Rafe's hands-on preview of the UIQ 3-based MOTORIZR Z8

[slitchfield]

Rafe's back in Blighty, fresh from 3GSM 2007, and is starting to get his thoughts and photos organised. In this exclusive preview, he explores the Motorola MOTORIZR Z8 and gets to grips with what it can do and who it's aimed at.

Read on in the full article.

[krisse]

Whether or not you like Motorola's design style, there's no denying many people do, so it's great that Symbian is finally getting in on the action. Motorola's previous Symbians always looked very smartphone-ish, whereas the Z8 looks very much a RAZR-esque phone.

I wonder why they dropped the touchscreen though? Doesn't UIQ work better with a touchscreen?

Motorola's use of three different platforms (Symbian, Linux, Windows Mobile) sounds more like spreading their bets than an actual strategy.

[Bassey]

This really is a great looking phone and a fantastic development for Symbian. To now have 3 manufacturers selling mainstream devices utilising Symbian is superb.

[bigpharma]

Nice review Rafe. Are you able to confirm the chip inside?

[langdona]

I think this phone looks good. Lets hops it does well. It could even kickstart Symbian in the states even though they probably wont know which OS it runs.

I think its a bit ironic when at this time the media is raving about the touch screen only Apple iPhone that Motorola have spent a lot of time and energy removing it from their UIQ interface. I wonder which company knows more about what a mobile phone consumer wants?

[krisse]

"I wonder which company knows more about what a mobile phone consumer wants?"

Depends who you're aiming your product at: wealthy technology fans or the mainstream market. Motorola certainly have a good track record at selling phones that appeal to a wide range of Americans.

Most people use their phone mainly for texts and calls, and I don't think they would want a touchscreen-only phone. Having good feedback from buttons is very important if you intend to type a lot, and typing one-handed seems very impractical on the iPhone (that's why there are very few horizontal phones, you can't use them with one hand).

If Motorola are going after ordinary people then making the interface button-driven seems like a very good idea. I just don't understand why they'd do that with UIQ though as it was largely designed for touchscreen devices.

The iPhone looks like it could be a great high end multimedia device popular with tech fans, but it's not anywhere near the mainstream. Apart from the lack of feedback, the need to have room for your fingers makes the iPhone a great deal larger than normal phones. Apple will definitely have to release a smaller buttoned phone at some point (the iPhone Nano or whatever), unless they want to remain in the high-profit low-sales luxury end of the market.

[ares]

AFAIK one of the main advantages of UIQ3 is precisely supporting both devices with and without touchscreen. Its well known SE is also planing to release such devices, but moto was first. Judging by this preview UIQ3 is effectively has good for non touchscreen devices has it is for touchscreen devices and this can be major

[jah]

Older Moto UIQ devices had touch screen and built-in GPS. Lets hope we get a higher-end Moto Smartphone as well as the Z8.

[stuclark]

The Z8 lacks a touchscreen because it was always intended as a single handed device.

This isn't the only UIQ handset Motorola have in development - expect to see a few more coming along this year or next...

[Rafe]

The chipset inside is (as far as I know) the Texas Instruments OMAP2420. That includes the Power VR graphics stuff from Imagination Technologies which is one of the reasons the multimedia is so impressive.

I'll hopefully have some video up in due course so you can see the phone in operation. Trying to get numerous post 3GSM things done.

Dropping the touch screen made sense for a phone like this - its defintely a more mass market concept than the A series. Bear in mind that in the days of the A series UIQ was touch screen only. I imagine Motorola is looking to compete with Nokia's Nseries with these devices rather than the more enterprise focused M600 and W950.

I'm sure we'll see more from Motorola in due course. I imagine they'll focus on this sector (consumer multimedia) initially, but may look elsewhere later. In fairness the Z8 is already a fairly high end handset.

[Dogmann]

Hi Rafe,
Just a quick question whilst you state that it uses the Texas Instruments OMAP2420. That includes the Power VR graphics stuff from Imagination Technologies is this the lite version of the chip as in the P990 or the full version of the chip as used in the N93?

Marc

uiq.com/motorola_motorizr_z8.html

clearly states OMAP 2420

focus.ti.com/general/docs/wtbu/wtbuproductcontent.tsp?templateId=6123&navigationI d=11990&contentId=4671

download the pdf, it says MBX (+VGP, i.e. Vertex Shader)

OMAP 2420 has the "full versions", while OMAP 2430 uses MBX lite + VGP lite

Hope to see OMAP 3 powered phone soon with SGX graphics core. It is Open GL ES 2.0 compatible!