Apart from the Droid Mini, Motorola and Verizon also unveiled the Droid Ultra and the Droid Maxx. The Droid Ultra and Maxx are similar to each other, except that the latter promises 48-hours of battery life!
Like the Droid Mini, the Ultra and the Maxx will be using an 8-core processor from Motorola that features dedicated cores for various tasks. Compared to the last year Droid line-up, Motorola promises a 24-percent increase in CPU performance, 100-percent increase in GPU speed and 2x the RAM. Sadly, the most disappointing part of the Droid Ultra and Maxx spec sheet are the displays. Both the handset use a 5-inch OLED display with 720p resolution, which does not really scream high-end. Apart from this, both the handsets have all the usual bells and whistles like LTE, NFC, Wi-Fi b/g/n, and Bluetooth 4.0 etc.
On the software side, the handsets run on near-stock Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean but with some very interesting software features up their sleeves. As previously leaked, there is a “touchless control” feature that allows the user to directly call someone, send a text message or do a Google search, even when the phone’s screen is turned off. The Active display feature makes use of the OLED display on the handsets to only light up a certain part of the screen to notify users of any new notifications. The Droid Zap feature allows Droid users to seamlessly share media files with each other with a simple swipe. There are some other features including a new gesture to activate the camera, and some tweaks to make Miracast more user-friendly.
The key difference between the Ultra and the Maxx is the battery life and build quality. The Maxx comes has a unibody kevlar design that makes it thinner compared to the previous Droids. Compared to the last year Maxx HD that was 9.3mm thick and packed a 3100mAh battery, the new Maxx comes with a whopping 3300mAh battery inside a 8.5mm slim body. The Ultra on the other hand has the same thickness as the original DROID RAZR at 7.1mm.
Price wise, the Ultra will set you back by $199 on a two-year contract, while the Maxx will cost $299. As a bonus, Motorola is also offering 6-months of free Google Play Music All Access subscription to anyone who orders the device by September 20th.
