Motorola unveils fresh lineup of Droid smartphones

(Photo: Eli Blumenthal, USA TODAY)

Motorola Mobility and Verizon Wireless refreshed the Droid lineup Tuesday with three new models headlined by the Droid Maxx. That's the Android handset that the companies claim can last two full days (under "normal" use). The previous Droid Razr Maxx HD, which was also 9% thicker than the latest 8.5 mm Droid model, had enough stamina for 32 hours. Droid Maxx will costs $299 with the customary two-year contract.

The new Droid trio is rounded out by the 7.18-mm thin Droid Ultra model for $199, said to be the thinnest 4G LTE phone on the market, and the compact $99 Droid Mini.

The Mini has a 4.3-inch high definition (720p) display; the other two new Droids have 5-inch HD screens.

Verizon is taking preorders today; the Ultra and Maxx launch August 20, while the Mini makes its debut August 29.

Among the features are a Droid Command Center home screen widget which shows notifications for texts, missed calls, battery level and weather. It is also a gateway to a Wireless Display mirroring feature that lets you display what's on the phone screen on a compatible HDTV.

The phones also can take advantage of touchless voice commands for, among other things, making calls, playing music and, if you misplace it under a couch say, you can summon Google Now to make it ring. You say, "OK Google Now, Call my Droid." You have to be near enough to the phone, of course, to have it hear you.

Another trick: you can summon the camera app from the lock screen, just by shaking your wrist.

The timing of the Verizon-Motorola announcement is interesting given that Motorola and Google will be unveiling the Moto X smartphone on August 1, the first new handset of note since Google acquired Motorola.