This is the first smartphone to be powered by Android 2.0 and is supposed to be stronger and faster than the competition.  The device promises “high-speed Web browsing, voice-activated search, customizable large screen, access to thousands of Android applications and hundreds of widgets.”  

Apparently, the shell is pretty solid while still being one of the thinnest full-QWERTY slider phones around so I’m sure a lot of people are going to be putting this on their holiday wishlists!

I read over some of the product details on the Verizon website and the best features include the following:

• Connecting to the internet at 3G speeds with access to a multi-window HTML browser.
• Widescreen visibility on a 3.7” high-resolution screen which makes viewing email, Google Maps, videos and websites a lot easier!
• You can toggle between up to six applications at the same time!
• Super quick Google searches!
• The 5 megapixel camera lets you take digital camera-quality snapshots with autofocus, image stabilization and dual-LED flash.  The DVD-quality video capture also comes in handy as does the 16 GB memory card!
• The DROID is the first device to feature Google Maps Navigation which provides turn-by-turn voice guidance for FREE!!!!  That alone is worth checking this phone out.  How awesome is that?  You can even see live traffic, street views and satellite images along your route.

The DROID by Motorola will be available in the United States exclusively at Verizon Wireless Communications Stores and online on Friday, November 6, 2009 for $199.99 with a new two-year customer agreement after a $100 mail-in rebate.

For additional information on Verizon Wireless products and services, visit a Verizon Wireless Communications Store, call 1-800-2 JOIN IN or go to www.verizonwireless.com.

image: Verizon

Post from: Cellphone9

Cal it the MotoRecycle or the MOTO BOTL because it’s made from recycled plastic bottles! The Motorola W233 is 2009’s proof of concept for Motorola’s go green CSR. The phone itself undergoes carbon free manufacturing with a partnership with CarbonFund.ORG. Savings are allocated to ecological projects to help the environment. In terms of specs, there isn’t much to write home about, save for the standard “W” music package of Motorola.

Post from: Cellphone9

Motorola unveils their new mobile phone – the Motorola Hint. Oddly shaped and oddly named, the Motorola Hint goes against the usual grain of “R” endings for product names like the ROKR, RIZR, RAZR and KRZR. The phone will be available in time for the Black Friday sale this November 28 2008 from Alltell.

In terms of features, the Motorola Hint comes with a large 2.5 inch screen, QWERTY slider that complements the odd square-ish real estate. The phone comes with a 2MP camera, EVDO connectivity, 8GB microSD card, and 3.5mm headphone jack.

Quoted from the press release are details on the sale for Black Friday

Beginning on November 28th, Alltel Wireless will be offering customers the Motorola Hint for $99.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate. This discounted price is for new customers on two-year service agreements, as well as existing eligible customers on qualifying rate plans.

Alltel Wireless continues to provide choice and flexibility to the customer’s wireless experience with its exclusive “My Circle” feature, giving customers unlimited calling to and from any five, 10 or 20 numbers on any network. Alltel Wireless also offers Anytime Plan Changes, which give customers the flexibility to change their calling plans at any time, without extending their current contract.

[photos c/o Moto PR agency]

Post from: Cellphone9

We haven’t seen these in a while. Before the “5″ series of Nokia was moved from the outdoor to the music line, I fondly recall the ruggedized devices in circa 2004-2005 that Nokia and Siemens (may they rest in peace) used to manufacture.

Motorola has a bit of that market today with the Motorola i335, a simple phone with a rugged rubber exterior. It’s so rugged, it passes military standards. The i335 comes with Bluetooth and PTT technology (walkie talkie OMG, like for war and stuff!!!!!) and GPS tracking! It comes with other very humble features like a microbrowser and JAVA. No camera or MP3 for this one.

In the theater of war, you only need to get down.

[photos from Motorola]

Post from: Cellphone9

It’s about time Motorola got into the luxury phone line and this is what they have to show for it. Roll out the red carpet for the Motorola AURA, highlighted by a 130 precision ball bearings to assist the phone’s slider function. Other meticulous design elements include a 62 carat sapphire crystal for the lens for scratch resistance and a main Swiss made bearing in the middle of the phone for “seamless sliding.”

I must admit. Words like “swiss made” and “ball bearings” do make me curious, and I can’t help but salivate. But what about the technical specs? The Motorola AURA comes with a 2MP fixed focus camera and video, Bluetooth, Crystal Talk technology, and EDGE. No WiFi or HSDPA for this little baby, but who cares!

More photos and complete press release can be found in this site.

All I want are the ball bearings…

[Photo c/o Motorola PR]

Post from: Cellphone9

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

Yup you heard it right. The last time you even heard from this blog about the Motorola V3 was back in 2006. And guess what? With almost three years of subsidized by telcos, the RAZR is still the device of choice for America, ovetaking the iPhone.

What does this say? Well, because it’s subsidized by every telco, this means that the V3 is one of those mass produced “ok it’s quite good for everday use” type of handsets. So it doesn’t suck, but it doesn’t merit to be really exceptional in the sense that one telco would fight for exclusivity rights over it (like the iPhone locked to AT&T). Sounds like a good biz model?

Post from: Cellphone9

More than two years have passed since Motorola unveiled the Ming A1200. This smartphone came as a huge surprise to the industry because it was Motorola’s out of the box attempt to create a remarkable product – and when we say remarkable, we mean Seth Godin remarkable. They took in a fantastic aesthetic design and merged it with Linux on a mobile phone – something pretty new in 2006. This year, Motorola unveils the spiritual successor to the Motorola Ming A1200; say hello to the MOTO A810.

The new A810 keeps the familiar layout of the previous Ming, but it doesn’t use Linux as its OS. Instead, the developers have created a proprietary Linux-like operating system that upon first glance, isn’t really different from the previous version.

In terms of form factor, the A810 is very different. Although both keep the slate style layout, the A810 doesn’t come with a flip cover. Note that the previous version’s flip cover also housed the antenna which you could see from the transparent casing – an aesthetic beauty! In this case, the MOTO A810 houses an internal antenna. The buttons of the A810 are very minimal with two call buttons and a main menu button at the bottom center of the unit. The side of the unit contains a sort of jog dial / device lock mechanism. In terms of specs, the MOTO A810 comes with the following:

2.2 inch touch screen
2MP camera with video capability
MP3 and FM Radio
WAP Browser
Bluetooth
Up to 2GB of removable memory

I guess the biggest disappointment with the A810 is the lack of today’s standard connectivity options such as HSDPA or WiFi (it does EDGE). Having a smartphone without these capabilities greatly cripples the potential of this device. On the other hand, it seems that Motorola isn’t really pushing this product to be an enterprise solution, but a day to day “cooler than a mobile phone” device.

So yeah, spiritually the same device but made for different purposes, the A810 isn’t the enterprise smartphone it looks to be. The device is attractive and priced more reasonably to make it very much available to the middle market segment.

Post from: Cellphone9

With the great success of Motorola’s first low end music phones in the W230 and W270, Motorola has unveiled a slightly upgraded version for 2008 Q3 release, the Motorola W388. This phone will be priced higher than the W230 and will cost roughly PHP 3,200.00 or roughly USD $80.00. Note that this is an estimated price based on the press conference and not the real SRP. The main difference between the W388 and the W230 is the inclusion of a VGA camera and a bigger memory bump.

We must note that the VGA camera does not come with video capabilities. Phone memory has been increased to 7.5MB for 750 SMS and 1,000 contacts to be saved on memory. There isn’t really a huge upgrade to the previous phone and quite frankly, Moto may have a make or break for this particular model. It really depends on how much more people are willing to pay for a camera and bumped up memory when the previous model already served them well.

Other features:

FM Radio
2.5mm audio jack
MP3, MIDI, imelody, AMR compatibility
VGA camera (no video)
CrystalTalk Technology

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