The coolest things for the coolest phones
The ROKR E8 was officially launched last night and now Motorola has made good with an announcement that the award winning handset is to get a UK release. Finally the mobile industry’s unluckiest player catches a break.
The phone’s main feature is its unique dual control method, whereby it uses a ‘breakthrough’ technology, dubbed ModeShift by Motorola, which allows you to transform your handset from a music player to a phone at the touch of a button.
Motorola has followed Sony Ericsson’s lead in going handset crazy at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
There are the mid-range W230 (candybar) and W270 (slider), but the headlines will surely be grabbed by the new touch-screen E8 and the long-delayed Z10.
The ROKR E8 (right) might only have GPRS/EDGE, but its selling point has got to be the ability to switch between camera, music player (including Windows Media Player 11 compatibility), contacts and phone calls at the touch of your fingertip, using a haptic vibrating touchpad.
The other handset, the slider Z10 (below), is being pitched as a “mobile filmstudio[sic]”. Aside from the dodgy spelling, it does at least have HSDPA connectivity and 3.2-megapixel camera. Oh, and it runs on Symbian, which is a good alternative to Motorola’s infamously Marmite-like OS.
However, the ‘mobile filmstudio’ aspect comes from the phone having the ability to let you instantly upload photos and videos to YouTube, Google, Yahoo and Shozu. So it’s not quite a proper ‘film studio’ but its still an appealing new handset.
