The Motorola Droid Mini has finally arrived in the United States, onboard the Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network. The phone is the smallest and most compact of the Motorola Droid Ultra series, which also includes the Motorola Droid Maxx and Motorola Droid Ultra. And thanks to the innovative X8 Mobile Computing System, the handset is slim and light, but still delivers battery performance that other smartphones with bigger batteries simply cannot match.
The Motorola Droid Mini is available for pre-ordering at online retailers at a reduced sale price starting at $49.99 (A savings of up to $50 over carrier prices). Or you can purchase the phone directly from Verizon starting at $99.
The Motorola Droid Mini uses special processing cores to handle certain low-power tasks, and this frees up the dual core 1.7 GHz CPU to focus on more important processes and user requests. And the quad core graphics processor on board the Motorola Droid Mini likewise is capable of handling more operations than the standard GPU found on the average smartphone. An individual core focuses on natural language processing, while another is dedicated to handling contextual computing and processing.
This gives the compact Motorola Droid Mini an 8-pack of processing cores, all dedicated to specific tasks, which greatly increases battery conservation. Iqbal Arshad is Motorola’s Senior Vice President of engineering, and he said that this custom firmware adaptation of the processors on board the Droid Mini helps extend battery life and improve performance up to 50% over the same size battery on most other smartphones.
This leads to an impressive 28 hours of talk time delivered from a full charge of the handset’s 2,000 mA battery, 13.0 days of standby power, and the phone can also charge wirelessly. The natural language processing core on the Motorola Droid Mini 4G helps deliver an “always on” experience according to Motorola. This includes a Touchless Control mode that allows you to communicate with your handset through vocal commands, even when the phone is asleep. And by delivering a 4.3 inch LCD display, the Droid Mini still offers a large screen, while keeping overall size and weight down.
The compact phone measures just 0.35 inches (8.9 mm) in thickness, weighing just 4.59 ounces (130 g), and delivers a durable profile with a DuPont Kevlar body. The 4.30 inch screen offers a resolution of 720 by 1,280 pixels, and the Motorola Droid Mini boasts a 10.0 megapixel camera with a quick capture mode. A front facing chat cam is also on board, as is a generous 2.0 GB of RAM system memory. The handset comes with 16 GB of built-in storage, NFC wireless support, and can function as a mobile hotspot for multiple wireless devices.
You can pre-order the Motorola Droid Mini at a discounted price tag starting at $49.99 at select online retailers. You can also purchase the phone directly from Verizon starting at $99.99.
