Motorola's new accessories for the Droid RAZR are just as innovative as the phone. I spent some time with Motorola's much improved new 14-inch laptop dock, and its trackpad friend with a major surprise: it's a Bluetooth headset.
The Droid RAZR is a Webtop phone, meaning it turns into a desktop or laptop computer running Firefox when it's hooked up to the appropriate dock. Now that Motorola is owned by Google, I asked some Motorola engineers whether Webtop was going to become a mainstream Android function, but they demurred; they said that Moto needs to keep some features to itself as differentiators.
The new Lapdock 500 is a much bigger, easier-to-type-on laptop dock. The original Lapdock, and the newer Lapdock 100, have 11-inch screens and slightly reduced, somewhat shallow keyboards. The Lapdock 500 has a 1366-by-768, 14-inch screen and a huge, luxurious keyboard whose keys have absolutely terrific travel. The Lapdock 500 feels like a cheap laptop—it's made of rather chintzy-feeling plastic rather than the solid metal of the first Lapdock—but there's no denying the appeal of that grand keyboard. The greater size of the Lapdock 500 also allows Motorola to add a VGA output and an SD card slot to the two USB ports and headphone jack.
The Lapdock 500 also has a front-facing webcam, which I was pleasantly surprised to find worked with Android video chat and photo-taking apps. Apparently, the phone just reads the dock's camera as its own front camera, so any app that uses a front camera should work. Motorola didn't provide a price for the Lapdock 500, alas.
Motorola says the new Lapdock 500 weighs 3.4 pounds and has 7 hours of battery life. I personally wish it was made of more classy-feeling materials, but hopefully the plastic body means Motorola can keep the price down.
The company did price its new, innovative "Smart Controller" trackpad: it's $99. The Bluetooth trackpad is meant for phones that are hooked up to a desktop dock or to your TV, and it works with a range of Motorola phones, company reps said. The trackpad looks like a mouse; the top half is a touch-sensitive surface, with the four key Android action buttons below it.
The real surprise, though, comes when you turn the trackpad over. There's a little "pick up the phone" button on the underside. Yep, this works as a Bluetooth handset for your phone, so if you're watching a movie on the phone, and the phone's across the room, you can take a call on your trackpad. That's really neat, and I love it.
The Smart Controller and Lapdock 500 are "coming soon," Motorola says.