[3GSM] - New UIQ 3 smartphone - the MOTORIZR Z8
Published by Steve Litchfield at 9:49 UTC, February 12th 2007
Motorola are back in the Symbian/UIQ fold after a short absence, launching the MOTORIZR Z8, based on UIQ 3 on Symbian OS and developed by the Sendo design team inherited a couple of years ago. A sliding design, the Z8 also comes with a 2mp camera and tie-ins with mobile data-based TV. The press release follows.
High Speed, Outstanding Video Resolution and Stunning Design Unite in MOTORIZR Z8
Goodbye low bandwidth, Hello mobile TV; Motorola’s latest innovation is an entertainment-optimised and ergonomically designed “fit-to-face” slider
BARCELONA, Spain – 3GSM World Congress 2007 – 12 February 2007 – Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT), a global leader in wireless communications, today announced MOTORIZR Z8, combining Motorola’s signature design quality with outstanding video capture and playback and hi-fi audio quality for a mobile experience without compromise.
MOTORIZR™ Z8 also features Motorola’s first ever “kick slider,” a graceful mechanism that achieves a “fit-to-face” profile by gliding open in a curve to match the contour of your face.
With high-speed connectivity via HSDPA, and a multimedia feature set that includes a brilliant 16 million colour 35x50mm QVGA full screen display, MOTORIZR Z8 boasts video playback speeds of up to 30 frames per second. In addition to its 90MB of internal memory, the device also supports expandable memory up to 4GB using MicroSD, enough space for full length movies, hours of music or tons of pictures.
The unprecedented entertainment experience is brought to life via a partnership with BSkyB* which will users to access Sky's mobile content services. As well as offering access to an on-demand library of updating news, entertainment and sports, Sky’s ‘Anytime’ application also provides an access point to Sky’s range of live mobile TV services. Anytime also allows customers to use their mobile phone to programme their Sky+ boxes remotely.¹
“MOTORIZR Z8 is yet another example of how Motorola is redefining the mobile experience for consumers,” said Ron Garriques, president of Motorola Mobile Devices. “By introducing, for the first time ever, true high-definition mobile multimedia, and once more reinventing the form factor, we are delivering on our ‘no compromises’ approach to leading this industry by uniting cool design and cool experiences.”
There's a bigger picture of this over on Sendo Smartphones. Along with more details when available!
Categories: Hardware
Platforms: UIQ 3
News Discussion
In other hand, this is great news for UIQ3 users has a whole :)
It also shows the advantage of Symbian being about more than just Nokia as not everyone likes Nokia designs (I do but some don't, and no one should have to change their tastes).
This kind of release definitely needs to be encouraged, Symbian needs as many different manufacturers supporting it as possible so that everyone can find a Symbian they're proud to carry round with them.
To be frank it seems roughly like where Sendo could have been if they hadn't gone pop.
It's essentially a Sendo X a few years on: more memory, more devices, better video.
The Sendo/Motorola design team have had to start from scratch in order to migrate to the new Symbian system.
The transition to a HSDPA radio stack must have been a bit of a nightmare too!
It's under 2 years since Sendo finally went down the tubes. Allowing for some time spent in "handover confusion" the Sendo/Motorola team probably had just over a year to produce this totally new handset .. with a new OS/GUI and also a new radio module.
This is an impressive achievement in itself!
However I definitely WILL be expecting more "bells & whistles" on the NEXT model, now that they have got the groundwork in place!
I was shown it in a private meeting.
After that the bells and whistles come even thicker and faster.