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CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight

By | January 9, 2012, 12:15pm PST

Summary: CES 2012: With virtualization, encryption, a four-inch display and five-row QWERTY keyboard, Motorola’s new Droid 4 is a road warrior’s delight.

LAS VEGAS — Thinner, faster, more productive.

Motorola announced today the Droid 4, a Google Android smartphone on Verizon that it says is ideal for road warriors who want to work like hell while they’re on the move.

The business specifications are stacked for this device: a five-row, edge-lit QWERTY keyboard, a 4-inch scratch- and scrape-resistant display, government-grade FIPS 140-2 encryption, “mirror mode” to display content on an HDTV and lapdock-ready.

Oh, and it’s a half-inch thick.

Inside, Moto has packed a dual-core 1.2 GHz processor, 1 gigabyte of RAM and an 8-megapixel, 1080p HD still/video camera. On the software side, the company includes a “smart actions” application that automates tasks, a webtop application for a multi-window environment on a larger screen and, naturally, those blazing fast 4G LTE download and upload speeds. (Where available, of course.)

The phone is preloaded with Android version 2.3.5 Gingerbread, “to be upgraded to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich,” the company says.

More vitals:

  • Remote streaming of photos, videos, music, documents, presentations and more from home or office computers
  • 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot supporting up to eight Wi-Fi-enabled devices
  • water-repellent nanocoating for “splash resistance”
  • 16GB on-board memory, support for up to 32GB microSD card
  • Government-grade encryption (FIPS 140-2) for email, calendar and contacts
  • Preloaded with Citrix Receiver for Android (available in webtop) for desktop virtualization and access

As you can see, it’s one serious piece of kit.

The phone will be available from Verizon “in the coming weeks.” No word on price.

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Topics

4G, Verizon Communications Inc., Verizon Wireless, Motorola Inc., DROID 4, Corporate Communications, Cellular Phones, Wireless And Mobility, Marketing, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Andrew Nusca

Andrew J. Nusca is associate editor of ZDNet and editor of SmartPlanet.

Disclosure

Andrew Nusca

Andrew J. Nusca does not hold any investments in the technology companies he covers.

Biography

Andrew Nusca

Editor

Andrew J. Nusca is an associate editor at ZDNet and editor of SmartPlanet. As a journalist based in New York City, he has written for Popular Mechanics and Men's Vogue and his byline has appeared in New York magazine, The Huffington Post, New York Daily News, Editor & Publisher, New York Press and many others. He also writes The Editorialiste, a media criticism blog.

He is a New York University graduate and former news editor and columnist of the Washington Square News. He is a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He has been named "Howard Kurtz, Jr." by film critic John Lichman despite having no relation to him. He lives in his native Philadelphia with his wife, cat and Boston Terrier.

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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
sarai1313@... Updated - 10th Jan
some one has goten a clue.now if was windos program phone it would be great
View in thread
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
jred 9th Jan
Now make it $150, $200 with a dock, and leave out the encrypted bootloader....
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
eak2000 9th Jan
@jred Oh, and while we're dreaming... let's also add "gets at least 2 hours of battery life".
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
david-barnett@... 9th Jan
@eak2000 @jred And don't forget the AV/anti-malware
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
aristotle_z 9th Jan
@jred: Do you have a reading comprehension problem? What part of Government-grade encryption (FIPS 140-2) for email, calendar and contacts do you not get? Security and a device to tinker with are mutually exclusive. If you are so interested in technology, why don't you get some training and a "job" in the field instead instead of being a "hobbyist"?

This is not the phone for me either because I don't like Android but at least I know how to read.

I known exactly how to jailbreak/root my iPhone but I have absolutely no desire to do so. I prefer to have the security of BSD jails keeping all of the software running in their specified spaces and store limits.
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
gil@... 10th Jan
@jred
Might I suggest some familiarization coursework in Hardware/Programming to enable communication at a level above a "consummer hobbyist". Check out Stanford's course on iPhone Application ProgrammingCS193P at http://see.stanford.edu/see/courses.aspx In all seriousness, it will give you a feeling for the complexity/cost curve and the meaning of your statement regarding the bootloader. You don't need to master the class, and yes I realize the class subject is iPhone. happy
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
jerunamuck 10th Jan
@jred

Apparently @aristotle_z and @gil aren't keeping up on their white hat reading list. encrypted boot loaders and BSD jails are not cutting it as a security mechanism. they only serve to enforce the walled garden approach to marketing and encourage a proliferation of mobile malware that end users are restricted from defending against. This has, unfortunately, lead to many noobs jail breaking but not securing their devices which only makes a bad situation worse.

Since we don't participate in our Democracy we get SOTP and S. 968 when we sould be getting a choice of unlocked device or fully managed device where the fully managed device has security patches pushed out automatically.
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
michael@... 9th Jan
agree with jred
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
aristotle_z 9th Jan
@michael@ Did you go to school with him because you cannot read either apparently.
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
Peter Perry 9th Jan
@aristotle_z Perhaps you should show us where the Federal Information Processing Standard requires an Encrypted Boot loader... The article specifically says email, calendar, and Contacts but never once mentions this being at an OS level.

Now honestly, unless the Encryption is hardware based, I cannot see putting a custom rom on it if you value security.
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
imkain@... 9th Jan
If it doesn't already come with Ice Cream Sandwich it isn't worth the electronics built into it...because it is already obsolete. Sorry Droid 4...would rather wait until the "Official" ICS phones come out and not these pretenders.
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
jgm@... 9th Jan
@imkain@... How is it "obsolete" if it runs all the Android apps in existence? With Windows 8 "on the way", does that make Windows 7 obsolete?
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
Mike Blumenstein 9th Jan
@jgm@... it's not. wink
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Ya Almost anyway.
Cayble Updated - 9th Jan
@jgm@...

Windows 7 apparently makes Android of any sweet flavor obsolete so ....god know what Windows 8 will do to everything else.
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
Mike Blumenstein 9th Jan
@imkain@... there already is an "official" ICS phone out... here is a quick link for you http://shop.verizonwireless.com/?id=samsung%20nexus

I have played with the Galaxy Nexus for a while now... anything notable with the Nexus can all be traced to software, not hardware. In some regards it's actually an inferior piece of hardware to the Razr and now the Droid 4. Don't judge a book by it's "software" cover. When Moto finally releases 4.0 to these phones they will be the superior handsets due to build quality alone... and may be the reason 4.0 is delayed a bit... because of the late release of the Galaxy Nexus... Verizon needs some time for sales to roll in on the "Official" ICS phone before they make IT obsolete. happy
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
jefferyshall 10th Jan
@imkain@... I guess you cannot read either. It says comes with Gingerbread "now" will get ICS later. Everyone is still making their versions of ICS right now as soon as they are done this will have ICS too. Geesh!
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
michael@... 9th Jan
I just want a phone with a qwerty keyboard , a decent horizontal screen with good clear sound.
My Nokia 9000 was perfect apart from the 12 hour battery life:-)

I just want a modern replacement without the frills which most of us never,ever,use.
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
jm001 10th Jan
@michael@... Right on. Too many bells and whistles these days and I don't think this Moto is going to get any battery life longer than 3-4 hours. Notice how they never mention battery life in the list of features.
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Ahem...
kaninelupus 10th Jan
@jm001

Okay, now I'm butting in here.... wife and I recently moved from the LG Viewty's to the Optimus 1.0 (LG's apparently budget-level 'smart phone' offering). My wife if a texting queen, always in 'conversation' with one friend or another; myself I wanted a phone which could offer both a replacement for my Creative mp3 player, as well as offering mapping and cycle apps... both of us are new to Android or smart phones.

For a budget phone we are both blown away, especially in regard to what it can do and how long the battery holds up. Now if our phones are considered 'budget level' I'd be slow to mock the 'Droid' arsenal without a fair test run guys... you might be left with egg on your faces!
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
omni1269 9th Jan
How about a worthwhile global phone for a change?
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
mccoigk 9th Jan
@omni1269 My Droid 2 Global does the job.... its Verizon's overpriced global plans that have me avoiding it and using my laptop in the hotel for email and Skype instead.
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
NetMammal 9th Jan
I was rushed into buying the Droid 2 Global (upgrade from original Droid). It was a huge disappointment. Crashes and/or hangs every several weeks. A firmware upgrade was practically forced down my throat,which has improved things, but that does not say much.
This is hearsay, but I'll repeat it: a friend in the app development business tells me his QA folks think Moto just does not test their gear enough before releasing. I don't have any experience with other vendors, the hardware build quality seems high, its the software/firmware that is sub-optimal.
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
cfkirkwood@... 9th Jan
@omni1269 You hit it - no point in Droid 3, Droid 4 or Droid 9 if it does not have a global option. The roads are longer these days.
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Where there is wifi...
jasonp@... 9th Jan
@cfkirkwood@...
there is a global option. I've used my Android in Germany numerous times.
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
gswank54@... 9th Jan
I have a droid x, it is a royal pain in the butt. The touchscreen locks up whenever it feels like, you have to shut it down then restart it. Checking email is a royal pain as it is about a 100 emails behind, sending an email is next to impossible as the screen continues to lock up. The touch screen is not accurate, if you touch an s you may get an a or a d. Very aggravating. Dont think I will ever use another Motorola product again ever.
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
michaelwil@... 9th Jan
@gswank54@... You might try this as an email client.. K9 Mail. I have the first Droid and have had a love/hate relationship with it... mainly because of email and using multiple accounts. After finally complaining and not taking "I don't know" as an answer I escalated up to a great Verizon guy who said "try K9 our email client isn't any where near as good"... OMG was he right. I like my phone now, after 2+ yrs!
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
scubajeff2 9th Jan
@michaelwil@...
i second k9 on the droidx. after purchasing a 25d competitor, finally wound up with k9. top notch app.
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
jdeixler 9th Jan
@gswank54@... I had a Droid X and recently upgraded to Razer and it is drastically improved. I would not toss Motorola out just for the Droid X, but I hear your pain.
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
sdrolz 9th Jan
I've got a Razr and I have to say i love it. Even the battery life can last a day and a half if your not using it constantly. If the Droid 4 is any improvement over the Razr it will be one helluva mobile device. However all the great hardware in the world can't make up for the disappearing 4GLTE network. Get that under control and Verizon will be ok.
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'piece of kit' - ahhhhhh
pethers 9th Jan
I'm sick and tired of the this stupid slang! Originating from the UK it drives me crazy its so annoying!
'This is some serious piece of KIT!' Give me a break from this phrase please!
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
Moeity 10th Jan
@pethers - maybe they meant to say, serious piece of sh*t

btw, I thought piece of kit was an article of clothing, so this never made sense to me anyway.
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No GSM, no road warrior.
pwatson 9th Jan
Is it competent to call a phone without GSM a "road warrior?"

That road does not go very far.
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
Mike Blumenstein 9th Jan
@pwatson ummm you mean Boat and Plane warrior then? The roads do only go so far wink
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
dachba 9th Jan
I agree, pethers, and I'm from the states. I know what it means but it seems pretentious. Why not just say, "this is some serious chunk of pulchritudinous phone we have here" (GRIN).

Just another techie "old phart".
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
docpark 9th Jan
This is exciting, but in my prior experience with Motorola's Droid 2, adopting early is hazardous. The phone would freeze requiring reboots in the middle of phone calls -as a surgeon, this was a deal breaker and I fled to iPhone 4 as soon as it came out. Motorola does not update the OS frequently -there is no money in it. It's new relationship with Google may change that, but I would avoid being a beta tester.
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
madziek@... 9th Jan
Android will be dead soon. Only Windows Mobile will survive.
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
KarinHO 9th Jan
I agree. My DroidX is miserable. I would add that when making calls my face will cause numbers to be dialed which either interrupts the call or hangs it up. I can text using my BB at least 3X as fast since I'm not "accidentally" getting neighboring characters. The screen locks up at odd times and sometimes I must take the battery out to reset the device. My next phone is likely to be an iPhone. I'm so disappointed.
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
rhon@... 9th Jan
"for road warriors who want to work like hell" Luckily for those people 4G LTE is only widely available in the Nordic countries, Japan and Korea, if it was for the US they could rest and sleep after 1.5 - 2 hours when the battery runs out of juice.
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
beckji@... 10th Jan
I remember the good old days, when a tablet was made of stone and lasted a lifetime....
Ever since they invented the wheel, mankindkind has tried to make it go faster, and all they ever got was broken wheels happy

Agree with the lack of info on battery life... that is always a tell-tale sign to me.
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
TaxNerd 10th Jan
We don't need a word on price. Just sign me up!
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
TaxNerd 10th Jan
@Karin...don't leave the screen active during calls. Hit the top button to shut down the screen while continuing the phone call. Your experience is the downside with any touch screen phone: touching the screen does stuff. That's kinda the point.
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
TaxNerd 10th Jan
@pwatson: It is competent to call a phone a "road warrior" if it has iDEN in lieu of GSM, as Motorola and Nextel refer to theirs. Same dif.
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
kmoffat@... 10th Jan
except Google bought Motorola, so things may improve... ?
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Wow! piece of work!
realvarezm 10th Jan
That thing looks amazing! Is a shame that i already have the 3 version. But is hard to keep up with upgrades and new models, if your pocket is nearly empty. Great devices Motorola has been launching.
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
jaareshiah 10th Jan
The language that celebrities (such as Cher) used commonly on the air waves is to be being tested at the Supreme Court. And here, the expression "work like hell" is taken just like casual stroll down a walkway. The technological age we are living in has caused many to throw aside moral principles, placing "new devices" as paramount. Language that creates a genuine loving response is becoming like the dinosaurs, extinct. Hate, or lovelessness is now filling the void, even as Jesus said: "Because of the increasing of lawlessness, the love the greater number will cool off."(Matt 24;12)
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
MisterQED 10th Jan
It sounds good and I personally don't care as much about the locked bootloader, though ICS would/will be nice. The road warrior pieces that I think will be missing is Global access and decent battery life. They are going to discontinue my cherished Droid 3 which is the only trustworthy global phone from Verizon. The other options are fragile options from HTC and Apple or the hassle of RIM.
The road warriors I know travel overseas.
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
jeanshack 10th Jan
Is this running a Tegra or Snapdragon?
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
thomsouza 10th Jan
All I want to know is Can it be bought UNLOCKED ? I will not do business with Verizon. But, I might consider it if it is GSM compatible and available with other carriers.
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RE: CES 2012: Motorola debuts Droid 4; road warrior's delight
sarai1313@... Updated - 10th Jan
some one has goten a clue.now if was windos program phone it would be great

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