CES 2006

Moto booth

The long awaited successor of the original iTunes ROKR E1 was finally announced during CES. The ROKR E2's design has been slightly changed with a lot more rounded outlines, slightly thinner and shorter dimensions. The screen has been upped from 172x220 pixels to QVGA 240 x 320. The camera is now 1.3 mega pixels and the microSD memory expansion slot of the E1 is substituted with hot-swappable full size SD one supporting up to 2GB memory cards. iTunes support is gone along with its 100 songs limit. Added is a standard 3.5mm jack located on the top.

The phone runs on Moto's new Linux based OS and has dedicated music keys located on its side – Play/Pause, Forward/Backward and Hold. Supported is also A2DP Bluetooth stereo. The phone will become available in the first half of 2006 and will be sold in black or silver color versions.

Even though not new, the interesting part about the Motorola Q is that even though not officially confirmed, it should be released from Verizon Wireless first. A GSM version of the phone will be also available. Even though the Q resembles Pocket PC phone, it actually runs the Smartphone version of Windows Mobile 5. The CDMA model has EVDO high speed, while the GSM supports EDGE. The device is only half-inch thick and has a 1.3 mega pixels camera. Back in September Motorola announced their intention to have the device on the market for the holiday season, but now we were told to expect it in the first half of 2006.

Information about Motorola A1200 just recently surfaced on FCC's website. Even though the phone is slated to be released in Asia and is the successor of the E680i, Motorola confirmed that it in fact is quad-band. The A1200 features A-GPS, QVGA display and RealPlayer with MP3, MP4 and AAC playback. Stereo Bluetooth A2DP and 2 mega pixels camera are also present. The memory expansion is done via microSD slot. POP3/IMAP emailing with ability to view/edit Word and Excel files are part of the package. The OS, which it runs is Linux with Java based UI. Even though Motorola could not confirm the exact weight, it is very light.