The News By Me

The massive 3300mAh battery inside the new Motorola Droid Razr Maxx gives users over 8 hours of continued 4G LTE web-surfing, smashing marks set by its competitors.

The Droid Razr Maxx was launched this week with a huge $299 premium on a two year contract with Verizon, leading many to question whether the extra battery power was worth an extra $100.

However, in benchmarking tests undertaken by Laptop Mag the Maxx destroyed all other 4G LTE phones on the market, which have traditionally suffered from web-surfing at the next gen speeds.

The magazine found that the Razr Maxx lasted for 8.25 hours of continuous web-surfing at 40 per cent brightness.

Double time

That's almost twice as long as the original Droid Razr, which only mustered 4.45 hours using the same screen brightness and conditions.

The extra time corresponds almost exactly to the respective battery sizes - the only difference - between the two devices. That original Razr has a 1780mAh cell.

The Maxx's nearest competitor was the Samsung Droid Charge, which lasted for 6.42 hours before it needed, well, a charge, while the Samsung Galaxy Nexus slumped to just 3.40 hours.

This week's hottest reviews on TechRadar

This week we've got a great batch of reviews for you as well as hands ons with the new Motorola Xoom 2 tablet and the Motorola Atrix 2 phone.

In full reviews, we take a look at some of the newest ebook readers on the market, including the Sony Reader PRS-T1. We've also review the rather fine new laptop from Samsung, the Series 7 Chronos.

And for camera fans, there's the impressive new Sony NEX-5N. Read on to check out all this week's reviews from TechRadar.

Sony Reader PRS-T1 review

The two stand-out specs on the new Sony Reader are the light weight and the thin design. As a sleek ebook reader, the Reader stands its own against the Kindle 4 just fine.

However, many of the extra features for borrowing books from the library, loading Google Books, and browsing the web are hard to use. They pale in comparison with the quick touch access of any Android tablet. The Amazon Kindle is a better choice - it is just as light, cheaper, and offers a wider selection of books. Also, the Kindle offers more storage space for books - about 2GB compared to the Reader's 1.3GB.

Samsung Series 7 Chronos review

The Samsung Series 7 Chronos may not be quite as thin as some of the emerging ultrabooks, or the glorious Series 9 that hit stores earlier this year, but can it stand out from the crowd with killer performance instead?

The answer is that if you need a portable machine to entertain you on the move, which won't be out of date any time soon, the Samsung Series 7 Chronos is well worth considering. The latest Intel Core i7 Sandy Bridge processor crushes anything you throw at it, and will do for some time to come. Just don't expect great beauty.

HTC Radar review

So HTC has pipped Nokia to the post here with not one, but two Windows Phone 7.5 smartphones up for grabs first. And although Android may have been HTC's bread and butter for the last few years, it's clear that it wants to keep its fingers in both pies.

The HTC Radar certainly looks pretty. If it's a straight choice between the HTC Titan and the HTC Radar, we'd recommend the HTC Radar every time, because it's so much better in terms of value for money.

Hands on: Motorola Xoom 2 review

It's not even a year since we saw the first Motorola Xoom, but already we're looking at its next generation - cunningly named the Motorola Xoom 2.

The new Xoom is thinner, lighter and faster than the old iteration, as you might expect. We're talking 253.9mm x 173.6mm x 8.8mm dimensions, 599g weight and a new TI OMAP 1.2GHz dual-core processor. While we're all for tablets getting sleeker and faster, we're not sure that the Motorola Xoom 2 can be a real winner in the tablet market given the amount of competition already around.

Sony NEX-5N review

There's very little to find fault with in the Sony NEX-5N, other than perhaps the niggle that its minimalist design and lack of physical buttons sometimes necessitates a little searching on behalf of the user. Enthusiasts may also find it a pain that the likes of ISO aren't given a dedicated button or placed immediately at their fingertips.

Once familiar with the quirks of its menu system, however, using the Sony NEX-5N became more of a pleasure than we expected.

This week's other reviews

Desktops

MSI Wind Top AE2210 review

Ebook readers

View Quest Bookbox review

Kobo eReader Touch review

Elonex 705EB review

Graphics Cards

Asus EAH 6770 DC review

Laptops

Asus Zenbook UX31 review

Mice

Mad Catz Cyborg R.A.T. 7 Albino Edition review

Mobile phones

Alcatel One Touch 990 review

HTC Sensation XE review

Monitors

Apple Thunderbolt Display review

Network adapters

Devolo dLAN 500 AVplus review

Linksys RE1000 review

Speakers

XtremeMac Tango Bar review

Storage

Iomega Mac Companion 2TB review

TV stands and remotes

Griffin Beacon Universal Remote review

TV tuner cards

Pinnacle PCTV Broadway 2T review

Hands on reviews

Tablets

Hands on: Motorola Xoom 2 Media Edition review

Mobile Phones

Hands on: Motorola Atrix 2 review

Motorola has claimed that consumers are ready to store content online rather than using expandable storage on its tablets.

The new Motorola Xoom 2 (and Xoom 2 Media edition) don't feature a microSD slot, unlike the original Xoom, and Motorola's head of product management Mark Notton told TechRadar at the launch event that the UK market no longer needs expandable storage:

"We are definitely focusing on cloud storage [for the new tablets] as the content we're pushing is using this method, so we decided to keep the 16GB capacity as a result.

"We think the UK is set up for cloud-based connectivity as there are a lot more apps and services out there using this method. For instance, Google Books is all stored remotely and you can then sync the books down.

"Certainly in the coming years there will be a lot more of a push to cloud storage with the content able to be stored offline."

Smartphones are enough

Notton did say Motorola could feasibly make a larger-capacity version of the Xoom 2 with expandable memory, but said the company believed the current version would serve the market well enough.

The two new tablets are also going to be launched without 3G-enabled models, at least for the foreseeable future, with Notton stating that Motorola is seeing a large rise in users connecting using other methods.

"We do see a lot of hotspots being used on smartphones, with many people now having the ability to connect in this way."

However, this seems quite a jump in terms of user habits, with many first time tablet users still learning how to use 3G on the go, and many worried about smartphone data usage.

The Motorola Xoom 2 UK release date has been set for mid-November in the UK, so it will be interesting to see.

Motorola has been having a great time sending out teasers about its new Motorola Razr with puzzles and confusing marketing videos galore – the joke's on Moto though, as enterprising phone detectives have pieced together a full image of the upcoming Razr handset.

The image shows a slim-built handset from all angles, with a shiny Kevlar back panel, HD camera (no megapixellage on show) with LED flash and, in the US at least, will come with 4G connectivity.

Disappointingly, there's still a relatively chunky-looking bezel to contend with and the overall shape of the handset is very… how do we put this? Very Motorola.

Fix up look sharp

The Droid Razr, which will likely launch in the UK sans Droid monicker, possibly as the Motorola Spyder, is to be announced at a press event tomorrow.

The timing (not 24 hours after Google's Ice Cream Sandwich event) leads us to believe that the new Razr will come with Android 4.0 out of the box - and there's talk of ICS for the Motorola Xoom, too.

TechRadar will be with Motorola tomorrow when the handset is officially announced, so stay tuned for our hands on Motorola Razr review, and news on UK release date and pricing.

Motorola has released a teaser video for a new phone being announced on the 18 October, with a number of visual hints to help is guess what it will be.

Given that the main thrust of the video seems to be that the new device will be faster and thinner, with multiple references made to a razor blade, it's pretty likely we're about to see the latest iteration from Motorola's popular Razr brand.

Add to this the leaked press shots and information around the Motorola Droid Razr that made their way to This Is My Next in the last fortnight, and it seems we're almost certain to be seeing the new Motorola Razr debuting on 18 October.

CREDIT: This Is My Next

Early mooted specs include a 4.5-inch screen, a dual-core CPU running at 1.2GHz, 1 GB of RAM and an 8MP camera with 1080p video capture - essentially making it a slimmed-down and beefed-up version of the Motorola Atrix.

But an Atrix fused with a Defy, as there's plenty of reference to the fact the phone will have Gorilla Glass (the diamond) be covered in Kevlar (bullet-proof) and splash proof too (erm... the rocket?).

The question remains what the phone will be called in the UK - the names of Motorola Droid HD and Motorola Spyder have been mooted by some, with the latter making the most sense for us Brit-dwellers, given our apathy to the Droid moniker.

A solitary picture of what's purportedly a new tablet from Motorola has appeared online, with the latest gadget looking a lot slimmer than its predecessor, the Motorola Xoom.

The picture, posted by This Is My Next, is disappointingly blurry but if you squint, slant your head to 45 degrees and say "there's no place like home" you can see what seems to be an ultra-slim 7-inch tablet.

The tablet appears to have a 16:9 screen and This Is My Next reckons there are ports visible that show that it uses micro USB and has micro HDMI functionality.

Personally, we think these could well be specs of dust picked up by the inept photographer behind the shot.

Caught by the fuzz

TIMN also reckons the black blob above the fuzzy tablet could well be the rumoured Droid HD. Either they are privy to some inside information or they have much better eyes than us.

Motorola has hinted that a 7-inch tablet is on the way and it is a popular size for the format, given Apple is keeping a close eye on every tablet released that's the same size as the iPad.

So, hopefully, we will find out more about this mini Motorola Xoom in the near future.

Android phone owners can now buy and download books from the Android Market webstore.

The Books portal appeared today on the new Motorola Xoom's Market app and has hence become available for those who didn't rush out to buy a new Honeycomb 3.0-loaded tab.

The new page is already live in the United States, but at the time of writing hasn't yet appeared to UK-based Android-fanciers.

Like the app portion of the webstore, users will be able to browse categories, the top selling, new and free titles as well as the chance to research reader and critical reviews before buying.

Naturally, the download process is seamless, enabling you to download the book to your device directly from the webstore. Titles will then appear in your Google Books library on your Android Phone.

Movies and Music to follow?

With Books now on-board, the big question is whether they'll be joined by new Movies and Music portals?

Earlier this week, three new URLs showed up on the Android Market webstore domain: market.android.com/movies; market.android.com/music and the newly live market.android.com/books. The other two currently divert users to the homepage.

The waiting continues for the other pair in that trifecta, but it seems that Google is hell-bent on making the Android Market a portal to service all of our entertainment needs in one place, App Store style.

Android 3.0 Honeycomb is here. And after our earlier demo-only video from CES we've got video of Android 3.0 running properly and untouched on the brand new Motorola Xoom. We'll be getting hands with it later on TechRadar.

This week saw a host of announcements from tech firms out at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

TechRadar has been there in force, bringing you the latest news and hands on reviews of all the hottest kit.

Read on for this week's most popular stories on TechRadar…

Top five news stories

Motorola Xoom unveiled – Android 3.0 hits tablets

The new Motorola Xoom Android tablet has been announced in Las Vegas with a glut of next-gen technology stuffed inside.

After first being pseudo-debuted by Google, the new Motorola Xoom (odd name aside) features a 10.1-inch (1280x800 resolution) display along with Android 3.0 Honeycomb as well.

As expected, it's a dual-core beast, running the Nvidia Tegra 2 dual core processor meaning the Xoom can pump out 1080p video with aplomb, according to Motorola.

It also comes with a 5MP rear camera, and a 2MP forward-facing sensor for video chat, as it appears Apple seems to have actually re-ignited interest in video calling, although it makes far more sense on a tablet.

Toshiba reveals large-screen glasses-free 3D TVs

Toshiba will have a range of glasses-free 3D TV prototypes on show at CES, one of which clocks in at 65-inches making it the largest glasses-free 3D TV to date.

If that's a little large for your liking, there's also a 56-inch sample on show. Both employ an LED-backlit panel with a 4096×2160 pixel resolution.

These TVs will use Toshiba's Cevo-Engine, which allows for a high level of picture processing in order to run the glasses-free 3D on the enormous screens.

Google's Android text bug now dubbed 'critical'

Google has finally decided to up how seriously it is taking a flaw in its Android system that sends messages to the wrong person in a user's phonebook.

The issue was reported back in June 2010, but Google has now decided to move the problem up to 'Critical' status, meaning a patch is likely to be imminent to the Android system to resolve the issue.

The problem is virtually undetectable to the user until alerted by someone else, because though the message is sent to the wrong number, it still displays as being directed to the correct recipient in the inbox.

The Carphone Warehouse offering up mobile phones for 1p

The Carphone Warehouse is attempting to show how wallet-friendly the humble mobile phone has become – by offering one for just 1p.

It's not strictly as easy as finding a few pence in your wallet and equipping your family with new Alcatel OT-209's though, as you'll need to buy £10-worth of credit at the same time.

It's no iPhone-botherer, let's be honest; this is a feature phone in every sense of the phrase with a rounded plastic design, small screen and big buttons, although it does pack a colour screen and FM radio.

HTC's first tablet outed as HTC Scribe?

HTC's inevitable foray into the tablet market looks imminent after the Taiwanese firm trademarked the HTC Scribe name.

The trademark application was filed for a 'handheld wireless device, namely a tablet computer' and the assumption is that this device will see HTC joining the Android-powered iPad rivals' race.

The application doesn't give away much more than the name of the device and the date of the filing (Boxing Day, if you're interested) but we'd imagine it will be running Honeycomb and therefore have a high resolution screen and dual-core innards.

Top five in-depth articles

CES 2011 highlights: What you need to know

The Consumer Electronics Show is like a giant ice cream sundae – it's big, wildly colourful, takes some real effort to get through and is a delicious mix of different ingredients. All covered in a glitzy Las Vegas sauce.

So what's hot at this year's show?

The technology trends at CES 2010 included: 3DTV, ultra-skinny HDTVs, motion-controlled gaming (Kinect and Sony's PlayStation Move had yet to launch), not to mention early tablet prototypes, digital cameras, camcorders and iPhone-controlled Wi-Fi helicopters.

Many of the same key themes apply to CES 2011 and what you'll see here tends to dominate the technology year ahead. So here are our hand-picked highlights of this year's electronic expo...

The best tablets, pads and slates at CES 2011

The tablet-friendly Android 3.0 OS is one of the stars of CES 2011.

You'll find it running on a number of new tablet devices that hope to chip away at the dominance of Apple's iPad.

The tablet market is poised to explode. Here's a handy run-down of who is doing what…

How to make an external laptop graphics adaptor

Laptop graphics have always been something of a joke performance wise. Nvidia and AMD do try, but cramming all those millions of transistors into a low-power, compact package just leads to massive expense and an inability to upgrade.

Wouldn't it be perfect if you could simply use a standard external graphics card to power your laptop's 3D graphics?

The good news is that you can. The suitably technical-sounding PE4H is just that; a passive PCI-e x16 to x1 adaptor, which enables you to plug an external graphics card into a laptop's ExpressCard slot. Currently we're only aware of it being available from the Taiwanese firm www.hwtools.net for around $100 including shipping.

The school that gives every student an iPad

Fraser Speirs is talking about changes caused by his school's radical shift in technology deployment.

Every pupil at Cedars School of Excellence, in Greenock, Scotland, is now armed with an iPad, creating an environment a world away from the typical 'computer room', and providing the potential for seamless integration of technology and traditional teaching.

The iPad project arose from day-to-day demands within the school. As Head of Computing, a dozen iMacs were fixed in Fraser's classroom, and a dozen MacBooks were available for booking; but with teachers increasingly wanting to provide pupils with web access, pressure and demand grew.

How to tweak your laptop for gaming performance

With laptop sales continuing to rise – up by 43.3 per cent in the first quarter of this year alone, according to Gartner – it would appear that more and more of us are riding the technology wave.

Keeping up to date with the latest advances in laptop computing enables us to work longer, faster and, generally, for less. The good news for gaming is that this relentless march of technology means it's no longer necessary to own a dedicated gaming laptop to enjoy the odd game now and again.

Of course, PC gamers who are serious about their entertainment will still benefit from pricey GPU technology – particularly if they're going to be playing cutting-edge games – but these days even netbooks are capable of keeping you amused.

Top five reviews

Hands on: BlackBerry Playbook review

We've been talking about the Blackberry Playbook tablet for months now, but only now at CES in Las Vegas have we been able to have a proper play with it. And boy is it impressive.

Hands on: Google Chrome OS netbook review

Of course, we're no strangers to Chrome OS here on TechRadar, but this is the first time we've been able to play with a near-ready (or perhaps even ready) build on a netbook.

Hands on: Toshiba glasses-free 3D TV review

Toshiba's flagship lenticular 3D TV is a 65-inch model, and it's joined by a 56-incher and a 20-inch unit. With no glasses needed, you can view from almost any angle and still get the 3D effect.

Scan 3XS Vengeance review

We're not entirely sure who Scan Computers is aiming to exact its vengeance upon with this rig, but by the numbers the 3XS Vengeance is producing it's a pretty safe bet it's going to manage it.

This is the first full PC we've seen to actually put the new second-generation Intel Core platform into context. You'll have read just how good this Sandy Bridge platform is by now, but until you actually see it in a machine, it's tough to quantify

Motorola Milestone 2 review

The original Milestone certainly wasn't one of the prettiest or most elegant Android phones, but for those unable or unwilling to adapt to the touchscreen way of life, it provided a rare and welcome QWERTY option.

Things have changed over the last 12 months, with the arrival of Android powerhouse HTC on the QWERTY scene with its excellent HTC Desire Z. Has Motorola's design team got what it takes to compete?

Also reviewed this week...

Accessories

Vogel TwistDock review

AV receivers

Denon AVR-2311 review

Yamaha RX-V1067 review

Home cinema systems

Panasonic SC-BTT350D review

iPhone apps

ChillingoCut the Rope review

Laptops

Advent Quantum Q100 review

Toshiba Satellite T110-121 review

Asus U35JC-RX080V review

Lenovo IdeaPad U160 review

Sony Vaio VPCS139LE/B review

Asus Eee PC Lamborghini VX6 review

Media streaming devices

SumvisionCyclone MKV2 HD review

Mobile phones

Motorola Milestone 2 review

Motherboards

Foxconn H67S review

Asus Maximus IV Extreme RoG review

MSI P67A-GD65 review

NAS

Qnap TurboNAS TS-295 Pro review

SeagateBlackArmor NAS 420 review

Synology DiskStation DS211 review

Buffalo LinkStation Mini 500GB review

Verbatim Gigabit NAS review

Portable media players

Samsung Galaxy Player 50 review

Processors

Intel Core i7-2600K review

Intel Core i5-2500K review

Projectors

Sony VPL-HW20 review

Software

iA Writer review

WorkSmartLabsCardioTrainer review

WordfeudWordfeud review

Speakers

Monitor Audio Apex review

Monitor Audio Apex review

Tablets

ViewSonicViewPad 7 review

Hands on reviews...

Mobile phones

Hands on: Dell Venue review

Hands on: Motorola Atrix review

Hands on: Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc review

Hands on: LG Optimus Black review

Television

Hands on: Samsung D8000 plasma series review

Hands on: Toshiba glasses-free 3D TV review

Hands on: Samsung LED D8000 series review

Hands on: Panasonic Viera Tablet review

Hands on: Blackberry Playbook review

Hands on: Dell Streak 7 review

Hands on: Sony Vaio F Series review

Netbooks

Hands on: Prototype Google Chrome OS netbook review

Camcorders

Hands on: Sony HDR-TD10E 3D camcorder review

The new Motorola Xoom Android tablet has been announced in Las Vegas with a glut of next-gen technology stuffed inside.

After first being pseudo-debuted by Google, the new Motorola Xoom (odd name aside) features a 10.1-inch (1280x800 resolution) display along with Android 3.0 Honeycomb as well.

As expected, it's a dual-core beast, running the Nvidia Tegra 2 dual core processor meaning the Xoom can pump out 1080p video with aplomb, according to Motorola.

It also comes with a 5MP rear camera, and a 2MP forward-facing sensor for video chat, as it appears Apple seems to have actually re-ignited interest in video calling, although it makes far more sense on a tablet.

HD video a-gogo

The rear camera is also capable of 720p HD video capture, and with 32GB of onboard memory and SD card support (curiously after a feature update), the Motorola Xoom should be able to deal with all the media you can throw at it.

It can work using 3G or Wi-Fi (up to 802.11n standard) and also comes with the latest in Google's 3D Maps application and access to the new Google eBook library.

The only annoying thing about the Motorola Xoom is the lack of UK release date – we're sure it's going to pop over to our shores, but it's only been given a Q1 release date for the US at the moment.

The good news is Motorola PR team has announced the product on our shores as well, so we should be getting our very own release date any time soon.