Motorola Droid RAZR Pre-Order Begins; ‘Thinnest Smartphone’ to Dare Samsung Galaxy Nexus

Verizon Wireless Thursday started accepting pre-order for Motorola Droid RAZR. Consumers will start getting the phone by the second week of November.

Motorola unveiled Droid RAZR, which is claimed to be the world's thinnest smartphone with a mere 7.1mm thickness, Oct. 18. The phone, which runs on Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread OS, comes with a syncing system called MotoCast, which, according to Motorola Mobility President Sanjay Jha, is the phone's most important feature.

Droid RAZR is adorned with 1.2 GHz dual-core Cortex-A9 CPU, PowerVR SGX540 GPU, TI OMAP 4430 chipset, 4.3-inch qHD Super AMOLED display, 1GB RAM, 4G LTE support, 8-megapixel autofocus LED flash rear-facing camera with 1080p video capture, secondary 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera for video chat, 16GB internal storage and 16GB microSD external card pre-installed (expandable up to 32GB).

In the battle among Android smartphones, the world's thinnest smartphone will be facing the first Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich-powered smartphone, Samsung Galaxy Nexus, which is expected in the third week of November.

Google Inc. and Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Nexus phone running on Ice Cream Sandwich, the newest version of Android, at an event in Hong Kong Oct. 18. Galaxy Nexus was also known as Samsung Google Nexus Prime, Samsung Google Galaxy Nexus I9250, Samsung Google Nexus 3, and Samsung Google Nexus 4G.

Galaxy Nexus, the first LTE-enabled smartphone to feature Ice Cream Sandwich, is adorned with dual-core 1.2GHz Cortex-A9 CPU, TI OMAP 4460 chipset, 4.65-inch high-definition Super AMOLED display, 1 GB of RAM, 16 or 32 GB of internal memory, NFC, 4G LTE support, 5-megapixel rear-facing camera with 1080p video capture and 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera for video calls.

Let's look at the specifications of Samsung Galaxy Nexus and Motorola Droid RAZR.

Operating System: Droid RAZR runs on Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread OS, while Galaxy Nexus will run on the latest version of Google Inc.'s smartphone operating system, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, which is a combination of Gingerbread and Honeycomb in one unit. Android Head of Engineering Mike Claren announced that the new OS is Google's most ambitious release to date.

The newest features arriving with Android 4.0 include widgets in a new tab, a customizable launcher, Gmail with offline search with a two-line preview and new action bar at the bottom, better voice integration, improved copy and paste and a new tabbed Web browser that allows up to 16 tabs.

Size: Droid RAZR will come in 130.7 x 68.9 x 7.1 mm dimension and weighs 127 grams, while Galaxy Nexus will come in 135.5 x 67.94 x 8.94 mm dimension and weighs 135 grams.

Display: Droid RAZR will come with a 4.3-inch qHD screen paired with Super AMOLED touchscreen that may give a resolution of 960 x 540 pixels with about 256 ppi pixel density. On the other hand, Galaxy Nexus touts a 4.65-inch high-definition Super AMOLED display that may give a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels with about 316 ppi pixel density.

Processor: Droid RAZR will feature 1.2 GHz dual-core Cortex-A9 CPU, PowerVR SGX540 GPU, TI OMAP 4460 chipset with 1GB RAM. Galaxy Nexus, when compared, will feature 1.2GHz dual-core Cortex-A9 CPU, TI OMAP 4460 chipset with 1GB RAM.

Camera: Droid RAZR sports a rear-facing 8-megapixel camera with 1080p HD video capture capability, while Galaxy Nexus will sport a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera with 1080p video capture.

For video calls, Galaxy Nexus will sport a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera, while Droid RAZR will sport a secondary 2-megapixel camera that can record videos at 720p.

Storage: Galaxy Nexus will have a fixed 16/32 GB internal storage. On the other hand, Droid RAZR will have a fixed 16 GB internal storage and a 16GB microSD external card pre-installed that can be expanded up to 32GB.

3G/4G: Droid RAZR will come with Rev. A up to 3.1 Mbps, 4G LTE, HSDPA and HSUPA, while Galaxy Nexus will have HSDPA 21 Mbps, HSUPA 5.76 Mbps, and 4G LTE support.

WLAN/Bluetooth/USB: Droid RAZR has Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, DLNA, and Wi-Fi hotspot. On the other hand, Galaxy Nexus will have Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, dual-band, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot.

Galaxy Nexus will have Bluetooth 3.0 version with A2DP along with microUSB 2.0 version. But Droid RAZR will have advanced Bluetooth version 4.0 with LE+EDR along with microUSB version 2.0.

Battery: Motorola Droid RAZR has standard 1780 mAh battery offering talk time of up to 12.3 hours and standby time of 204 hours. On the other hand, Galaxy Nexus will come with a standard 1750 mAh battery.

Pricing: Droid RAZR will be available on Verizon at $299.99, with a two-year contract. On the other hand, Galaxy Nexus will hit the stores in November in the U.S., Europe and Asia (including China and Japan) and as far as the pricing goes, nothing has been announced yet.

Additional Features: Motorola Droid RAZR will come with Gorilla Glass display, multi-touch input methord, accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate, proximity sensor for auto turn-off, SMS (threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Email, IM, HTML, A-GPS support, Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic, Splash resistant, HDMI port, SNS integration, Digital compass, Google Search, Maps, Gmail, YouTube, Google Talk, Picasa integration, MP3/AAC+/WAV/WMA player, and MP4/H.263/H.264/WMV player.

On the other hand, Galaxy Nexus will come with Oleophobic surface, Multi-touch input method, Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate, Touch-sensitive controls, Proximity sensor for auto turn-off, Three-axis gyro sensor, SMS (threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Mail, IM, RSS, HTML, A-GPS support, barometer sensor, Google Search, Maps, Gmail, YouTube, Calendar, Google Talk, Picasa integration, Adobe Flash support, NFC support, Digital compass, Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic, MP4/H.264/H.263 player, and MP3/WAV/eAAC+/AC3 player.