Motorola Shadow captured in the wild

By on May 25, 2010 at 10:10 AM
General May 25, 2010

vzw-moto-shadow-leak

If this isn’t the product of Photoshop, then what we’re looking at here is the Motorola Shadow. Allegedly found lying around in a Verizon corporate gym, the employee that found the Big Red exclusive claims they were able to confirm rumored specs which include a 4.3″ WVGA display, 8 megapixel camera with 720p video recording, 16GB of internal memory, Snapdragon processor and HDMI out. Of course these claims — and the entire story for that matter — beg the question “why weren’t more photos taken” as proof, but we guess that’s just too much a chore for Mr. Blurrycam. Other rumors peg the Shadow as having a TI OMAP3630 processor approaching 800MHz and a PowerVR SGX530 GPU capable of 1080p output. We should find out how accurate these rumors are when the Shadow drops either in June or July.

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47 Comments

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  • AusFest

    Hope they use vanilla android, if so ill get it.

    • Norm

      The launcher appears to be motoblur

  • Bill

    Fix your broken link to Gizmodo before posting online

  • Mr.Flores

    man…HTC and Moto are really going at it.

    • StevenGlansburg

      you mean copying each other? I will give Motorola credit for learning how to make rounded edges as compared to the jagged corners of the Droid.

      • Norm

        Its the same corners Trollsburg

  • webby

    This has been on Phandroid and other tech sites already — really cutting edge follow the leader there BGR

    It does look photo-shopped to me — looks like the image is kind of hovering over the phone.

  • grrr

    Nice.

  • Ben

    Others are reporting a snapdragon processor. Wonder which rumor is true. Anyone know which processor is better?

    • StevenGlansburg

      The report I read on Engadget or where ever this story was copied from said something around 600-800 mhz processor, which is not a snapdragon…

    • Norm

      It is supposed to be running an 800mhz that is faster than the snapdragon

      • Gregory

        Snapdragon is supposedly, I say supposedly because it hasn’t been for me, but supposedly is supposed to be 1GHz, so how is this 800MHz faster than snapdragon?

      • Norm

        Its like how the 550mhz on th droid is faster than the 800mhz in the moment. Architecture.
        And how the g1 is only half the speed of the droid but its only a couple mhz lower. Architecture

      • Electrofreak

        None of you people have a clue what you’re talking about, yet you insist on posting your (uninformed) opinions.

        The chip that Howardforum rumors indicated was in the Shadow is a TI OMAP 3630 running at 720 MHz. This is a 45 nm Cortex A8 chip which, while slightly less efficient in terms of overall calculating performance than Snapdragon, is significantly more power efficient than current-gen Snapdragons, which are 65 nm chips. Other examples of Cortex A8 chips (65 nm however) exist in the current Droid, Palm Pre, iPhone 3GS, Nokia N900 etc. Pretty much any high-end smartphone released in the last year that isn’t Snapdragon is a Cortex A8 chip.

        The Snapdragon is a completely custom ARM architecture which was designed by Qualcomm. It’s often referred to as being based off of Cortex A8, because it does share some Cortex A8 characteristics, but it isn’t Cortex A8. Nor is it really a huge jump ahead of Cortex A8, but can be thought of as a halfway step between Cortex A8 and Cortex A9, which is the true next-gen ARM architecture that we’ll see early next year.

        So no, an 800 MHz Cortex A8 is not faster than Snapdragon. In fact, it is slightly slower than an 800 MHz Snapdragon, as a Snapdragon SoC tends to have about a 5-10% performance edge over Cortex A8. However, a 45 nm Cortex A8 will be 20-30% more power efficient than a 65 nm Snapdragon, and should be able to clock up to 1 GHz if the manufacturer so chose, resulting in a CPU that performs slightly worse than a Snapdragon, but is more energy efficient.

        Lastly, it’s worth mentioning that 45 nm Snapdragons will be coming out this Fall that will pretty much beat out all other ARM processors in terms of both power and efficiency until Cortex A9 makes its way into devices next year. After that, it’s anyone’s guess what Qualcomm has in store for us to stay competitive against Cortex A9.

        Google “Hummingbird vs Snapdragon” and click “I’m feeling lucky” to read an article I wrote on the subject that goes into more detail.

      • Electrofreak

        I should point out that in my first paragraph, I meant that the OMAP 3630 is less efficient than Snapdragon on a MHz by MHz basis; a 720 MHz Cortex A8 will perform significantly worse than a 1 GHz Snapdragon.

  • tino72

    Wow interesting. Of course I read this on phone dog hrs ago. Bgr your pathetic

    • Danger

      Wow. Of course you were 4th to comment on the fact that you had read this somewhere else. Tino72 you’re pathetic ;)

      Read a blog because you like the their style, not because they might be a few hours behind. How many stories has BGR broken BEFORE gizmodo, engadget, phandroid, phone dog, etc? Idiot.

  • RJB

    Seriously people complaining that they read this piece of news or any others on Engadget or another site first need to stop crying. Crying makes you look needy and pathetic. Stop crying and never come back here and just rely on other sources of news or start your own tech news blog. But please stop whining and crying.

    • 360Black

      It is not holding a source accountable. This is bashing them for not being first. Holding them accountable would be taking them to task for facts that were incorrect or making leaps in logic in order to sensationalize a story.

      So what they weren’t the first ones to report a story. They should still report it because everyone does not check every site for news. For some, this may be their ONLY site for news on new phones. So if BGR doesn’t report the story, (albeit a little late), then those readers would not get the news.

    • SKINNI

      Ill get u out of the negative budy! I agree. BGR might be late with stories & we all know this (I just like the simple layout of the site). Why continue coming here if it sucks. Thats like going to Wendy’s everyday for lunch & trashing the food while ur pigging out

  • meske

    What? Is it now the new trend to “loose” unreleased phones for free publicity?

  • Duane Spence

    Does any one know if the SHADOW will have a sliding keybord?

    • Norm

      It will not, but the Droid 2 will!

      • acquaz10

        the droid 2 is just a slight refresh of the droid anyways. no big differences.

      • V

        What makes you think that? In all likelihood it will be much more powerful and could have all kinds of revisions.

        The droid shadow which is not going to receive the hype of the Droid 2 is significantly more powerful (if it has the omap 3630) then the original droid with a 80% more powerful GPU and 20%+ more powerful CPU, plus an 8mp camera. The droid 2 may step it up a notch beyond the Shadow.

      • StevenGlansburg

        it will be worse. It will have a sh!tty keyboard

      • Electrofreak

        And you have a shitty opinion, Steve.

  • V

    The big question, should I hold off for WinMo7 or get this? As a side note, i wouldn’t buy something with a snapdragon because the GPU on snapdragons is weaksauce, hopefully this has the OMAP 3630.

  • Que???

    So the Droid follow up with be keyboard-less???

  • McHale

    Wait. Let me get this straight. A Verizon employee found another Verizon employee’s phone and was able to “confirm specs?” Wow. There’s a stretch. At least Apple had the balls to lose it in a bar. This smells of a really really really lame attempt at a controlled leak. Desperate and sad.

    • SOUTHERN MISS ELITE

      On top of that, not only did someone find it in a corporate gym, the person who “took the photo” was confident enough that his job would not be lost because you know…he took the photo presumably inside corporate office’s.

      And if that’s not enough, he only took 1 photo, because I guess nobody wants to see the back or the sides….

      This is beyond a farce. It’d be like if I were to make what I thought a prototype was and take a few pictures myself.

      Everyone knows that the new way to prove something isn’t a photo – it’s a cam! You gotta videotape yourself holding it, launching an app, or if you’re really looking for confirmation, showing the system status and then taking the phone apart!

  • Mr. D

    Mr. Blurry Cam must be a carny with those small hands otherwise that phone is HUGE!

  • Steel

    A LARGER version of the Motorola Droid? Eek, who ordered that?

    • FlyingPlatypus

      Is this a phone or a tablet? My god.

  • mike

    why does it look like the top part of the screen is wider than the bottom?

    • Danger

      That is exactly what I was going to say. If it is real, this is running at least 2.1 vanilla, not blur.

  • http://www.brianward.com Brian Ward

    The phone also looks just like a picture from the manual running around somewhere so it seems legit. The big screen will be daunting for some, but for those of us who heavily rely on these phones for Internet, the bigger screen is welcome. Also, typing should be even better.

  • Sonya

    The found will be out in August due to a hardware change BGR. Definitely not June and no to July.

    • Sonya

      Phone I mean, sorry.

  • MikeD

    Welcome to the world Shadow.

    Oh well the Incredible and EVO had their days as top dawg.

  • Ur Daddy

    Do you fckin idiots commenton every thing you dumazzes see

  • ChocoTaco

    Amazing how HORRIBLY WRONG those specs are. ALL the blogs – BGR, Engadget, Gizmodo – they have NO CLUE what this phone is. Hell, they’re still hooked on thinking the Shadow and the Droid2 are the same phone. It’s getting pathetic. Who are these people’s sources? If I wanted to be lied to, I’d watch Barack Obama deliver a speech.

    • Danger

      Don’t bring the president into this.

  • Amber Lamps

    whoa a crappy moto phone. When will the white screens appear?

  • ztech

    Yes a 4.3 screen will definitely be welcomed by me. I’ll be getting it for sure. Have had nothing but a great experience with the Moto Droid, and I’m looking forward to this one also.

  • ACuvue

    THE DROID SHADOW WILL NOT HAVE A 4.3″ SCREEN! It will have a 4.1′

  • DBX

    Please let it be 3.7. These four-plus screens make for a phone that’s just a little too large. If they’d just take the Droid and adjust the D-pad to make the keyboard more centered, I’d be fine with that. On the other hand, if it is indeed a 45nm Cortex processor in that phone, it will be plenty fast and have excellent battery life.

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