Motorola News Blog

Motorola’s first cellular phone, the DynaTAC portable cellular phone built was in 1972. Thirty-five years later, Motorola’s flagship mobile handset, the Razr2 highlights the difference in technology of the two models.

Motorola’s DynaTAC (Dynamic Adaptable Total Area Coverage) weighed in at a hefty 1kg with keys the size of Chiclets and a battery life of 30 minutes.

Today’s cellular models come in all colors, weigh only a few ounces and provide hours of voice calls, text and video.

When Motorola introduced the DynaTAC in early 1973, they had no idea that they were not only launching a product but a global wireless revolution.

Motorola is hedging its bet that touch screens will be the wave of the future with its acquisition of 50% of Sony Ericsson’s technology platform for touch screen smartphones.

The Symbian code based touch screen user interface positions Sony Ericsson and Motorola in a joint venture agreement to develop, refine and license the technology to other users (75% of today’s smartphones rely on Symbian OS).

The joint venture partners are committed to license the technology equally to all mobile device vendors.

Motorola’s acquisition of t a 50% stake in the company means that the US phone maker now has technology and development access to that could drastically cut R&D costs and help it to speed to market releases of new models utilizing touch screen technology.

Motorola’s broadband wireless technology, Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMax), now provides fast broadband and Internet phone calling for business users who have opted to employ the new technology for their businesses.

Current users say that the deployment of WiMax for their corporate operations is seamless and transparent. They claim that users are not even aware they are on WiMax inside their corporate headquarters.

WiMax’s potential is not limited to its speed and fixed office solutions but its capability of high-speed data surfing on mobile handsets and WiMax-enabled devices.

Compared to Wi-Fi technology, WiMax can cover several miles or more. What’s more, Wi-Fi and other hardwired broadband connections offer speeds of up to 5Mbps whereas initially WiMax is capable of 5Mbps or more!

Motorola’s new MOTO U9 sports a smooth metallic exterior that conceals the handsets seamless OLED display that can be used with the phone’s built-in music player. Equipped with external touch sensitive controls, the U9 gives users the ability play WMA, MP3 and other AAC formats with Windows Media Player 11. Although there are model variations depending on the market area, the basic MOTO comes equipped with 256MB of internal storage upgradeable to 4GB via a microSD card slot.

Joining the other quad band phones in Motorola’s stable, other features include push email via Exchange Activesync, Bluetooth stereo support and a 2-MP camera. It also boasts of speaker independent voice dialing and a new user interface called spinner.

The MOTO U9 is scheduled to be released in Asia, Europe and Latin America in the later part of 2007 in time for the holiday season.

Motorola’s latest handset the new Motorola W212 brings iconic design to satisfy the demand of fans for smaller mobile handsets. The W212 released in Taiwan includes an avatar of Onion Club considered as one of the most popular animated icons for instant messaging. As a bonus for early buyers, the company is offering a collectible MOTO x Onion Club figurine as a gift.

The customized avatar for the Motorola W212 features a series of amusing Onion Club animations, expressions, wallpapers and screen savers in a bid to make users achieve a more personal experience on the Motorola W212.

Other features of the Motorola W212 are the built-in FM radio, a selection of games, amplifier and recording functions.

Motorola’s release of the W212 is a pioneering effort in support of the kawai trend in mobile handset devices by giving consumers to the ability to customize their unique Onion Club content on their phones.

Motorola has won two WiMax infrastructure contracts to create a mobile broadband network in the two biggest cities in Taiwan, Jhonghe and Banciao.

The contract is with Taiwan’s Far EasTone Telecom (FET), which controls approximately 33 percent of Taiwan’s wireless mobile market, is to provide the infrastructure for WiMax, Wi-Fi, and 3G technologies to expand FET’s existing mobile infrastructure.

The M-Taiwan project is a complete WiMax system for a city-wide broadband network in anticipation of the future roll out integrated mobile services and is billed as the largest WiMax network deployment in Taiwan.

FET’s M-Taiwan project is aimed at providing its 6.4 million subscribers with a broad range of multimedia services for home media centers, VoIP, IMS, security, and hotspot advertising features in a WiMax wireless environment.

Motorola will expand its W-Series by adding seven new models well ahead of the holiday season in order to corner the market for parents who want to give their children cellphones as gifts this Christmas.

Two of the new models for release in the US market are the W175, a candy bar-style phone with one-click access to text messaging and the W377, a Bluetooth-enabled flip phone with 10 megabytes of internal memory including an integrated VGA camera.

Motorola says the devices are designed for consumers shopping for their first mobile phone or for those who simply want to talk and message on an easy-to-use phone, or for those who are looking to upgrade a basic phone.

Motorola’s first riser style phone, the Motorola Z3, is dubbed as one of the best quad band phone available in its class. The Rizr Z3 is streamlined for active use with a quick capture button on the side for its 2-MP camera.

It features accessible volume controls and functional voice dialing. Although a bit thick, the Z3’s bulk provides a solid sense of reliability. Its slider mechanism, with its thumb grip provides an easy way to slide the phone open and shut without leaving smudges all over the screen.

The screen sports a 262,000 color display and other features include Bluetooth connectivity, speaker phone, video recording and playback and class 12 EDGE high-speed data. It’s also equipped with microSD memory card slot and mini USB capabilities.

Verizon Wireless recently announced the availability of their latest multimedia phone, the Motorola RIZR Z6tv MediaFLO phone. The RIZR Z6tv is a slider design and equipped with V Cast Mobile TV and V Cast Music and Video and has the capability to provide 24-hour access to broadcast-quality full-length TV shows.

It can also access live shows and mobile television content from CBS Mobile, Comedy Central, ESPN Mobile TV, Fox Mobile, MTV, NBC 2GO, NBC News2GO and Nickelodeon.

The RIZR Z6tv can also access Get It Now applications like VZ Navigator which helps customers access location information to more than 14 million points of interest. V Cast Music enables music downloads over-the-air from a library of more than 2.1 million songs. The phone also features support for Bluetooth stereo headset and can play MP3 and WMA files.

Other RIZR Z6tv includes a 2MP camera, 2-inch screen, microSD slot and a 50MB internal memory.

Motorola confirms it will host a series of one-day events worldwide exclusively for application developers to give them the extraordinary chance to participate in advanced training, recognize market opportunities and get a preview of Motorola’s next generation devices, technology and platforms including the much talked about MOTOMAGX mobile Linux platform.

To be hosted by Motorola’s MOTODEV developer network, Motorola’s worldwide program for developers and independent software vendors, MOTODEV Summits will offer technical skill, practical advice and guidance for independent software developers seeking to create their own mark in the world of mobile communications. The summits will be held in San Jose, California, London, England and Beijing, China in the last quarter of 2007.

Motorola said the summits are designed to assist and enable developers to explore new solutions and resources, come up with innovative methods to design for the continuously evolving needs of enterprises and consumers, and understand current trends that may affect their development approach and execution. Additionally, the summits will make available to participants relevant information, comprehensive technical training, hands-on workshops and the rare chance to brainstorm with members of the MOTODEV team including other developers from other industry-related disciplines.