CES 2012: Motorola Droid RAZR MAXX promises an edge in battery life

The Motorola Droid RAZR Maxx, available from Verizon in the coming weeks for $300 with a two-year contract, has the biggest battery ever squeezed into a smart phone: a 3,300 mAh Li Ion one. Motorola promises this mega battery will deliver a whopping 21 hours of talk time and 380 hours of standby time—a big deal for any phone, much less one that runs on Verizon's fast-but-draining 4G LTE network.

Yet, measuring 5.15 in. x 2.71 in. x 0.35 inches and weighing 5.11 ounces, the RAXR Maxx is only 0.05 inches thicker and 0.5 ounces heavier than the still-available Droid RAZR, which has a 1,780-mAh Li Ion battery, and is among the highest-scoring phones in our Ratings. The original Droid RAZR earned a battery life score of very good. Our engineers are looking forward to draining this new model dry.

In other respects, the RAZR Maxx is identical to its cousin, packing a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Advanced qHD (540 x 960), a Dual-Core 1.2GHz processor, 8-megapixel rear-facing camera with 1080P video recording, and a front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera with the ability to record video at up to 720P.

You can also count on the same Kevlar fiber case and Gorilla Glass display that protected the original Droid RAZR during my foot-stomping torture test, and 32 gigabytes (GB) of storage (16 GB internal; 16 GB microSD card pre-installed).

It'll be interesting to see if the Droid Maxx can beat its high-scoring cousin in our Ratings, and by how much.

—Mike Gikas