Cellphone9 » Song ID

“Motorola Mobile” should change its name for a fresh start

Jayvee Fernandez — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 17:08:42 +0000

In light of the recent announcement of Motorola’s phone division separating from the mother company, I feel strongly that the company should change their name into the coming year and brand themselves as something completely different.

If you ask me, if they want a complete redesign, Motorola Mobile Division should change their name. I mean, why not? They won’t be having any responsibilities towards the mother company. And guess what? Everyone will know that they are Motorola anyway. It may be all marketing. It may be hype, but an identity change is something Motorola needs to do to bring home the notion that they want a fresh start with already great successes in the market. They have good products – the ROKR logo has been tweaked to spell a serious music lifestyle niche for instance, and Moto needs to make an even bigger impact if they want to get back in the game.

Post from: Cellphone9

Song ID Technology: So you can finally sleep at night!

Jayvee Fernandez — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 03:06:32 +0000

In my last post I briefly mentioned how the ROKR E8 implements a technology called “Song ID.” This is an interesting new kind of database identification for wireless devices. It’s the first time I’ve seen it implemented on a device so let me tell you about it.

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

Hands on: Motorola ROKR E8

Jayvee Fernandez — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 02:06:24 +0000

I was able to handle the Motorola ROKR E8, Motorola’s third iteration of the ROKR series. The design and feature highlights include a glass surface with a “virtual” keypad, the new Song ID feature, and the patented FastScroll navigation.

The ROKR brand is being positioned as a “MP3 player first – phone second” device. Motorola is really pushing the ROKR brand as you can see from the new stylized logo and exclusive concerts throughout the year (an invite-only Fergie concert in South East Asia middle of this year).

On to the phone. The ROKR E8 implements the ModeShift technology that blacks out and highlights user interface buttons depending on what mode the ROKR is in. From the photos above, you can see how the E8 shifts from phone mode to MP3 player mode to camera mode. Only pertinent buttons will become active and highlighted by the backlight below the glass surface. It takes a while getting used to the “keypad” as there is no tactile feedback from each key. To narrate the experience of pushing a button … you basically get a depression of the entire phone whenever part of the keypad is pushed. It isn’t alarming – it just takes time to get used to.

Another new thing we need to get used to is the 3/4 scroll wheel which Motorola calls FastScroll. When the iPod was introduced, Jobs wanted a way for users to be able to quickly scroll through their 5GB playlist. The best way to do this from a UI perspective was to make the selection screen a wheel so that people don’t get tired of holding the up or down button. Motorola has pseudo-implemented the same technology on the phone. I’m sure there is a way to change the sensitivity settings of the FastScroll navigation. It felt awkward at first – although you can always use the D-Pad for more precise selection.

What characterizes the ROKR brand is the inclusion of a 3.5mm jack and high quality earphones as compared to the W230 series which only has a 2.5mm jack.

Bottomline
Pegged to cost around USD $300.00 (unconfirmed price indicates that it will be around PHP 15,000.00 to P17,000.00), the E8 is definitely an affordable and elegant choice of an MP3 player + phone. Motorola has bundled a great set of earphones for the ROKR (I still use my bundled earphones from the old ROKR E2 on my iPod — that’s how good they are). This phone is a great buy.

Fast Features:
3.5mm stereo jack
2.0MP camera with 8x digital zoom
2GB internal memory with support for microSD up to 4GB
“Talking phone” that reads out messages when you can’t look at the screen

Post from: Cellphone9