Last night, a reader noticed that a limited edition RAZR MAXX was up for sale on eBay. With an opening bid price of $750 and a “Buy it now” price of $2250, no one would actually bite on this, would they? Unfortunately someone did. The auction is now closed and with it, a RAZR MAXX that will likely be useless assuming the winning bidder isn’t a Verizon employee.

According to a couple of sources, VZW is planning to lock the ESNs (electronic serial number) for these devices to employee accounts only. So if you try to buy one off of eBay or an employee looking to strike it rich, you likely will never be able to activate it. This isn’t uncommon for Big Red to limit devices by ESN whether it’s to employees or the public.

So as a warning, if you see these start to pop up on Craigslist or eBay, you may want to look the other way.

Cheers ___ and  ___!

Update:  Some crazy person actually paid $2250 for this. The auction is closed.

It is no longer a secret that Verizon is going to offer employees their very own special edition DROID RAZR or RAZR MAXX. Word leaked out last week that VZW workers would have the opportunity to purchase a red-backed and individually engraved version of the device at discounted prices. In not surprising fashion, one of those workers is using it to his advantage to make a couple of bucks via eBay.

His listing claims that the device will be in his hands around March 2 or 3 and has opened up the bidding at $750. Yep, that’s $100 more than you can buy the device for straight up off contract in traditional grey and black. Interested?

Via:  eBay

Cheers Kevin!

Motorola updated their timeline for device updates this morning, finally revealing their plans to push Ice Cream Sandwich. So far, the list is not going to excite any of you. As far as U.S. devices go, none of them on Verizon have specific details and are currently “in evaluation.” You will see that the Atrix, Atrix 2 and Photon 4G will all receive Android 4.0 in Q3, but the RAZR, RAZR MAXX, Bionic, DROID 4 and almost any other device tied to Big Red has not been given an expected rollout date. In fact, those non-VZW phones are all in development while the ones you all care about are still in the “planning” phase.

Why is that? Tough to tell. We were all hoping that the RAZRs and the Bionic would see this major update first since they were released just before Ice Cream Sandwich went live. Q3 though for many of these? Seems so far away. Then again, Moto did provide an outlook into how they update phones which we calculated to be about 6 months. I guess that would put us right around the end of Q2 or early Q3. Someone figure out why the Atrix series and the Photon would be up first ahead of the DROID brand. Carrier, maybe?

Hoping to know more very soon. 

According to some leaked shots, Verizon may be launching a special edition of the DROID RAZR just for employees. According to an insider at Big Red, the devices will be offered at a discounted price of $99 for a 16GB RAZR and $199 for the RAZR MAXX 32GB model. Along with the red and black look, each device will come with an engraved unique number on the rear side of the device, a free docking station, and an engraved “Limited Edition” logo on the front of the phone.

Launch is rumored to take place in April, so that means we have a couple months time to find an employee who is willing to find us one. Anyone else down with the red and black? This wouldn’t just be good for Verizon employees, but Portland Blazer fans could also find these quite desirable. 

Via: Android and Me

A few reports would have led you to believe that the 6.12.73 updates for the RAZR and RAZR MAXX were rolling out a couple of days ago, but that wasn’t the mass push to all users. That was for soak test members and a few lucky devices that happened to gain access to it early. The update for all RAZR and RAZR MAXX owners actually started rolling out last night and this morning. So if you haven’t pulled it yet, head into Settings>About phone>System updates and it should be available. Here is the full changelog from Verizon.

In related news,  the XOOM LTE on Verizon is expecting a minor update at any moment. In fact, a couple of our readers have already received it as Android 3.2.6 build HLK75H. It’s minor and has to do with international travel and data connectivity. It is not Ice Cream Sandwich.  

We actually wrote this tip up when the original RAZR was released, but we would hate for RAZR MAXX owners to find themselves without a trick to get out of a similar bind. Since neither phone has a removable battery, you are unable to do what we call a “battery pull” to reboot your phone if it were to lock up. On normal Android phones, popping your battery in and out can be a life saver, but for the RAZRs, we have to go with what’s available to reboot. That would be the physical buttons that are attached to the outside.

So if you are ever in a situation where your phone is unresponsive and you cannot get it to turn off, this is what you should do:

Press and hold Volume Down + Power for 10-15 seconds until your powers itself off.

Once your phone is off, power it back on using the Power switch and get back to enjoying Android.

*H/T to my Mom who had a RAZR freeze up this morning and found our original tip.

Starting Friday (yes, the same day that the DROID 4 goes on sale), Verizon will re-launch their “Double Data” promo for 4G LTE devices. As long as you purchase a new LTE device and add on at minimum a $30 data package, Big Red will double your data amount for the same price. Their 2GB, 5GB, and 10GB plans will turn into 4GB, 10GB, and 20GB plans without a jump in price. No time frame details were given to us, but this promo won’t last forever. The last time VZW introduced “Double Data,” customers were able to double up from early November to mid-January.

In related news, a buy-one-get-one free (BOGO) deal will go live that same day for the DROID RAZR and the RAZR MAXX. Priced at $199 and $299 respectively, this will be one of the better deals we have seen from Verizon in a long time. The RAZR MAXX is all of 3 weeks old and at least in our minds, is one of the top Android smartphones ever (our full review). Whether you are a new or existing customer, you may want to consider jumping into action on Friday.