Motorola Sholes: Specs and speculations
This article contains unofficial information.
Another prediction made by Android and Me was a forecast that the Sholes will have serious gaming capabilities and come with the Eclair (2.0) version of Android. Google's top Android exec, Andy Rubin, told Reuters that Eclair should ship this year and would be considered Android 2.0. While the Donut is supposed to update and enhance the UI, Eclair focuses on multimedia and gaming. Rubin said that with the Sholes, you can compare it to the serious handheld gaming experience seen with the Nintendo DS and the PSP. And since the TI OMAP3430 supports OPEN GL ES 2.0. it all adds up to a device that Android and ME says will be more powerful than both of those portable gaming units, possibly incorporating 3D features into the games.
The final prediction made was on pricing and launch date. Looking at the recent stare of pricing in the smartphone market, a price of $199 with a 2 year contract would make sense. Both the Pre and the iPhone 3GS have similar specs to the Sholes and both of those devices debuted at that price point. The predicted launch date would put the Sholes in the public's hand just before the Thanksgiving Day Turkey and football feast.
Google's Rubin says that while the Sholes is certainly a consumer oriented phone with the seamless connection to the users social networks, future versions of Android phones would be more business oriented. "Today, we don't support many enterprise applications but in thefuture, I think enterprise will be a good focus for us," Rubin told Reuters. He added that heexpected this to happen this year. He went on to say that after the Eclair OS, the next Android update will have the code name Flan.
Motorola Sholes Preliminary Specifications
source: Reuters, AndroidandMe