The new Motorola Droid Razr Maxx makes up for both those shortcomings. It’s 3300mAh battery is 85% larger than the 1780mAh battery on the original Razr, resulting in far better battery life (lasting nearly twice as long). And the thicker battery actually makes the phone easier to hold.

The only downside to the Droid Razr Maxx is it’s slightly heavier (5,1 ounces versus 4,41 ounces) and $50 more than the original Droid Razr. Beyond that, the phones offer the exact same features and specs, so much of what you’ll read below is taken from my Droid Razr review.
How it feels in the hand

Motorola Droid Razr Maxx width compareThe Motorola Droid Razr Maxx is still light for its size, even at 5,1 ounces. And while the thickness of the Razr Maxx has been increased to .35» from just .28» in the Razr, I found the thicker profile gave me a better grip and was actually more comfortable to hold. Since the original Razr.

My issues with the Razr’s button quality are still here in the Razr Maxx. While the overall feel of the phone is solid, the buttons feel downright cheap, especially the wiggly, sharp-edged power button.
Display & Sound

The Motorola Droid Razr Maxx has the same 4,3-inch Super AMOLED Advanced qHD display (960 x 540). There’s plenty of brightness and excellent contrast, with the wide viewing angles you would expect from an AMOLED display. And it’s made from Gorilla Glass, which makes it virtually scratch-proof.

The built-in speaker on the Droid Razr Maxx was loud and clear. Standard calling volume is good as well.
Web browsing & mobile hotspot

Nothing new here. The Motorola Droid Razr Maxx uses Verizon’s 4G LTE network for blazingly fast download and upload speeds. In New York City, I regularly get download speeds of 13—17 Mbps (with a peak of 22 Mbps), and upload speeds from 5 — 7 Mbps. That’s about 10—15x faster than I get using Verizon’s 3G network (see: The Fastest 4G? It’s No Contest for an idea of how much you get with a 4G versus a 3G phone).

Combining that 4G speed, with the Razr Maxx’s powerful 1,2 GHz dual-core processor and beautiful display made for an excellent browsing experience.

The Motorola Droid Razr Maxx can act as a mobile hotspot for up to 8 devices.
Camera & video recording

The Razr Maxx has the same 8MP rear-facing camera as the Razr, which I found disappointing. It takes a long time for the camera to focus, even is bright light, which means lots of out-of-focus shots in low-light situations. Noise in low-light shots was also quite apparent. And in better light, colors were washed out, though they had a nice level of detail.

Video quality was not much better. The 1080p HD video was also washed out and the camera had trouble finding the correct subject to focus on. At least the video was stutter-free, but not without jiggliness in the image.
Keyboard & Navigation

The Motorola Droid Razr Maxx is running Android 2,3 Gingerbread and MOTOBLUR. The processor keeps everything flowing smoothly and navigation is well designed. Both multi-touch and Swype keyboards come pre-installed.

One new feature that many users will find quite appealing is the ability to create «Smart Actions», rules that let you do control a range of functions from power saving to ringer volume to app launching, based on your location or time of day. The rules are composed of «Triggers», such as arriving home, and «Actions», such as turning off 4G and turning on Wi-Fi. Creating the rules is as simple as identifying your Trigger(s) and clicking on the actions you want to occur.
Storage

The Motorola Droid Razr Maxx has 16GB of onboard memory and includes a 16GB microSD card (expandable to 32GB).
Battery life

Battery life on the Droid Razr Maxx was far better than on the original Razr. With the original, the phone was dead by evening, if I was using it frequently. The new Droid Razr Maxx lasted nearly 36 hours. With light use, it went for more than two days. That is exceptional among large-screen smartphones.
Laptop Dock

Like other advanced Motorola phones, the Droid Razr Maxx can use the Motorola accessory Laptop Dock, which can turn the phone into a mobile computer.
Pricing and availability

The Motorola Droid Razr Maxx is available from Verizon for $299,99 with a new, two-year customer agreement. That $50 more than the Droid Razr 32GB and $100 more than the Droid Razr 16GB. Or, you can purchase the Droid Razr Maxx from AmazonWireless for $199.99.
Should you buy it?

Like the Razr, the Droid Razr Maxx is a feature-packed phone with a fast processor, beautiful display and 4G LTE speeds (a must on Verizon) that innovates in some very useful ways. The water-repellent nanocoating inside helps protect it from life’s little unpleasantries, and the Smart Actions will be a godsend for those who need to change setting between work and home, day and night, or weekday and weekends.

Unlike the Razr, the Maxx has a battery that not only performs, it excels. And the thicker girth actually makes it a more comfortable phone to hold, even if you have small hands.

Between the original Razr and the new Razr Maxx, there’s no question that the Razr Maxx is the way to go. If only the camera were better, it would have made my highly recommended list.

Rating: Recommended
Detailed Specs

Talk and Standby Time: Up to 21,5 hours talk time, up to 15,8 days standby
Band/Modes: CDMA Dual band/LTE
OS: Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread
Weight: 5,1 oz
Dimensions: 2,71 x 5,15 x 0,35 inches
Battery: 3300 mAh
Display: 4,3» Super AMOLED Advanced LCD (960 x 540)
Video: 1080p
Camera: Rear-facing 8,0 megapixel, Auto Focus, LED flash
Front-facing Camera: 1,3 megapixel
Mobile hotspot: Yes, up to eight devices
Processor: 1,2GHz Dual Core
Memory: 1GB RAM, 16GB onboard storage and 16GB microSD card (expandable to 32GB)

The mini USB flashlight is portable and made from durable ABS plastic, coming in black. It powers from a rechargeable Li-Ion battery and measures 0,87 x 2,05 inch. Find it at ThinkGeek.com, at $6.99.

As expected, Microsoft today released Skype for Windows version 5,8, which among other new features allows you to conduct a Facebook-to-Facebook call from within the Skype client. You can download the new version from skype.com/go/download.

Here’s the changelog for version 5.8.0.154:

Full HD video-calling
Support for Facebook audio and video-calling (beta)
Group screen sharing
Hide offline Facebook contacts
Push to Talk
Skype updater service
Bing Bar integration

The new version means Skype users can check their Facebook News Feeds, instant messages, and video call their Facebook friends all from within Skype. Even if your Facebook friends are not on Skype, they can still pick up a Skype instant message or video call from within Facebook.

To start a Facebook-to-Facebook call from within Skype, you must first connect your Skype and Facebook accounts (sign in to the Skype client, click on the Connect to Facebook tab, and log in to Facebook). Once that’s done, you can select a Facebook friend and hit the video call button in Skype — your friend can then pick up the call from Facebook.

Even before this update, Skype already let you see when your Facebook friends are online, read their status updates, instant message them using Facebook Chat, comment and Like their posts, check and update your News Feed, all within the client. After helping Facebook launch video calling for its 845 million active users, the company has now ported the feature over to its desktop application as well.

While this new version is only for Windows, the Mac-equivalent of this update is still in the works. The latest version is Skype 5,4 Beta for Mac.

The Good

Creepy but fun atmosphere
Collectible upgrades
Challenging platforming.

The Bad

Cheap combat
Sloppy controls.

Before it was a full-featured Xbox Live Arcade game, Scarygirl was a graphic novel by Nathan Jurevicius, and then it was a downloadable game for the PlayStation Portable. None of that history is required knowledge if you decide you want to give this newest platformer a shot, though. The only things you need to bring to the table are some solid gaming chops and an appreciation for the bizarre.

Scarygirl is an orphan who lost her parents at an early age and was raised by a wise, fatherly octopus. He built a lovely home for her, a cabin high in a gnarled tree, and he found clothes for her on the ocean floor. Now the unusual heroine looks a lot like a doll that lost a battle with a 3-year-old. Her unruly black hair, pale skin, and stitched-together lips might easily have come from the mind of Tim Burton, and her dreams are fittingly enigmatic. These nighttime visions finally inspire her to embark upon a journey, which is when the game begins.

Scarygirl is a visual treat. The world is pleasingly organic, with distinct and lively environments. Giant blades of grass sway in the breeze, thick weeds choke a path lined with clay, icy stalagmites rise skyward, and fetid pools of swamp water line rock basins. It’s a strange world populated by angry animals ranging from frogs and birds to spiders and snakes. Plus, there are lumberjacks who hurl axes or bellow and charge like they’re football players. You may find yourself pressing onward just to see how bizarre things get.

Audio sets a fitting, if unremarkable, tone and the delightful narrator is a highlight. His deep voice brings to life a number of lines that capture the game’s understated humor with the appropriate subtlety. There’s a vaguely menacing tone to everything he says, even the bits that sound cheery, which makes it all more interesting than it probably has a right to be. Clever narration and unique visuals can carry a game only so far, though, and Scarygirl also relies on more conventional methods to justify your investment. At its core, the game is a challenging but largely generic platformer that suffers for the inclusion of some cheap brawling sequences.

Most levels adhere to genre traditions. Scarygirl runs and jumps through varied environments, collecting crystals and defeating enemies as she goes. Her movement is imprecise, however, which makes for some awkward moments. If Scarygirl starts running to the right, she might well take a few final (and potentially fatal) steps after you stop easing the analog stick in that direction. Her jumps are also slightly abrupt, which can result in some awkward landings. Frequently, you need to take advantage of Scarygirl’s ability to glide. A tap of the A button produces her first jump, and holding the button causes her tentacle arm to whirl around like a helicopter rotor. Quick taps let you use this ability in short bursts, making for lengthy glides, while simply continuing to hold the button results in a shorter flight.

When she’s not jumping or gliding, Scarygirl is usually attacking with her rubbery tentacle arm. She has light and heavy attacks, the latter of which you can use to knock an enemy into the air and then juggle him a few times before he lands. Scarygirl’s scarymode meter fills as she proceeds, and she can unleash an extremely powerful attack that few enemies can withstand. A wandering merchant also sells special moves that enable Scarygirl to demolish her foes more effectively. Finally, she can grab stunned enemies and slam them around like an out-of-control yo-yo, or even hurl them as projectiles. Unfortunately, it’s surprisingly difficult to set the trajectory of such tosses. A number of puzzles throughout the adventure would be much simpler if aiming were easier.

Scarygirl isn’t a lengthy game, but there are reasons to replay stages. You’re scored based on the number of crystals found, weeds pulled, and enemies destroyed in a level. You receive bonus points for gathering every crystal and pulling every weed, so you’ll always know if your performance was less than perfect. You may also find yourself revisiting areas if you missed heart containers, which tend to be hidden well off the beaten path (or along one of two diverging paths through a given stage). Each container you find adds a quarter of a heart to your life meter, which becomes increasingly important as you near the end of the game.

While natural hazards that you encounter within stages can prove harmful or fatal, combat is the main source of difficulty. At first, only a few foes strike at once, and everything is manageable. Later in the game, Scarygirl faces whole mobs. At that point, juggling some foes in the air with heavy attacks becomes dangerous because it leaves Scarygirl vulnerable to projectile attacks from other enemies. Moving in quickly to try to overwhelm everyone with combos isn’t advisable, because some enemies are masters at blocking, and Scarygirl takes damage if she brushes against them. Vanquishing foes without taking damage becomes almost impossible, even when you’re blocking and dodging like a champion. Late in the game, one stage takes place on a floating airship. There are multiple waves of enemies that drop in on the airship from other floating vessels and attack with pikes and explosives, but there are virtually no checkpoints. It’s cheap, not fun, and other similar scenarios follow.

Fortunately, not every enemy encounter is such a failure. Throughout the game, you also find numerous boss fights that provide a nice change of pace because victory relies more on pattern memorization and intuition than manic combat. For example, the boss in one stage is typically impervious to any attacks, but Scarygirl can lure it into a danger zone and let the elements deal a blow that stuns her adversary. Then she can whale on the beast for a moment until it recovers. It’s a shame that such sequences aren’t more common, but they’re enjoyable when they do occur.

Another mark in the game’s favor is its two-player local cooperative mode. If you have a friend who takes a shine to Scarygirl, he or she can drop in during the middle of a level and control a secondary character with different moves. With a second target onscreen, enemies are more manageable. Naturally, you have the best luck if you play with a friend who also has ample experience with the game. Your friend’s fortune is tied to your own; you both go back to the last checkpoint if Scarygirl perishes.

Scarygirl has a lot of character, and that’s bound to attract players who won’t have much fun with it beyond the first few worlds. The more challenging platforming sequences that follow later are mostly fine, but the poorly executed combat system provides more frustration than thrills, and the spotty controls take some of the fun out of what otherwise might have been a grand adventure. Scarygirl is ultimately a game with more style than substance, and it’s crammed with so many frustrations that you might be better off reading the book instead.

Other features include Intel Core processing technology, NVIDIA GeForce graphics, 1TB HDD, 64GB SSD, Dolby Home Theatre V4 audio technology, built-in HD web camera, and pre-loaded games and apps.

The Best of CES 2012 — Best Desktop will be available for purchase for $1,299.

wacom inkling digital capture pen Wacom Inkling Digitally Captures your Hand Drawn Sketches

The Wacom Inkling is the first ever pen and capture tool that literally allows you to import your sketches line for line to your computer, and store them as either a JPEG, BMP, TIFF, PNG, PDF or SVG. As well, the Inkling directly integrates with Photoshop, Illustrator and Autodesk Sketchbook so that your hand drawn sketches can instantly be available for editing and review on your pc.

The way it works is actually quite simple. The Inkling comes with a special Digital Smart Pen that uses a special sort of ink that the transfer device detects. To use it, simply tack the transfer device to the top of a page of paper or any notebook, and start drawing. Then, with the touch of a button, the transfer device reads the ink from the page in front of it and saves it to a digital medium.

The Inkling can import the sketch either as a single image or with layers to make it easier to edit afterwards. Forget having to rely on scanners, these nifty devices look like they will save you the trouble.

wacom inkling pen transfer kit Wacom Inkling Digitally Captures your Hand Drawn Sketches

According to sources, the Wacom Inkling should already be on the market, which is great news for people who find that sketching by hand beats using a tablet and pen any day.

While I’m not exactly much of an artist, I can see people who draw for a living or who run web comics going crazy for these things. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more sites spring up with hand drawn images now that anyone with talent for sketching, but lacking access to Illustrator, can bring their creations to the PC in no time.

The laptop has been around since late Summer, but only recently has it got its full feature list 3D fans wanted. Earlier this month, a press release was issued from Toshiba indicating that the laptop got Nvidia 3D gaming support. We covered this here.

When it comes to overall features and capabilities, this laptop is an all-around great package for anyone. It comes packaged with a Blue-ray drive, HDMI, USB 3,0, and a 15,6» 1080p HD display. Its spec list isn’t shabby either. It comes with a Core i7 (quad-core) CPU and a Nvidia Geforce GT 540M GPU. The base model comes with a 750GB hard drive and 6GB of RAM.

My main gripe that I have is that it only allows for one user to view the image being displayed in 3D. You also have to sit at a specific angle to get the most clarity and depth. However, this is still to be expected from any autostereoscopic displays on the market today.

The laptop comes with something called «Active Lens Technology,” which allows multiple windows to be displayed on it for images to show in both 3D and 2D. This means multiple users can still take advantage of it, although it fully only supports one user for 3D viewing.

Another gripe that may be a hard sell to non-3D enthusiasts is the laptop’s price. It currently costs $1,829 on Amazon. However, a cheaper version with less impressive specs exists as well. This version is called the F755—3D 320 and costs $1,151,98 right now on Amazon.

I would also like to point out that if you are a very mobile laptop user who doesn’t like carrying around external power connectors, this laptop may not be for you. The battery life isn’t too impressive with only a few hours on a full charge. However, this is an enthusiast laptop that aims at entertainment consumption and less on productivity. You probably don’t want to use it exclusively for typing Word documents on the go as there are cheaper solutions for that.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this laptop for any 3D gamer. It will play the latest games with great resolutions. The rewritable Blue-ray drive makes the package very appealing for 3D movie fans as well.

The European Commission said Tuesday it suspects Samsung of not giving other companies fair access to patents it holds on standardized technology for mobile phones , despite committing to do so in 1998.

The Commission said that Samsung last year sought legal injunctions against other device makers in several EU states, alleging patent infringement.

The probe comes just as Samsung is locked in a battle with Apple over whether its Galaxy tablet too closely resembles the iPad.

A spokesman for the Commission couldn’t immediately say whether the patents also affect tablet computers.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

BERLIN (AP) , A German appeals court has upheld a decision prohibiting Samsung Electronics Co. from selling two of its tablet computers in Germany, agreeing with Apple Inc. that they too closely resemble the iPad2.

The Duesseldorf state court ruled Tuesday that neither the South Korean company’s Galaxy Tab 10,1 nor the Galaxy Tab 8,9 could be sold in Germany because they were in violation of unfair competition laws.

But it said the successor Galaxy Tab 10,1 N is not affected by the ruling.

The ruling comes as part of a string of court battles between California-based Apple and Samsung over their tablet computers. In December, a Sydney court ruled that Samsung could sell its Galaxy tablet computers in Australia.

According to WPSauce, Microsoft has revealed some interesting facts about Tango during the developers’ camp in India. The next version will up the language support from 35 to 120, which shows that Microsoft wants to expand its markets to emerging and developing nations as well. Also, the next version will come with native support for C++, thereby making it easy for developers to code or port apps over to the mobile platform.

However, it has still not been confirmed, whether the ‘next release’ would be the immediate Tango or the upcoming Apollo. Meanwhile, PocketPC have managed to get a screen grab of a Tango running WP7 phone, which shows Skype as well as Google+ integration into the messenger hub. Now that Microsoft owns Skype, it was only a mater of time till this feature was integrated, but we are pleasantly surprised to see it done so quickly. The folks who took the screenshot claimed that chatting over both these services work well, but Skype’s voice calling were a bit buggy. Video calling will also be available, but it may not come out in time for Tango. We don’t know for certain if the screen grab is real or not, so let’s take this with a pinch of salt, until we get some concrete proof straight from the horse’s mouth.

For most people, landing an executive position at Microsoft would be the pinnacle of their career. Watson’s new position at Amazon is working on Kindle apps, so it is almost exactly the same line of work, though now for what was one of his biggest competitors. It leaves a question mark about Microsoft’s future in the mobile space, though not a black hole. The software giant has actually done a formidable job at building the Windows Phone brand.

It got a much-needed boost from Nokia, which recently launched its Lumia 710 smartphone in the US. At $50, the Lumia 710 is seen as a great entry-level smartphone. But alas, selling Windows Phone as the «cheap» option is only driving a bigger wedge when it comes to the smartphone aficianados who simply don’t believe there’s a need for a third player in an iOS and Android duel. For Watson, that battle won’t be an issue anymore.