Motorola has taken the wraps of its new Android flagship phone the Motorola Droid Razr. Motorola teased us for a few weeks with its Motorola Next campaign where it gave four reason to get excited.

The new Droid Razr is the worlds thinnest smartphone and it packs a punch. Coming in at 7.1mm thick the Razr takes the place as the worlds thinnest smartphone, previously held by the Sony Ericsson Experia Arc.

Being the worlds thinnest phone doesn’t mean Motorola skimmed when it came to specs, the Razr features a 1.2Ghz dual core CPU, 1GB of RAM and 32GB or storage, a massive 4.3″ Super AMOLED screen, oh and did I mention it runs Android?

The slimness of the Motorola Razr was made possible by the use Kevlar, usually used to stop bullets, and the use of gorilla glass combined with the Kevlar makes the Razr also very strong and durable.

What do you think about the Droid Razr? Would you want to own one?

World of Avatar, an investment company led by Alan Knott-Craig Jnr, former iBurst CEO and son of former Vodacom CEO, has singed a deal seeing the company buying out 90% of the shares and becoming the holding company for MXit.

World of Avatar which owns shares in an array of local mobile and internet startups such as FSMS and Toodu, has bough out Herman Heunis, and MIH Holdings – a Naspers subsidiary, for a reported unconfirmed R500 million. Knott-Craig Jnr is set to take over the reigns as CEO from Heunis and said that he will not make drastic changes to the popular IM service in the coming few months.  “In the short-term, we want MXit to maintain and grow its position as the largest mobile social network in Africa. This means a focus on consolidating and strengthening the core of the business before we move to implement the long- term strategy.” said Knot-Craig Jnr.

MXit currently has over 45 Million registered users in more than 12o countries making the largest social network in Africa. More MXit message gets send every day than tweets and users spend more time on MXit then they do on Facebook.

Congrats to Herman on selling, and good luck for the future to World Of Avatar.

When DStv launched their DStv Mobile service in November 2010 it was only compatible with your PC and iOS devices. A few months after the announcement however DStv promised to have Android and Blackberry apps that will be compatible with the service.

April came and gone without any apps released for the Android and Blackberry platforms as promised and now a few months later DStv has finally launched their much anticipated Android app for viewing DStv Mobile content through the Drifta decoder.

But don’t get too happy yet, there are some fallbacks to the new DStv Mobile Android app, like it is only compatible with certain device, yep not a certain version of Android but more specific only certain devices. The DStv Mobile Android app will only run on the Samsung Galaxy S (GT-I9000), Samsung Galaxy Tab (GT-P1000) and Samsung Galaxy S II (GT-I9100), and don’t even think that you’ll be able to run this on a rooted phone.

DStv is preventing people with rooted phones to make use of the app due to content right restrictions, which in my opinion is a bit of a fail specially since major Android handset manufacturers are now adopting a open bootloader policy which enables you to run just about any version of Android on your phone.

Personally for me the launch of the DStv Mobile Android app is a bit of a fail seeing as it has so much restrictions, and why it is only compatible with a hand full of Samsung device is beyond me. What do you think, should DStv rather have waited a little bit longer before releasing to offer more device compatibility? It’s clear that DStv pushed this app for the Rugby World Cup.

Red Bull MOBILE is expanding their product range by adding new data products to their range.

Red Bull MOBILE has introduced two new data offerings, and through their partnership with Cell C the company is able to give their customers a great all round internet experience.

The new Red Bull MOBILE data offerings operate through Cell C’s HSPA+ network ensuring that customers will always get an enhanced internet experience. The data offerings will be bundled with customised Red Bull MOBILE USB Data Stick and will also have a custom designed user interface manager with some Red Bull flavour to it.

The Red Bull MOBILE data offerings comes available in two varieties, one on a 24 month contract and the other on a once-off package.

The 24 month contract option will cost you R249 per month and will give you 3GB of data every month and a 21Mbps capable Red Bull MOBILE branded Huawei E367 USB Data Stick, out of bundle rates are 39c per MB

The once-off data option will give you access to 6GB total of data that you can use at your own discretion and a Huawei E367 USB Data Stick, this will cost you R1499 once-off.

In addition to the new Red Bull MOBILE data offerings, the company has also introduced new top-up contracts and added the LG Optimus Android smartphone to their RMB 200 package.

For more information about the new Red Bull MOBILE products visit www.redbullMOBILE.co.za

Motorola has announced the availability of the Motorola XOOM Android tablet and the Motorola Atrix in South Africa.

The Motorola XOOM is the first tablet to run Android 3 Honeycomb, boasts a dual core Tegra 2 1Ghz processor, 1GB DDR2 RAM and 32GB of internal storage. Motorola South Africa has also confirmed that an update for Android 3.1 is available for the XOOM in South Africa.

The Motorola Atrix is a 4G dual core CPU phone running Android 2.3 Gingerbread, however the device will not be branded as 4G in South Africa. What really makes the Atrix stand out from all the other dual core phones currently on the market is its Webtop application combined with the docking station. Plugging the Atrix into the docking station enables you to control the device with a normal keyboard and mouse.

The Motorola XOOM and Atrix will be available with Cell C, Vodacom, MTN and 8ta in August 2011. The recommended retail price for the Motorola XOOM is R6599 and R5799 for the Atrix, both devices will also be available on contract.

Vodacom has been planning a price reduction of their mobile broadband offerings for a while now, and they have finally announced it with savings of up to 43%.

Vodacom recently also launched a 2GB + 2GB for R149 per month special that competes head on with the Cell C special of 2GB for R149, but this is only a promotion and does not offer any value to current Vodacom Standard broadband subscribers.

The company has now taken the wraps of their new mobile broadband data offering prices with lower in-bundle and out-of-bundle pricing, and they have also removed the 600MB, 1.2GB and 2.3GB packages, replacing them with 1GB, 1.5GB, 2GB, 2.5GB and 3GB packages. Out-of-bundle pricing has also been reduced from R2 per MB to R1 per MB.

From 1 August 2011 all Vodacom Standard data packages will be replaced by the packages bellow, all contract customers now also qualify for the Vodacom Nigh Owl service which offers customers extra bandwidth to the same amount as their bundle size during the hours of 00:00 to 05:00.

New Vodacom Mobile Broadband Pricing

DStv today has announced a brand new decoder for their DStv Mobile offering, called the DStv Mobile USB Drifta decoder.

The new USB Drifta decoder just like the WiFi Drifta, functions as a mobile DStv decoder enabling users to connect to the DStv Mobile DVB-H network to view certain channels on the go.

The new USB device is much sleeker than the original DStv Drifta decoder and plugs straight into you USB port on your computer, eliminating the need to pair the device through WiFi like the original WiFi Drifta. “It’s just a matter of loading the Drifta USB application onto your PC,” explains Mark Rayner, general manager: DStv Mobile South Africa. “After that, you simply plug the Drifta USB into your PC and launch the application; within seconds you can then enjoy DStv Mobile content.”

In addition to the launch of the DStv USB Drifta Decoder, DStv Mobile has also announced the addition of the M-Net Series channel to the DStv mobile bouquet, offering popular content such as “The Good Wife” and “CSI: Miami”.

Good news is that the new DStv USB Drifta decoder comes in at a few hundred rand cheaper then the original Drifta, making it now even more affordable for people to subscribe to DStv. The new DStv Mobile USB Drifta decoder is available here for only R399.

8ta, South Africa’s newest cellular operator has just dropped the bomb on rival cellphone network operators by introducing the cheapest mobile broadband package available in South Africa.

The new 8ta deal called Internet 5 will give subscribers access to 10GB of bandwidth at only R199 per month, and for an additional R100 users can get another 10GB that can be used between 12AM and 5AM.

This new deal from 8ta undercuts the current deals by Cell C, MTN and Vodacom that offers customers a mere 2GB of bandwidth per month for R149, by a large margin.

The 10GB package from 8ta for R199 per month will be available at all 8ta flagship stores from 26 June 2011, users will need to sign a 24 month contract and the deal is only applicable on 8ta base stations and not where 8ta uses MTN coverage to serve its customers.

To see if you are covered for the 8ta 10GB package see the Internet 5 coverage map.

Samsung today launched their very first Windows Phone 7 device in South Africa called the Samsung Omnia 7.

“The Samsung Omnia 7 is our first Windows Phone 7 device and we anticipate that consumers will be drawn to its fantastic entertainment experience. Most importantly however, the device demonstrates our commitment to offering consumers a choice of platforms that fit their lifestyles,” says Paulo Ferreira, Head of Mobile Product and Business Solutions at Samsung.

The Samsung Omnia 7 features a 4″ Super AMOLED touch screen, a 1GHz processor and 5-megapixels camera capable of taking HD video.

Samsung Omnia 7 Phone Specs:

The Samsung Omnia 7 Windows Phone is exclusively available from today 6 June 2011 from Vodacom and has a recommended retail price of R5 299.00.

Cell C has announced that starting from today prepaid and Controll Chat customers will have the abillity to buy all-in-one vouchers that will provide them with better value for their money.

How it usually works for prepaid customers is you buy an airtime voucher that has a value of say R100 and then you can buy sms or data bundles that gets subtracted from your airtime, but with the new all-in-one vouchers from Cell C customers can now buy one vouchers that offers them airtime, data and sms bundles.

The new Cell C all-in-one vouchers are not only convenient but they offer customers better value for their money with data prices between 40c and 50c per megabyte and on network call rates of between 40c and 50c per minute.

Simon Camerer, Cell C’s Executive Head of Marketing said:  “We want our prepaid customers to experience ‘Woooooooshh’, we want them to see what the network can deliver, and we wanted to do this together with other benefits that our customers enjoy, and of course continuing to provide our customers with great savings.”

Currently there are three vouchers available to prepaid customers ranging from R49 to R199.

Cell C customers can obtain the all-in-one vouchers from 1 June 2011 at Cell C stores, for more information visit the Cell C website.