Motorola Refreshing RAZR Line this Fall

In what looks like a deliberate effort to upstage Nokia and Microsoft, Motorola and Verizon held a press event in New York today to announce three new Droid RAZR phones. The RAZR M (budget), RAZR HD (mid-range), and RAZR Maxx HD (high-end) will all come LTE-enabled with Google's Chrome browser, but none of the phones will ship with the latest version of Android.

The $99 (with contract) RAZR M has the same 960 x 540 super AMOLED display as last year's Droid RAZR. It runs on a 1.5GHz dual-core CPU and 1GB of RAM, and features an 8MP camera. While the phone only has 8GB of internal storage, a microSD slot will let you expand it substantially.

Predictably, the RAZR HD ups the display quality to 720p, but under the hood it's pretty similar to the RAZR M (which is already pretty similar to last year's Droid X2). The HD quietly raises capacity to 16GB (plus microSD), but with the same processor, RAM and camera as the RAZR X2, the main internal upgrade here seems to be the battery. At 2,500mAh, you'll basically only ever have to charge it once. Just kidding, but that's a lot of battery.

So what's Motorola's strategy for setting its high-end RAZR Maxx HD apart? Give it an *even bigger* battery! Seriously though, it has the same processor, display, and camera as the RAZR HD. It doubles storage again, this time to 32GB+, but the RAZR Maxx HD's main selling point seems to be its 3,300mAh battery - the biggest in the business. Motorola could have run a quad-core processor on it, but they've opted for efficiency instead, promising a whopping 16 hours of talk time. If the only reason you've been going to sleep at night is to let your phone recharge, the RAZR Maxx HD is for you.

In all seriousness, the new RAZRs all look like totally decent phones; we're just disappointed to see a phone company owned by Google caught in a six month catch-up cycle with Samsung. We may even prefer the new RAZRs' kevlar framing and minimal bezels to the sort-of-ugly Galaxy S III, but the omission of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean at launch is just baffling, even if it is promised for all three phones within 2012.

With the Galaxy S III still selling strong and new smartphones from Nokia and Apple imminent, are immortal batteries really a selling point? Let us know in the comments.

Jon Fox is a Seattle hipster who loves polar bears and climbing trees. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN.

Source : ign[dot]com

MTV's The Inbetweeners "Sunshine Mountain" Review

Early reports that MTV’s remake of The Inbetweeners is actually quite good may have been grossly exaggerated, as following the success of episode one, the second effort is inferior in every way, shape and form.

Once again taking its plot from an episode of the U.K. version of the show, the story revolves around Simon seemingly receiving the keys to the kingdom in the shape of his first car, or as the foul-mouthed four call it, a 'muff-magnet'.

But the sports car Simon is expecting actually turns out to be a yellow Ford Festiva, or Ford Celibacy, in the words of Jay. Yet while the car does little to improve his chances with sweetheart Carly, it does afford Simon and the rest of the guys the opportunity to follow her and her boyfriend to Sunshine Mountain to charm/stalk her.

And so, following the revelation that Neil works as a Poncho the Parrot at the theme park, the bulk of the action revolves around the boys suffering a series of mishaps at the Mountain, from Simon losing the door of his car to Neil losing his clothes, closely followed by his dignity.

The best joke is a rollercoaster gag that’s a direct lift from the British show, but falls flat as a pancake in this instance, the timing slightly off, and Will failing to nail his big moment.

Indeed at this early stage, Joey Pollari seems to be the weak link as Will, the actor lacking charisma and trying too hard to be funny when it just came naturally to his British counterpart Simon Bird.

As with the first episode, the show features a good paedophile gag, but all-in-all proceedings lack balls; the swearing bleeped out, the insults of the tame variety.

Bubba Lewis is still likably wet as Simon, and the show seems to be at its best when he’s embarrassing himself in front of Carly, which in this episode involves a water-pistol.

But aside from a gut-buster involving a mother and daughter in a Jeep, episode two is woefully short of laughs, so here’s hoping MTV up the gag quotient for their third effort.

Source : ign[dot]com

No John Williams Theme in Man of Steel

In an effort to distance itself even further from the previous Superman movies, Zack Snyder's Man of Steel will not feature the classic title theme from composer John Williams.

"We decided to act as if no Superman film had been made -- even though we love the films that have been made," said Snyder. "We had to say this is a Superman movie for the first time and you can't then go 'Oh, now let's steal a little music.' So, yes it's awesome music but Hans Zimmer is going to do something awesome."

In regards to Man of Steel as a whole, the director added, "Superman is a big responsibility but I felt he needed to be reintroduced to a generation and I thought this was a great opportunity. We have great respect for the canon. I would say it is a clashing of stories and ideas. Superman is the king-daddy of all superheroes -- to make him work is a big deal."

Of course, the biggest challenge with any Superman film is making the title character connect on an emotional level with the audience. "'What would you do if you were Superman?' That's what we went out to do as far as we could. Superman's always been this kind of big blue boy-scout up on a throne that nobody can really touch, so we tried to make him relatable."

As for the ever growing rumors surrounding the Justice League of America movie, the director noted, "We know Superman is the jewel in the DC crown. We want to get his house in order. And then? Who knows what's possible?"

Man of Steel is scheduled to hit theaters on June 14, 2013.

Max Nicholson is a writer for IGN, and he desperately seeks your approval. Show him some love on Twitter and IGN.

Source : ign[dot]com

Google Fiber Could Revolutionize Internet and TV Service

In its latest effort to make our lives more awesome, Google is gearing up to premier its crazy-fast Fiber service, starting with a trial market in Kansas City. The service comes without monthly bandwidth caps or overages, and paid plans come bundled with 1TB of Google Drive cloud storage.

The promotional video for Google Fiber’s KC debut points to average USA broadband speeds as a bottleneck in users’ experience of the web.

Just as the last few years have seen huge expansions in processor speed and storage capacity, Google proposes to multiply home internet connection speeds by 100. “Fiber offers up to 1,000 Mb/sec download and upload,” Google’s “About” page explains. So just to be clear, that means users will be able to download (or upload) any file up to a gigabyte in a second or less.

Google is offering three plans for pre-registration.

Anyone who pays a one-time $300 fee (to cover home fiber-line construction) can have US-average broadband speeds free, guaranteed for at least seven years.

For $70 per month, users can upgrade to gigabit service. That’s the whole monthly price—no introductory rates that double after six months—and that includes the wifi-equipped Network Box. Google will even throw in 1TB of Google Drive cloud storage. Oh, and a two-year contract waives that $300 setup fee.

For $120 per month you get the “whole Google experience.” Again, the network box and 1TB on Google Drive come bundled; and a two-year contract still waives the fiber construction fee. But that $120/mo. will net you all this other stuff too:

• A TV Box with “hundreds” of basic fiber channels (click here for the full list) to replace your cable service (Premium channels will be available as add-ons.)


• On-demand movies and TV shows, plus out-of-the-box support for Netflix & Youtube.


• A networked 2TB DVR “Storage Box” (That’s enough space for 500 hours of HD programming, and the TV Box can record up to 8 programs at a time.)


• A totally free Nexus 7 tablet—your remote control for the TV box.

Residents in high-demand neighborhoods on both sides of the Kansas-Missourri border have 45 days to pre-register here. The rest of us will have to wait a while longer, although Google will all but certainly expand its fiber network to high-demand urban areas first. The packages listed above are residential only; business prices have yet to be announced. Would you ditch your current service for one of Google's Fiber plans? Let us know in the comments.

Source : ign[dot]com