Let’s do a quick revisit. Back in February, Motorola announced the ROKR E8, their flagship music phone and I was able to get a quick glance over dinner. Now that it’s out and after going a few days with the ROKR E8, I have a few insight’s on Motorola’s latest music phone. It’s a big step from the ROKR E2 – as the new phone incorporates their ModeShift technology that relies heavily upon the touch sensitive virtual keypad that is case sensitive.

My feedback is that in the few days I’ve used the phone I still can’t get through the learning curve of getting used to this type of input method: I still can’t quite understand why they didn’t use the traditional keypad input method. Or maybe I just have really huge fingers. But then again, it isn’t like they’re using a touch screen. I sincerely believe that it’s hard to put a middle ground between a pure touch screen device and a keypad. Sure, there are devices that have both input methods, but to have keypad hardware that acts like a touch screen isn’t too promising. Although it looks cool for all intents and purposes (yeah it really does!), why not just go for the tactile feedback approach of a good keypad?

Luckily, the ROKR E8 doesn’t take the concept all the way, and incorporates some sort of tactile feedback, but with some of the keys cramped together closely, it presents some problems with getting the right thing you want on screen.

Post from: Cellphone9

Have you ever had that experience where you just can’t sleep because you’re trying to remember the title of the song that’s playing on the radio? Like when the DJ plays this really great song you heard in a club and when he finally gets to announce the track name, a huge bus cuts you and drowns the audio from the car? Sucks ain’t it? I’m sure we can all relate. Motorola definitely can, so they’re doing something about it.

Song ID is very similar to how GraceNote DB identifies the track name and album art of a CD when you insert it onto a computer to rip. If there’s a song playing on the radio or the immediate ambient environment, all you need to do is launch the Song ID application of your ROKR E8 and hold the phone close to the sound source. The phone will record a small 10kb file for 15 seconds and pass it via GPRS or EDGE or whatever and send you back an SMS of the song title and artist.

Wow. Thanks Motorola for helping us sleep well

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