Can Motorola Droid RAZR Maxx Dwarf Samsung Galaxy Nexus?

Motorola Droid RAZR Maxx, which was showcased at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas Jan. 9, is available on Verizon Wireless from Thursday for $299.99 with a two-year contract.

Droid RAZR Maxx is expected to face immense competition from the first Ice Cream Sandwich phone, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, which was made available in November.

Motorola Droid RAZR Maxx sports a 4.3-inch 960 x 540 pixels Super AMOLED Advanced capacitive touch-screen with 256 ppi pixel density. It has a dual-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A9 processor with a TI OMAP 4430 Chipset and PowerVR SGX540 GPU.

The Motorola phone, which will run on Android's 2.3 Gingerbread Operating System, sports an 8 megapixel LED flash rear-facing camera with 1080p video capture capabilities and an additional 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera for video chatting.

Motorola has promised to upgrade the Droid RAZR Maxx to Google Inc.'s latest smartphone OS - Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, which has been called Google's most ambitious release to date.

The best feature of the phone, however, according to Verizon, is its revolutionary Li-Ion 3300 mAh that promises to provide a whopping 21 hours of talk time and 368 hours of standby time.

Meanwhile, Samsung Galaxy Nexus comes with a 4.65-inch high-definition Super AMOLED Contour display, dual-core 1.2GHz Cortex-A9 CPU, TI OMAP 4460 chipset, PowerVR SGX540 GPU, 1GB of RAM, 16 or 32GB of internal memory, Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, 4G LTE support, a 5 megapixel rear-facing camera with 1080p video capture and a 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera for video calls. On the flip side, the phone will not support Google Wallet.

Galaxy Nexus, which is the first Ice Cream Sandwich smartphone, was also known as the Samsung Google Nexus Prime, the Samsung Google Galaxy Nexus I9250, the Samsung Google Nexus 3, the Samsung Google Nexus 4G and the Samsung Nexus Prime 4G LTE.

Here is a comparison between Motorola Droid RAZR Maxx and Samsung Galaxy Nexus:

Display: Galaxy Nexus sports a 4.65-inch high-definition Super AMOLED Contour display that will give a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels and about 316 ppi pixel density. On the other hand, the Droid RAZR Maxx will sport a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Advanced capacitive touch-screen with qHD resolution of 960 x 540 pixels and about 256 pixels per inch (ppi) density.

Display Protection: Galaxy Nexus has oleophobic display coating protection while the display of the Motorola phone is made with KEVLAR fiber and scratch-resistant Corning Gorilla glass.

Size: Droid RAZR Maxx comes with 130.7 x 68.9 x 8.99 mm dimensions and weighs 145 grams, while Galaxy Nexus comes with 135.5 x 67.94 x 9.47 mm dimensions and weighs 145.5 grams.

Processor: RAZR Maxx packs a 1.2 GHz Cortex-A9 dual-core processor, TI OMAP 4430 chipset, PowerVR SGX540 GPU with 1GB RAM. On the other hand, Galaxy Nexus features dual-core 1.2GHz Cortex-A9 CPU, Texas Instruments OMAP 4460 chipset, PowerVR SGX540 GPU with 1GB RAM.

Camera: Droid RAZR Maxx sports rear-facing 8 megapixel LED flash camera with 1080p HD video capture capability while Galaxy Nexus comes with a 5 megapixel LED flash camera with 1080p video capture. Both the smartphones has additional 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera for video chat.

Camera Features: The RAZR Maxx has touch-focus, geo-tagging, face-detection, image stabilization, automatic focus, and editing tools, while Galaxy Nexus has touch focus, geo-tagging, face detection, top notch low-light performance and zero shutter lag.

3G/4G: The Razr Maxx comes with Verizon Wireless' Rev. A up to 3.1 Mbps, HSUPA and supports 4G LTE. In comparison, Galaxy Nexus has HSDPA 21 Mbps, HSUPA 5.76 Mbps and also supports 4G LTE.

Operating System: Droid RAZR Maxx has Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system, with the promise of an upgrade to Google Inc.'s latest smartphone OS, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. The Galaxy Nexus, however, comes preloaded with Android 4.0 OS. Android Head of Engineering Mike Claren announced the new OS - Ice Cream Sandwich - as Google's most ambitious release to date.

User Interface: RAZR Maxx uses Motorola's custom user interface while Galaxy Nexus uses Google's own user interface that starts at the new home screen outfitted with a 360 degree Action Bar and fresh interactive widgets in an exciting holographic environment.

WLAN/Bluetooth/USB: The RAZR Maxx has Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot, Bluetooth 4.0 version with LE and EDR and microUSB 2.0 versions. Meanwhile, Galaxy Nexus has Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, dual-band, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot, NFC, Bluetooth 3.0 version with A2DP, and microUSB 2.0 version.

Storage: Droid RAZR Maxx boasts 16GB of internal storage, which is expandable via microSD card up to 32GB. However, the Galaxy Nexus has a fixed 16 / 32GB internal storage only.

Battery: Galaxy Nexus comes with a standard Li-ion 1750 mAh battery that gives more than 8 hours of talk time and 270 hours of standby on 3G networks. Meanwhile, Droid RAZR Maxx comes with a standard Li-ion 3300 mAh battery that gives up to 21.5 hours of talk time and up to 380 hours of standby.

Pricing: Both the smartphones are priced at $299.99 each with a two-year Verizon Wireless contract.

Additional Features: Galaxy Nexus has accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass, barometer sensors, Assisted GPS, Adobe Flash, active noise cancellation with dedicated mic, TV-out (via MHL A/V link), MP4/H.264/H.263 player, MP3/WAV/eAAC+/AC3 player, Google Search, Maps, Gmail, YouTube, Calendar, Google Talk, and Picasa integration.

Droid RAZR Maxx, when compared, has accelerometer, proximity, compass sensors, HTML, Adobe Flash, assisted GPS, GLONASS, active noise cancellation with dedicated mic, Splash resistant, HDMI port, SNS integration, Google Search, Maps, Gmail, YouTube, Google Talk, Picasa integration, MP3/AAC+/WAV/WMA player, and MP4/H.263/H.264/WMV player.

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