news we need to address right quick. As you’ll surely notice, we’re doing smartphone reviews a little differently now. That said, this video and my basic hands-on impressions are just the first in a three-part series reviewing the phone. Stay tuned for what comes next!

Alright then, back to business…

The Motorola Droid 4 has spent exactly 24 hours on shelves, and from the time I’ve spent with the phone I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that it’s doing quite well there.

If you keep up with phones you know that the Droid 4 is a big deal, the fourth in Motorola’s Droid brand (which happens to be one of the most successful Android brands we’ve seen to date), and a QWERTY-packing beast if I may say so. The thing about it, however, is that the keyboard (any physical keyboard) is becoming less and less necessary.

To be clear, I think that the Droid 4 keyboard is possibly one of the best I’ve ever used. It gives a solid tactile feedback and is fairly easy to navigate. The fact that it’s backlit only adds to my infatuation. But… a combination of great auto-correct and Swype nearly makes that keyboard useless.

I understand that back in the day typing on a touchscreen was super annoying, since the auto-correct wasn’t quite up to snuff. That’s not really the case anymore, and I almost feel like anyone who insists on a physical QWERTY is doing so simply because they’re so used to it.

Truth be told the transition can be tough from QWERTY to soft keys, but Swype can make that transition a lot easier and you’ll ultimately be much faster in the typing department.

Still, for those of you who demand QWERTY-style satisfaction, I can’t recommend a better handset than the Droid 4. The 4-inch screen compliments the size and weight of the phone perfectly, and it honestly doesn’t feel that much smaller than the 4.3-inch Razr display.

Watching movies and playing games is still just as great, in terms of size, but it only made me feel “eh” in terms of quality. Sure, it’s plenty bright and pixel-dense, but it doesn’t have the wow factor of these 720p displays we’re seeing lately.

I didn’t experience any serious issues with the phone in terms of performance, and it would seem that 1GB of RAM combined with that 1.2GHz dual-core processor can handle basic tasks and multitasking just fine. At the same time, I’ve only spent about 24 hours with it, so things may change with heavier testing.

As you can see in the video, the Droid 4 looks much more like the Razr or Razr Maxx than it does its other Droid family members. I almost wish that Kevlar fiber casing was along for the ride, too, but that might ruin one of the best things about the Droid 4: its $199.99 price tag from Verizon.

We’ll be hitting you with more on the Droid 4 as the week progresses, so stay tuned for the rest of our review.

Note: I mistakenly stated in the video that the Droid 4 runs Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread, when it in fact runs Android 2.3.6. My apologies.

It’s been nearly a month since Verizon officially spilled the beans on the QWERTY-packing, LTE-sporting Motorola Droid 4, and now we finally have a release date to go with it. According to the nation’s largest wireless provider, the oft-delayed Droid 4 is due to hit sales channels on February 10 complete with a $199 price tag.

Though its slimmer brethren have enjoyed most of the limelight lately, the Droid 4 is still a welcome addition to the Verizon lineup as their second LTE device with a full physical keyboard.

While it doesn’t yet run Ice Cream Sandwich, the rest of its feature list — 1.2 GHZ dual-core processor, 1 GB of RAM, 8-megapixel rear camera, and 4-inch qHD display — make for an attractive little package. Additional features like government-grade encryption, a sprinkling of enterprise-friendly apps, and support for Motorola’s Lapdock 500 only sweeten the deal, especially if you’re looking to dump that work BlackBerry for something a bit more robust.

To celebrate the release of the Droid 4 (and a buy-one-get-one promotion on the Droid RAZR family), Verizon is also reviving their double-data promotion, so penny-pinching phone shoppers may want to jump on the deal before it disappears again. Of course, if Verizon keeps doing what they’re doing, there’s a real chance we’ll see that double data promo rear its head once another noteworthy LTE smartphone comes down the pipeline.

Maybe it was too thick, maybe it was too heavy, maybe you just didn’t like Honeycomb. Regardless of your reasoning, you may want to keep your eyes peeled on your credit score if you bought and returned a Motorola Xoom between March and October 2011, because your personal information may be in someone else’s hands.

That’s the story from Motorola, anyway. As it happens, the standard refurbishment process that occurs when a customer returns a piece of hardware didn’t go exactly as planned for some devices. Motorola estimates that out of batch of 6,200 refurbished Xoom Wi-Fi tablets, about 100 of them weren’t properly erased before they were resold in batches on daily deals site Woot.com.

Though the odds are in your favor that you weren’t affected, I doubt that same line of reasoning will provide much comfort to someone who was.

Motorola doesn’t go into much detail about how exactly the process went awry. Were the tablets simply not wiped before they were resold? Did some glitch cause user-stored data to remain on the device even after a factory reset? According to them, the “information that may be accessible to the purchasers of the impacted refurbished tablets may include any information that the original user elected to store on the tablet.”

That could potentially include media like photos and video, as well as “user names and passwords for email and social media accounts, as well as other password-protected sites and applications.” With tablets supplanting notebooks and PCs for a growing number of users, this sort of snafu is the last thing Motorola needs as they and bounce back from a disappointing fourth quarter, though they’ve been pretty forthcoming about the whole mess.

If you were one of the people who returned a Xoom between March and October 2011, let Motorola know — they’ll be setting you up with a free 2-year subscription to Experian’s ProtectMyID identity theft alert service. They would also like to have a word with you if you bought a refurbished Xoom from Woot, so mosey on over to their returns site to see if your new old tablet is one of the troublemakers.

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived a website called Apple.de. And on this website, in historical Deutschland, there lived three iPhones and an iPad. They were a happy bunch: some wise but slow with old age, others quick and lean, but they all had one tragic flaw in common.

According to a court in Germany, all four of them are infringing on Motorola patents related to embedded 3G/UMTS wireless technology, FRAND standards essential patents to be specific. This means that the technology within the patents is now a standard across the industry, and the company that owns said technology is required to license it to competitors under fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms.

That said, the Mannheim Regional Court has enforced a permanent injunction on the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 3G and the iPad 2 3G. Luckily for German fanbois, the ban only affects Apple’s online presence. Customers can still purchase all four products in various retail locations, including Apple brick-and-mortar stores.

This all comes back to a ruling in December, where the Mannheim court issued a preliminary injunction against Apple’s infringing products.

German: “Derzeit nicht verfügbar”
English: “Not currently available.”

You may notice one wireless Apple device — the one that speaks — missing from the list. That’s likely because the iPhone 4S uses a Qualcomm chip as opposed to an Infineon/Intel chip. FOSS Patents suggests that Moto and Qualcomm have a licensing deal already in place, which would mean that Apple is covered by extension with regards to the 4S.

In other Apple/Motorola/Germany-related news, Moto also won a permanent injunction today against Apple’s iCloud push email feature. This means Apple customers in Germany will likely be forced to revert back to the old method of push email, rather than using iCloud.

Update: According to AllThingsD, Apple will have its banned products back online and available on its German site very soon. Apple was in the midst of appealing the ruling while it was removing the products from its online storefront, and the appeal has won the Cupertino-based company a suspension of the injunction.

Here’s the official statement from Apple:

Apple appealed this ruling because Motorola repeatedly refuses to license this patent to Apple on reasonable terms, despite having declared it an industry standard patent seven years ago.