Best phone of CES 2012: Motorola Droid Razr MAXX

21.5 hours of talk time, 15 hours of native video playback, 10 hours of GPS navigation, and six hours of HD streaming. On an LTE device. Impressive Motorola, very impressive. Shown off at this year’s CES, Motorola says the Razr MAXX will be hitting Verizon USA in the “coming weeks”. We’ll be watching to see if Motorola can deliver on its promise once the phone is cast into the wild.

The Razr MAXX is another version of Motorola’s Droid Razr which set the record for being the thinnest Android smartphone to date. At 9mm, the Razr MAXX is 1.9mm thicker than the standard Razr. For interest’s sake, the iPhone 4S is 9mm thick.

So how big is this battery? It’s pretty big. The largest smartphone battery, in any other Android device, is that of the 2500mAh Samsung Galaxy Note, but the Razr MAXX’s giant 3300mAh puts it to shame.

If Motorola delivers, the Razr MAXX will provide almost twice the battery life any competing Android device can muster, today. One just has to take a look at all the charging solutions available for smartphones to understand that extended battery life is one of the most sought after features for any smartphone user.

The Razr MAXX could be one of the most compelling Android devices in a saturated Android market where manufacturers find it increasingly hard to differentiate themselves. This is exactly the kind of thing Android needs. Innovation on hardware features, the stock Android experience is fine. Leave it alone, Moto’. Please.

On the downside, the extended battery life could add an additional US$100 to the retail price and it ships with Gingerbread buried beneath Motorola’s interface skin.