Moto Shows its Green Side with Renew

One of the underlying themes that kept popping up at CES 2009 was environmental technology. What was each company doing to help the environment? Motorola was no exception, showing off a rather large display featuring the Renew, a simple candybar made entirely of recycled products.

The Renew is expected to hit T-Mobile stores sometime this quarter, presumably next month. From what I could see, the Renew is a basic phone without too much pomp and circumstance. The OS is reminiscent of what we would see on Motorolas about 3 years ago, but the point of this phone wasn’t to be state of the art; rather, the point was to make a statement that we can have a green lifestyle even with our phones.

Personally, this is a great beginning for the Green Phone movement. Let’s make sure that the trend continues and will work into getting better and better specs. We applaud Motorola’s effort, and hope it’s successful enough to translate into green smartphones in the next couple years.

I asked the Motorola representative how robust a recycled phone could be, and he was quite confident in its ability to hold itself together well over the two years of the contract.

Here, have some pictures to look at. Pretty nice fit in the hands, but it was difficult finding nice things to say when the previous phone I had handled was the $2,000 Aura.

Motorola might say goodbye to Windows Mobile and 50% of its handset division’s employees

Motorola’s long affair with Windows Mobile could be ended this year, and that’s because of Google’s Android platform.

According to PhoneScoop, Moto intends to release fewer handsets per year from now on, and none of them will run on Windows Mobile. Instead, the future Motorola smartphones will be based on Android.

This means that MOTOSURF A3100 is, most probably, the company’s last device to come with Microsoft’s mobile OS. And I’m not sure if this is good or bad news.

What’s certainly bad news is that, besides planning to ditch Windows Mobile, Motorola also intends to layoff about 50% of the employees from its handset division – meaning thousands of people.

The first series of layoffs could begin this week. Only the handset division will be affected, so it’s once again clear that this is Moto’s weakest branch.

Motorola Aura Makes CES Appearance

I can now say I’ve held a $2,000 phone in my hands. The Motorola Aura was making its rounds at the CES 2009, and I was able to snag some pictures of it in action.

While I am not the kind of guy that would just simply fork out a couple grand for a phone such as this, I came out rather impressed. It definitely feels like a solid phone, and I must say that the screen, albeit small, was the most beautiful screen I’ve ever seen on a phone.

So check out the pics for yourself. I’m planning on getting a video posted on the website as soon as possible as well. Motorola certainly did a good job of showing luxury in making the Aura.

Below, you will notice the gears in the back which allow the swivel mechanism to work properly.

Above, you notice how Motorola takes advantage of the tiny circular display to incorporate the menu.

The camera in action. While a circular display, the picture still shows up in a square. I had to double check for myself.

AT&T’s rugged Motorola Tundra VA76r now official, out on January 13

Apart from unveiling the MOTOSURF A3100 and MOTO W233 Renew, Motorola has also announced, today, the release date of Motorola Tundra VA76r for AT&T.

So if you’re in need of a new rugged clamshell from the largest North American carrier, you should know that the VA76r will be available starting January 13. The phone’s price will be of $199, after a $50 mail-in rebate and the signing of a 2-yer contract agreement.

Already outed by Rogers in Canada (as Motorola Extreme) the new Tundra meets US 810F Military Specifications for dust, drop, vibration, humidity, rain and severe temperatures. Also, it comes with Push to Talk capabilities and Motorola’s CrystalTalk Plus technology, these making the phone perfect for harsh environments.

The full list of specs and features include:

• Quad-band GSM/EDGE connectivity (850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz)
• Dual band HSDPA connectivity (850 / 1900 MHz)
• A 2.2 inch internal display with 240 x 320 pixels and 262K colors
• One-touch GPS navigation, AT&T Navigator
• Email & Instant Messaging
• A 2MP camera
• Stereo Bluetooth
• Standard USB connector
• 100MB of internal memory
• MicroSD card support, up to 8GB
• 4.94 ounces
• 3.85 x 2.1 x 0.94 inches
• Talk time: up to 5.9 hours
• Standby time: up to 14 days

Quite a nice set of features for a rugged phone, isn’t it?

Via Press release

Motorola announces MOTOSURF A3100 and MOTO W233 Renew

Big day today for Motorola: the American company has just announced two new phones, one of which is the full-touchscreen device previously known as Motorola Attila.

The final name of Attila is MOTOSURF A3100. Sure, we knew about the A3100 part before, but now it’s all official.

Motorola presents the MOTOSURF as a “touch tablet”, saying that it’s the perfect handset for managing both your social and your work life.

The handset runs on Windows Mobile 6.1 and comes with a homescreen that can be easily personalized.

Here’s how the A3100 officially looks like:

The smartphone’s features include:

• A 2.8 inch TFT touchscreen display
• GSM and HSDPA connectivity
• An omni-directional trackball
• GPS and A-GPS
• Wi-Fi
• Facebook integration
• A 3 MP camera with autofocus
• Video call camera
• MicroSDHC card support, up to 32GB

“We developed the MOTOSURF A3100 as a true social smartphone. Home screen personalization and access to a whole host of applications gets the info you want – fast, and at your fingertips,” declared John Cipolla, senior vice president, product development, Motorola Mobile Devices.

Starting this quarter, MOTOSURF A3100 will be commercially available in “multiple regions” around the world (Latin America and Asia included). No pricing details yet, but those curious to see the smartphone live will be able to do so during CES 2009.

The second new handset is MOTO W233 Renew, a device that has a plastic housing built from recycled water bottles. The simple candybar is also “the world’s first carbon neutral phone” and it comes in a box that’s 100% made from post-consumer recycled paper.

Feature-wise, the W233 offers CrystalTalk technology, messaging capabilities and up to 9 hours of talk-time.

As we’ve said before, MOTO W233 Renew will first hit T-Mobile USA, sometime during this quarter, for an affordable price.

Via Press release

Motorola W165, another low-end Moto phone

There will always be customers who want cheap, basic mobile phones, thus there must always be manufacturers to produce them.

Motorola isn’t ashamed of being one of these manufacturers (why would it?), and the new Motorola W165 phone comes to say I’m right.

The handset is a candybar that will probably be targeted to emerging markets. Even so, the US might get it too, since it’s Motorola’s home country.

Design-wise, the W165 is as simple as it gets, looking like a phone from circa 2004. Here it is:

The known specs and features of Motorola W165 include:

• Dual band GSM connectivity (900 / 1800 or 850 / 1900 MHz)
• 1.44 inch CSTN display with 65K colors and 128 x 128 pixels
• A 2.5mm headset jack
• A 780 mAh battery of unknown performance
• 108 x 46 x 12.5 millimeters
• 77 grams

No details yet about the release date of W165 or about its retail price.

Via Mobile-review

T-Mobile’s Motorola Renew shows its green face

Motorola Renew, one of the phones T-Mobile USA is getting ready to launch in February, has just appeared in a leaked photo - and what we can see there might not make everyone happy.

The phone, which seems to be officially called MOTO W233 Renew, is only a low-end one, far from the likes of Samsung Memoir and BlackBerry Curve 8900 (both of which should be released by T-Mo in February too).

If the new candybar looks familiar it’s probably because you’ve seen the Motorola W231, a handset that’s basically identical with the W233.

The phone is made from environmental friendly materials and, judging by the features we know the W231 has, it should come with:

• MP3 player
• FM radio with RDS
• CrystalTalk technology
• MicroSD card support, up to 2GB

The price of Motorola W233 Renew is not known yet, but it will surely be a low one. Now all you need to do is wait for February 4 to come and buy the phone. In case you like it and want it, of course.

Via TmoNews