Motorola Droid Mini, Ultra, and Maxx officially announced

A couple of leaks indicated that Motorola was working on a new line of Droid phones for US carrier Verizon, with the network yesterday confirming the three new handsets. Motorola and Verizon announced the Droid Mini, Droid Ultra, and Droid Maxx, with all three devices sharing similar specifications as well as software features.

The Droid Ultra and Droid Maxx both feature a 5-inch 720p AMOLED display, along with what Motorola calls an “X8 mobile computing system”. The company is seemingly adding up all the various cores used in driving a phone, so here’s the simple version: all three phones run a dual-core Snapdragon S4 Pro processor clocked at 1.7Ghz, along with an Adreno 320 GPU, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage, and a 10-megapixel camera. Otherwise, the Ultra and Maxx are identical save for the larger battery included on the latter device. Motorola says that the Maxx should be able to get 48 hours of battery life with its 3,500mAh battery.

The Mini, meanwhile, is a more interesting proposition. The display is smaller at 4.3-inches, yet carries the same 720p resolution as its big brothers. It has the same processor, RAM, and camera as well, although storage has been cut back to 16GB. The design looks fairly similar to last year’s Razr i too, which featured an almost edge-to-edge display in a chassis the same size as the iPhone 5. The Droid Mini, then, could be a nice alternative for anyone looking for a more reasonably sized display without compromising on specs.

Motorola didn’t just stop at hardware, though. The phones are running what looks to be close to stock Android 4.2.2, with some additional features that could also make an appearance on the upcoming Moto X. All three phones feature Active Notifications, with the software only lighting up a small portion of the AMOLED screens to show any new messages or alerts in order to save battery. And like the Moto X, the new Droid range can configured to always listen out for voice commands, even while in standby.

It’s not clear if Motorola intends to bring the new Droid line over to the UK, but the phones will be released in the United States next month on Verizon. The Droid Mini, Ultra, and Maxx will cost $499, $599, and $699 respectively, with prices dropping to $99, $199, and $299 on a subsidized two-year contract.