News Weekly: Motorola Razr 2025 arrives, Alphabet earnings soar, Meta’s troubles, and more
News Weekly
News Weekly is our column where we highlight and summarize some of the week’s top stories so you can catch up on the latest tech news.
This is Android Central’s News Weekly, your go-to source for a concise roundup of the week’s most significant tech stories. This is where we delve into the top headlines that provide the latest developments and innovations contributing to the digital landscape.
This week, Motorola’s Razr 2025 series dropped, Alphabet’s Q1 earnings soar, Meta layoffs impact VR teams, Samsung’s summer Unpacked could take place in New York, and Android 16’s Beta 4 comes out. Let’s dive in.
Hello Moto
Read more here
There’s a new Motorola Razr on the block.
The Motorola Razr 2025 series arrived this week as a trio for the first time. Showcasing the standard Motorola Razr, the Motorola Razr Plus, and an all-new Motorola Razr Ultra. All three devices are bolstered with Moto AI, which is backed by Perplexity AI. The devices also have access to Google’s Gemini suite as well.
At first glance, the phones look a lot like the previous models. Motorola says that the devices showcase a new titanium-reinforced hinge plate, which is 4x stronger than surgical-grade stainless steel. This is paired with an ultra-thin glass that creates a smoother display on these devices. All three models come with Android 15 out of the box, and with an IP48 dust and water resistance.
Razr Ultra:
The new Motorola Razr Ultra 2025 arrives with bigger displays when compared to the other two in the lineup. The device features a 4-inch pOLED cover display and a 7-inch main foldable AMOLED display, protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Ceramic.
The Razr Ultra is powered by the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, comes with a 4,700 mAh battery, featuring a 50MP primary camera, a 50MP ultrawide/macro vision camera, and a third 50MP selfie camera.
The Motorola Razr Ultra 2025 comes in four colorways: Pantone Scarab, Pantone Rio Red, Pantone Mountain Trail, and Pantone Cabaret. With its premium specs, the Ultra starts at $1,299 and comes with dual storage options of 512GB and 1TB, along with 16GB of RAM.
Razr Plus:
Razr’s premium model just got demoted to being the middle child. This year’s Plus variant comes with almost the same specs as last year. With an interactive 4-inch cover display and a 6.9-inch internal foldable pOLED display. The Razr Plus 2025 comes in three colorways: Pantone Mocha Mousse, Midnight Blue, and Hot Pink.
The only visible difference is the device’s brightness limit. While the cover display achieves 2,400 nits of peak brightness, the main internal display reaches 3,000 nits. At the heart of the device is the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chipset, similar to the Razr Plus 2024. It gets a 50MP primary camera, a 50MP 2x telephoto lens, and a 32MP front-facing camera. The device has a 256GB built-in storage and 12GB of RAM. As of now, this device will only be available in the U.S. for $999.99.
Image 1 of 2
Razr 2025:
As for its standard model, the company is keeping it simple while also integrating some premium specs into it. The Motorola Razr 2025 arrives in different finishes and four colorways: Pantone Spring Bud, Pantone Gibraltar Sea, Pantone Parfait Pink, and Pantone Lightest Sky.
The standard model features a smaller 3.6-inch pOLED cover display and the same internal 6.9-inch AMOLED screen. At its core, the phone is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 7400X, a notch higher than its predecessor. Regarding its rear cameras, the standard model features a 50MP primary camera system and a 13MP ultra-wide camera equipped with a Macro Vision lens. The device retains its 32MP front camera from its predecessor.
The standard model is priced at $699.99, with prices varying based on the carrier in the U.S. and Canada. The Motorola Razr 2025 series will be sold in stores starting May 15. Pre-orders begin on May 7 at Best Buy, Amazon, and Motorola’s online store.
Along with its clamshells, the company also launched the Motorola Buds Loop, Watch Fit, which are expected to drop in stores this summer.
Alphabet sees 12% boost in revenue in Q1
Read more here
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, released its Q1 earnings on Thursday (April 24), and it was reported that the company’s revenue saw a 12% hike year-over-year, with consolidated revenues of $90.2 billion.
Google’s stock also went up by 2.38% after the market closed later that evening. Its net earnings increased by a large margin of 46%, coming up to $34.54 billion. Google’s core businesses, including Search, YouTube advertising, and AI, were sizable contributors to this overall growth.
“We’re pleased with our strong Q1 results, which reflect healthy growth and momentum across the business. Underpinning this growth is our unique full-stack approach to AI,” said CEO Sundar Pichai
Google’s Search also saw a gain of $50.7 billion in revenue, YouTube’s advertising brought in $8.93 billion to the company, and overall advertising brought in $66.89 billion. And Google Cloud also took the spotlight during this quarter, with its revenue jumping by 28% to $12.3 billion. During the earnings call, Pichai also stated that they’re seeing healthy growth and momentum across all their AI-powered products, specifically AI Overviews.
Read more here
Meta, on Thursday (April 24), laid off an unknown number of employees from its Reality Labs division, which includes employees working in Oculus studios, who are responsible for creating mixed reality wearables as well as games for Meta’s Quest VR headsets.
In an email to Android Central, Meta spokesperson said, “Some teams within Oculus Studios are undergoing shifts in structure and roles that have impacted team size,” the spokesperson said.
These cuts are meant to help the Oculus studios work more efficiently on delivering mixed reality experiences, Meta added. Employees working on Supernatural, a VR fitness game, were among those impacted in the latest round of cuts. This was confirmed by Meta’s spokesperson as well.
They further added that, despite these cuts, “We remain committed to investing in mixed reality experiences, including fitness and games, and our drive to deliver the best experiences possible for the Quest and Supernatural communities remains unchanged.”
We got intel on Samsung’s Summer Unpacked
Read more here
A new rumor suggests that Samsung could be taking its mid-year Unpacked event to New York.
According to a Korean news site, The JoongAng Daily, Samsung is reportedly moving its Galaxy Unpacked event up, with its new set of foldables, Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Flip 7 expected to make their debut in the early weeks of July.
NYC could allegedly be playing host after three long years. The last time an Unpacked event was held in the location was back in August 2022 for the Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Flip 4.
An industry insider familiar with Samsung’s plan told the publication that, “This time, it will be held again in New York, the most representative cultural city, after three years.” There is speculation that the Korean OEM could be switching things up to prioritize the U.S. market.
Android 16 Beta 4, how many more?
Read more here
Earlier this week, Google rolled out Android 16 Beta 4 to all supported Pixels, and it’s the last beta before the big launch next month, loaded with fixes, polish, and broader device support. The latest update didn’t bring any significant changes, as Google is gearing up to launch the stable version of its OS this summer.
Beta 4 packs the April 2025 security patch, which fixes two bugs and a bunch of other critical CVEs. It fixes a weird battery drain, glitchy haptics, and radar not working in the Pixel Weather app. It also tends to certain system stability issues and random launcher crashes that some folks were dealing with.
However, a few Pixel users have taken to Reddit to report that the “Screen-off Fingerprint Unlock” option has gone missing after installing the latest Android 16 beta.
More stories this week
Those are some of the biggest stories from this week. Meanwhile, here are some other stories that are worth catching up on:
Post Comment