Clutch your Razr tight and give the StarTAC under your pillow a pat — the Motorola name will soon be a thing of the past. [More]
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Lenovo Is The “Moneyball” Of Consumer Electronics
By 5.8.14
We have an ongoing joke at Consumerist that Chinese consumer electronics company Lenovo is a massive anti-capitalist prank, not wanting to actually sell gadgets to consumers. Customer service issues aside, this week Bloomberg Businessweek speculates that Lenovo is more savvy than any of us might have thought, assembling a dream team out of cast-off brands and companies that no one else wants. [More]
Lenovo Agrees To Buy Motorola From Google For $3 Billion
By 1.29.14
Not even three years after Google bought wireless device biggie Motorola for $12.5 billion comes news that it’s made a deal with Lenovo to take the manufacturer off Google’s hands for a fraction of that amount. [More]
Does $100 Moto G Shake Notion That Unsubsidized Smartphones Must Be Expensive?
By 1.2.14
The general line of thought in the wireless market is that prepaid customers are offered older and cheaper smartphones because most prepaid customers don’t also want to splash out the $500-800 for an unlocked, top-of-the-line device. Meanwhile, contract phone customers are pitched those pricier phones but at discounted rates (or monthly installment plans) that make the phones more affordable (and lock the customer into months or years of service). But does a good smartphone need to cost so much? Do phones for the prepaid market need to be so bad? Maybe not. [More]
Motorola To Redo Cyber Monday Sale On Wednesday After The First Try Didn’t Go So Well
By 12.3.13
For all the patient boys and girls out there who were waiting to get a $150 discount on an off-contract Moto X yesterday, your efforts might’ve felt a bit wasted when Motorola’s Cyber Monday deal never even got off the ground. Due to the crushing weight of shopper traffic on the purchase page, Motorola Mobility couldn’t pull its sale off, and instead has rescheduled the deal for Wednesday at noon EST. [More]
Law Enforcement Officials From Around The Country Ask Smartphone Manufacturers To Install Kill Switches
By 6.13.13
As we mentioned yesterday, New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón are meeting this week with execs from Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, and Google to discuss ways wireless device manufacturers can help deter theft and eliminate the market for stolen phones. Today, Schneiderman and Gascón — along with attorneys general, district attorneys, chiefs of police, consumer advocates, and educators — have launched a nationwide initiative to bring this issue to the fore. [More]
Motorola To Assemble Next Smartphone, Moto X, In United States
By 5.30.13
Wages are rising in Asia, energy costs are falling in the United States, and two out of three Americans at least say that they would pay higher prices for gadgets assembled in America. That means that it’s an ideal time for Motorola Mobility to try assembling the Moto X, its first phone designed under Google ownership, on shore. [More]
Latest Android Ice Cream Sandwich Update Makes My Phone Melt Like… Well, You Know
By 10.26.12
While some Motorola customers are upset that they can’t update their phones to the second newest version of the Android operating system, Ice Cream Sandwich, Elise wishes that she hadn’t. The newest system and OS upgrades are making her Droid Bionic run hot. Really hot. She sent along some photos of how the phone seems to be melting itself. [More]
Motorola To Customers: Sorry, No Android Upgrades For Your New-ish Devices
By 10.17.12 — Updated: 10.24.12
Customers who bought the Motorola Photon and other very recent smartphone models are unhappy. When they bough the phones, Motorola bragged that they’d soon be upgraded to a newer version of the Android operating system, Ice Cream Sandwich. That’s not the very newest version, mind you, but it’s a newer version. Now, their phones are less than a year old, and the promised upgrade is never going to come. [More]
Hey, Verizon And Motorola, I Want My Ice Cream Sandwich
By 9.19.12
Reader GC owns an Android tablet purchased from Verizon Wireless. Customers were promised that the device would receive an update to the latest version a newer version of the Android operating system, called Ice Cream Sandwich, by now. The promised update has come for the larger version of the tablet, the Droid xyboard, but not for its little brother. Sure, GC could jailbreak the device, but why do that and void the warranty when the update was supposed to be here by now? [More]
How I Finally Escaped Verizon's Droid R2D2 Smartphone Replacement Purgatory
By 8.28.12
Like many of our readers, Elizabeth is sort of a nerd. When a special edition of Motorola’s Droid smartphone came out that’s dressed up to look like actual fictional ‘droid R2D2 from “Star Wars,” she took the opportunity to upgrade. Critics say that the phone is just a painted-up Droid 2, but Elizabeth liked it. Well, she liked it until a week or so later when it stopped working properly. That’s when Verizon encased her in carbonite and cast her into Smartphone Replacement Purgatory. [More]
The 26 Top CEOs Who Made More Than Their Companies Paid In Federal Taxes
By 8.16.12
Once again, it’s time for the annual Institute for Policy Studies report on which top CEOs are earning more money than the companies they work for are paying out to federal government in taxes. [More]
Perhaps The 8th And 9th Replacement Phones We Send You Won’t Be Defective
By 6.7.12
Garland and her husband have the same Android smartphone from Virgin Mobile, the Motorola Triumph. It’s supposed to be a pretty nice phone, and wasn’t cheap, but both of their phones had some issues. So get a warranty replacement and be on your way, right? Only it wasn’t just one replacement. Garland is now about to receive her fourth replacement phone, and her husband his third. That’s a total of seven defective phones so far. The phones suffer from a variety of problems, ranging from random reboots to poor reception to–worst of all–not recharging at all for no clear reason. They’d like Virgin to perhaps consider sending them a different, less crappy phone next time. They won’t. [More]
How Heavy Is A Phone That Promises Up To 21.5 Hours Of Continuous Talk Time?
By 1.12.12
Earlier this week at the Consumer Electronics Show, Motorola unveiled the latest member of its RAZR family of cellphones, the Droid RAZR Maxx, which the company says can deliver up to a whopping 21.5 hours of continuous talk time. [More]
This 19" Portable TV Was 'The Supreme Achievement Of The Television Age' In 1959
By 1.6.12
Imagine a portable TV with a 19″ screen that has a fuel cell that recharges from your wall outlet, and can be disguised as a weirdly heavy briefcase. Not impressed? Maybe you would have been if it were still 1959, when Motorola introduced this amazing television with its futuristic rechargeable “energy cell” (sold separately.) [More]
Motorola Wins Patent Battle And Potential For Injunction Against Apple In Germany
By 12.9.11
Apple is having a tough go of it over in Europe, as they’re involved in various lawsuits in several countries, including one they just lost. Motorola Mobility just scored a big hit against Apple, winning a patent infringement suit against them in Germany. [More]
25 CEOs Who Made More Than Their Companies Paid In Income Taxes
By 8.31.11
The Institute for Policy Studies has just released its 18th annual review of U.S. executive compensation and found that 25 out of the country’s 100 highest-paid chief executives actually earned more in 2010 than their companies paid out in corporate income taxes. [More]
T-Mobile Keeps Replacing Defective Phone With More Defective Phones
By 8.31.11
Some months ago, Elliot upgraded the phone on his T-Mobile plan. He chose the Motorola Defy, which turned out to be a poor choice. At least, it was for Elliot, who enjoys having a phone that actually works. T-Mobile has cast him into smartphone replacement purgatory, where he will be stuck until he gives up and changes carriers, or his warranty expires and he pays for a new phone. [More]
