Lower end needs to be qualified actually. The EM25 is pretty kick ass in terms of features as all it foregoes is the ModeShift design of the EM30 (which can be a pain in the ass at times) and just goes for the no-brainer slider design with one-touch music feature. As a phone, the EM25 comes with a 1.3MP digital camera, Crystal Talk technology, Bluetooth 2.0 and A2DP support, FM Radio, and a 3.5mm jack for plugging in universal headphones.

[photo c/o Motorola Asia PR]

Post from: Cellphone9

This is why I wait for second generation releases. The Motorola ROKR E8 was Moto’s first music phone to use the proprietary ModeShift technology. Roughly six months later, Motorola releases the new ROKR EM30, a cheaper second generation ROKR that spells 2008’s high end music phone market for Motorola.

But high end is actually a misnomer as the EM30, though improving on a number of features the previous ROKR didn’t execute so well at, is actually much cheaper, going into the $200.00 mark. No final price has yet been released but it supposedly is now targeting the mid-market range, having high end features.

Perhaps the biggest improvement to the EM30 is the new front panel for data input. The previous ROKR had some issues with its “too futuristic” design having one huge panel for you to input text. At the end of they day, it became such a chore to even select the next icon on the menu because the touch sensitive pad was either too sensitive or not sensitive at all. It was a pain to navigate. The EM30 fixes this problem by implementing solid buttons to press down on, charaterized by pieces of plastic jutting out of the real estate to ensure your thumb that it’s pressing the right buttons. The joystick was also improved, sans the half wheel navigation feature that was more of a pain than pleasure to use.

The ModeShift technology has also been improved a bit. Now, the icons change color as well when you shift to other modes. For instance, the keypad glows blue when in phone mode and red when in music player mode.

Not much has been sacrificed with the ROKR – instead of the huge internal memory of the previous device, the new EM30 has only 30MB of internal storage but its expansion slot can accommodate up to 8GB of data.

Other features include:

FM Radio with RDS
2.0MP camera w/ Digital Zoom
3.5mm stereo input
Microsoft Music EcoSystem Support
GPRS during calls
Text2Speech Recognition

Post from: Cellphone9

2009 UPDATE: Motorola has announced for 2009 the new Motorola W233, an eco-friendly version of the W230.

UPDATE: Motorola has announced an upgrade to the W230, called the W388. It is an incremental upgrade to the low end phone, now sporting a VGA camera and a little bit more memory.

As an aside, the “W” naming scheme is a bit of a throw off as one might think that this is a Sony Ericsson phone. Motorola has released a new line of entry level phones in the W230 and W270. No fancy bells here compared to the RAZR line. Both phones stress a relatively high memory expansion bundle of 2GB but cut down on other features. Essentially, both phones are entry level handhelds.

Do you like the W230? If you’re opting for a higher end music phone, you can check out the Motorola ROKR E8 with ModeShift technology. Motorola has released a cheaper version of the ROKR E8 with a better user interface and real estate, the ROKR EM30:

If you’re looking for a high end cameraphone from Motorola, you can check out the Motozine ZN5 that comes with Xenon flash, wireless Internet and Kodak imaging technology.

Post from: Cellphone9