Watch Out, iPhone: New Motorola Android Phones to Sport Beefy Specs

I don't know... Its good to see enticing offerings from Motorola again. I used to be a die hard Motorola fan, but lately its all been about HTC for me. For the same price my Tilt was much nicer than the Motorola Q. Currently I'm eagerly awaiting the release of the HTC Touch Pro 2 on AT&T. Another manufacturer has really got to wow me to get me to change my mind now.

-Jay

 

I had just checked out Andre Torrez blog on trying to switch to a G1 from an iPhone. He gave up citing poor quality apps and speed issues. notes on "android g1 and day 7"

The specs for the Morrison are about the same as the G1, as are the HTC Hero and many others (extra memory, but same processor architecture/speed). Moto's Sholes looks to have hardware similar to the iPhone/Pre, so we'll see how that goes. I anticipated ridiculous pricing though.

 

Haven't own anything from Motorola since their release of the Razr. Been going through V400 > V600 > Razr. I kind of looked at their devices when I switched over to Sprint, but 'eh' I thought. I'm really eager to see how this dead/sleeping dragon will make its return.

 

I think with Motorola can come out with some top notch phones than they'll be able to get a lot of their market share back. However, they're going to have to swing for the fences.

 

Well, it is going be a rough road for Motorola (and Sony Ericsson) to find their spot back into the mobile phone industry as for I don't really know if they still have that innovational spirit in them anymore. Time will tell...

 

For me it's not worth looking at it again. It's missing one of the most important features: WCDMA 850 and 1900. I suspect the 1900 they list in there is for international use, which is different than the US 1900. I know this is for AT&T only, but the lack of these bands means that if you are on T-Mobile, you can't roam on AT&T 3G. A phone that's missing any US band is a handicapped phone in my book.

 

Yes, I agree with the concern for the lack of WCDMA bands, although since this is headed for Tmo, it makes sense for them.

For me, I prefer bar phones, flips are OK. But having had one type of slider (Nokia), I really dislike them. I know one is not suppose to do it, but using a few keys while in the car (even while stopped waiting for traffic to move) is a real pain. Of course this is esp true while walking. The key touch screen is quite easy to use while walking. And then there is the whole mechanical failure aspect of it.

The Pre didn't give a touch keyboard (except for calls) with it slider keyboard..don't know if these 2 Moto's will. Speaking of the Pre, I tried a live one in the Sprint store: found it very sluggish in all aspects. It is no iPhone.

In all my years on WA, I've never seen such phone envy as the iPhone generates. Every phone that comes up is the 'iPhone' killer. It's almost comical, and a new view on how to rate phones these days...

 

What do you mean about the 1900? I'm not aware of an international 1900.

This is what I saw on the Moto specs:
Voice Bands: GSM 850/900/1800/1900, W-CDMA 900/(1700 or 1900)/2100

I agree that leaving out W-CDMA 850 is a big issue. I guess they're offering two models--one with 1700 and the other with 1900 (both in addition to 900/2100). That seems very Euro-centric. The 1700 model works well for T-Mobile and will reduce defections to AT&T, but the 1900 model should replace that 900 with 850 for the US.

 

Viewfly: I see it as being very similar to when the V3 was released. It seemed that every phone released after that copied aspects of that design.

 

I don't see it as *envy*. I see it simply as a marketing strategy - the iPhones sells so let's copy it. As Jay mentioned, the same thing happened with the V3; as a matter of fact the "slimness" in today's devices most certainly is attributed to the V3.


As for Moto's Android device, I am very interested in the Android OS and the Web OS, and hopefully my next device will be based one of these two. I agree with others, it has to have world 3G frequencies covered and at a minimum 850/1900 3G for the US for me.

Just My 2 cents.

 

I agree. To be on At&t Moto would for sure need to put the 850 band in it and as said, Moto is going to play the band games on their handsets. One day some one will find the hack and have all bands available.

 

UGHHHHHHHHHHHHH i hate motorola i have a razr and HATE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I personaly dont really care for the iphone either its not that appealing. I personally think LG has some of hte best phones in any of the lineups

 

Yes, you guys are correct; the V3 did cause quite a stir back then. It was mainly it's slimness that amazed people, and the metal finish. The OS was nothing special compared to my Nokia's. But my old v3 still shines due to it fine mechanical finish, much better than the plastic clones that I have seen. That is one feature of the iPhone I see over other imitators...It is a really well built phone.

But still this has a different ring to it all. It is almost as if people love the iPhone but hate that it is Apple, and can't wait until there favorite mgfr makes a 'killer' clone, not just a copy.

I think one thing that will always set Apple apart though is, like their computers, they make the OS and the hardware, and they mesh very well. That will be hard for Android to follow. Having moved back to a mac for my computer recently, I'm impressed how well the iphone and the mac link together, better and more smoothly than with a PC (even though I thought it was fine). That surprised me.

But google is still in the process of taking over the world. My 4 cents!

 

I agree... Too much chatter about "iPhone Killers". In my experience, being drunk is really the most effective iPhone killer.

 

Depending on which RAZR you have, that may be a valid statement. I have used several different RAZRs (V3, V3m, V3c & V3t) and have no problems with those but the V3a was pretty much useless and had many issues.

I've used many, many Motorola phones and I've been waiting and waiting for something since the RAZR to really capture the imagination of people the way the RAZR did but all I'm seeing is their iPhone copies, though these two devices seem to be sort of on the right track. Much better than VZW's KRAVE, which is a decent device but has some functionality issues (clear cover, touch screen tracking issues) which make it not even fit to be called "iPhone Lite."

These devices, however, have the features that might make them a viable alternative to the iPhone. As it stands right now, I'm going with a Blackberry Storm. I've read that the menus are a little slow but other than that, most people seem to be quite happy with it and the firmware updates keep getting it closer and closer to what it could be. Based on all the phones I've used, the Storm is the closest thing to an "iPhone killer" out there.

Nothing is really going to "kill" the iPhone. When AT&T's exclusivity is over it's going to be harder and harder to "kill" the iPhone since most, if not all, US carriers will have them.

Can't wait for that but in the mean time, I'm very interested to try one if not both of these devices at some point in the near future.

 

How many iPhone killers have we had so far? Let's start with the Blackberry Storm which was a total failure. I haven't heard the first person to say something nice about it. It's slow and cumbersome to use. Much harder to use than any other Blackberries if you ask me. The touch/clickable screen was a nice concept on paper, but in practice it's a failure. And how often the Storm freezes is laughable. Much worse than MS Windows.

Then they also had the Samsung Instinct, the Palm Pre, I think LG came out with something, and they are all sluggish devices. I still think the HTC T-Mobile G1 is the best of all the iPhone competitors, and now they have the G2. I personally haven't tried the G2 but I think G1 and G2 run circles around the other imitators.

I think that by labeling every new device an "iPhone killer" it really shows how Apple set the standard on mobile communications and it shows how bad everyone else has failed to meet that standard. Everyone wants to be an iPhone killer, but we're still waiting to see that happen. So that being said, Motorola doesn't have a good history of user friendly user interfaces, so I'm not setting my hopes on Motorola coming up with an iPhone killer. That remains to be seen.

 

The international UMTS band is 2100/1900 (DLink/ULink). The 1900 part overlaps with the US 1900 band so what I meant was that they're probably listing WCDMA 2100/1900 instead of the US PCS 1900 band. It's not clear what they meant in that list. However, it could be like you said, either W-CDMA 900/1700/2100 for Euro, or W-CDMA 900/1900/2100 for the US. In that case, the US 1900 is included and should cover roaming on WCDMA in PCS. Let's not forget that T-Mobile will eventually replace GSM/EDGE in 1900 for WCDMA 3G, so they need that band.