Verizon is currently hosting a “Red Hot Deal Days” event from today through May 12 (this Sunday), so if you were in the market for a new Big Red smartphone, now wouldn’t be a bad time to look. Well, assuming you aren’t interested in the Galaxy S4, since that won’t be out until May 30. But if the GS4 isn’t on your radar, you’ll find deals on the RAZR MAXX HD and regular RAZR HD, RAZR M, Incredible 4G LTE, Blackberry Z10 (hah!), and more.

The DROID line is headlining this show, with the RAZR MAXX HD at $149 on contract, RAZR HD at $49, and RAZR M and Incredible 4G LTE for free. The Samsung Galaxy S3 (16GB model) is also there for $99 on new 2-year contract.

Keep in mind that Amazon will beat almost all of these prices, starting with the RAZR MAXX HD at $99 on contract.

Via:  Verizon

Cheers Adam!

I will admit, it is nice to start talking about custom ROMs for Motorola devices again. After a breakthrough on the unlocking of Moto bootloaders, developers have been hard at work to bring their ROMs to a new line of devices. Today, we are featuring RageHD for the DROID RAZR HD on Verizon, developed by BigDaddyHicks and his team. 

Yesterday, Dan Rosenberg published the first Motorola bootloader unlock method in history. It was an epic moment for the rooting and development community on Android, as no one had been able to accomplish anything close to this for what seems like an eternity on a Motorola device since they started locking them down back in 2010. There was one problem though, the bootloader unlock worked on devices like the DROID RAZR HD, RAZR M, and Atrix HD as long as you were rooted before you updated to Android 4.1.2. For many of you, especially those with a RAZR HD or RAZR MAXX HD who received the most recent 4.1.2 update, you were out of luck. 

Our coverage of the HTC One continues on with a comparison of the device to many of the popular phones on the market today. Unfortunately, since the Samsung Galaxy S4 is not yet available, we had to go with the Galaxy S3, Note 2, Nexus 4, RAZR MAXX HD, and ol’ reliable, Galaxy Nexus. In this clip, you’ll see size comparisons, my thoughts on the different build materials, overall feel, and having to deal with carrying around a metal phone after years of plastic in my pocket. 

Yesterday, news broke that Dan Rosenberg (@djrbliss) had unlocked bootloaders for a handful of Motorola devices including the DROID RAZR HD, RAZR MAXX HD, RAZR M, and Atrix HD, all of which are powered by Qualcomm chipsets. Today, he has released that same unlock tool so that you can free your phone from Motorola and Verizon’s clutches.

We should point out that you cannot re-lock the phone after using this tool (at this point), and it does indeed void your warranty. Also, Motorola can more than likely patch this in a software update, so you may want to weigh your options here before long. It’s risky from a warranty and replacement standpoint to say the least. As always, proceed with caution.

You definitely need to be rooted ahead of time, prior to using this tool. For those with a RAZR HD running Android 4.1.2 (the newest update), root has not been gained yet so you are out of luck for now. I can’t imagine that this won’t ever be rooted, but again as of today, there is no root method.

Update:  Dan released a root method for Android 4.1.2 that can be found here.

As we mentioned yesterday, this method does not work on OMAP powered phones, including the original RAZR, Bionic, and DROID 4. Do not attempt to use this on any of those phones.

Below, we have the basic instructions and notes from Dan. 

This is not a joke, nor is it April Fools’ Day 2.0. Dan Rosenberg, aka @djrbliss (the man that roots all things Moto), has apparently unlocked the bootloaders of many of Motorola’s recent releases, including the RAZR HD (MAXX HD too), Atrix HD, and RAZR M. We heard this was coming down the pipeline, but he’s asked a couple of testers over at DroidRzr.com to give his method a shot. Sure enough, at least two confirmed unlocked bootloaders have happened (pictured above and below).

The method has not yet been released, but likely will before long, maybe even before the day is up. This method will not work on OMAP phones like the Bionic or original RAZR.

After years of failed attempts at cracking Motorola’s encryption, the time may have arrived. Stick with us, we’ll be following this closely. 

I’ll admit that I’m one of Verizon’s biggest critics when it comes to the rate at which they update their Android smartphones to new software. They are unbelievably  slow for the most part. In fact, I’ve pointed it out a handful times, particularly with the Galaxy Nexus and the amount of time it has taken to update a device that should be the easiest of all. But we also know that Verizon stands firm on their update practices, which have a reputation for being the slowest in the business. Their network is reliable, maybe even the most reliable after all, and they attribute parts of their success to their testing practices. But something seems to have changed in 2013. I ran through a list of updates released by them this year, and the number is impressive. 

An update for the Motorola DROID RAZR HD and RAZR MAXX HD is now available to users as build 9.16.6. The update was approved by Verizon earlier at the end of last week, and after becoming available to a select group of testers for a couple of days, is ready for the rest of you to download and install.

Once updated, you should notice improved audio quality, connectivity all around, and through the camera.

To check to see if the update is ready to be pulled, head into Settings>About phone>System updates.

If you do not feel like waiting, you can manually update using our instructions here.

Cheers BOGY and Angel!