Motorola u9 review - Motorola Bloggo News 2010!

Fancy watches and design are put together to inspire a new cellphone from Motorola, that presents a circular display and a very refined handwork. The name is Aura, and it’s a cellphone that presents a sofisticated look and high quality build, mirroring the “made in Switzerland” air.

For the more attentive users, the Aura might bring to mind an older model. Motorola, in fact, isn’t new to the circular display models: many users might remember the old V70, a GPRS cellphone that didn’t have much success back in 2002, the year of its launch, but that, due to its original design and size, had represented an important innovation in the cellphone market.

It features an integrated GPS, Bluetooth 2.0 and its integrated memory of 256MB can be expanded with microSD up to 8GB. Obviously, it features the mp3 player and a 3,5mm jack output for stereo headphones, including the professional ones.

Motorola promises a battery autonomy of 15 days when in standby and up to 300 minutes when in use. The launch for this model is scheduled for Christmas, of course, and only in the United States.

It’s not Motorola’s turn to try a different design in one of their cellphones: a square phone, that only extends itself when sliding the cover up in order to show the Qwerty keyboard. The news of the new cellphone had been published around the net last week, and it only took a few days for the manufacturer to officialize its existance. The new cellphone is called Hint QA30 and it’s currently destined for the American market, as it doesn’t feature a GSM technology option, only CDMA.

It’s not a smartphone, but it works on Qualcomm’s Brew platform. It has a 2.5″ touchscreen display with 65 thousand colors and 320×240 resolution. The photocamera is a very normal 2 megapixels with 1600×1200 resolution.

The news of its existance were known by the end of May, but now we’re sure that this model really exists due to its approval by the FCC, the American agency responsible for the certification of devices that use radio waves. We’re talking about the Motorola iDen Razr i9.

The first features that have leaked from the FCC are a 3,1 megapixel camera, an integrated GPS and touch sensitive keys that change their functions based on the application being used.

We’ll be tuned for an official announcement that should come in the next few weeks.

Good and bad news from Motorola: the good one is that finally the company’s offering an cellphone with a very interesting design. The bad news is that its price makes it a top-market exclusive. We’re talking about the Aura model, that uses its central screen as a cover to the alphanumeric keyboard.

Inspired by Swiss watches, this model was carefully built in order to assemble all its 200 parts. The central point is the 16 million color display, with liquid crystal technology for 300 dpi, with a 62-carat sapphire crystal lens. The rest of the cellphone is made of steel. The cellphone also features a 2 megapixel photocamera, expandable memory (through microSD), bluetooth and USB port.

The battery duration, according to official data, should be of 7,3 hours when in use, and 400 hours in standby. The price, however, can be overwhelming: $1.999,99 (around €1500) and it can be bought only on the Moto Store.

The Motorola A810 is a Tri-band GSM/GPRS cellphone featuring a TFT touchscreen display with 256.000 colors and a 240 x 320 pixel resolution. It also features a mp3/wav/WMA/AAC+ player, a Wap 2.0 /xHTML browser, an HTMP (Opera v8.5) browser, FM Stereo radio, expandable memory (through microSD), polyphonic ringtones, mms and ems. It’s easy, in fact, to send mms with text, music or voice files and create a message to send as an attachment.

It’s also possible to customize games, ringtones and images, connect to a PC through USB cable and bluetooth. The 2-megapixel integrated photocamera features a 1600×1200 pixels resolution and it’s possible to record videos as well.

The H710 bluetooth headset

The reason why this review also includes the H710 bluetooth headset is because it’s offered together in bundle with the Motorola U9. This bluetooth model features the Rapid Connect technology, thanks to the flip-microphone that automatically activates the headset.

The H710 is rather comfortable, putting together a modern design and small size with a high technology content, both for the noise reduction system and the possibility to be associated to two different cellphones at the same time, offering a maximum flexibility.

To conclude the brief analysis on the headset, the battery duration is rather good, both in stand-by and when in use (6-7 hours). Its comfort is also a good point for this headset, and only after an excessive use it will start being slightly uncomfortable.

Back to the most classic functions, the U9 has great telephony features, thanks to a potent internal speaker, a good signal reception and the CrystalTalk technology that reduces the external noises. The SMS and MMS writing pose a slight disadvantage thanks to the rather uncomfortable keyboard, with flat keys that eventually lead to typing mistakes, especially in the first few days where the user isn’t yet accustomed with the cellphone.

It gets better with time and practice, however, and in the end, it’s perfectly possible to write SMS’s and MMS’s in a fast way, without many mistakes at all.

The main inteface, customizable and very simple to use, is viewable in three different modes: grid, list and rotation, a mode where an animation allows browsing through the many applications.

The multimedia side is based on the 2 megapixel photocamera, able to make pictures that lack a bit in quality, especially in night mode. As for the audio, however, the mp3 player uses two hardware features: The external OLED display and the microSD capabilities.

The microSD is, unfortunately, placed under the battery and isn’t included on the package, although it allows the storage of mp3’s, supplying the necessary space due to the small internal memory capabilities of this phone, only 25MB. As for the external display, it is useful to visualize and control the information on the musical tracks, thanks to the touch-screen feature for the virtual control keys on the display.

Software

The Motorola U9 is configured as a classic cellphone, featuring enhanced multimedia functions and browser internet, but it’s far away from the smartphone concept. The initial menu, simple and colorful, offers all the basic functions such as alarm clock, contacts, messages, call list and multimedia applications. Amongst these functions, there’s also an organizer, calculator and browser internet, although the latter is limited thanks to both the display and the 2.5 G connectivity. The phone also offers game and java programs, including the full Sudoku game.

Looking somewhat at a technology evolution, the U9 offers a mini backup program suite, solving the annoying issue of contact and calendar transfering, and also giving a good emergency support in case of technical problems or theft: the data, in fact, is stored in an online server, allowing the user to retrieve it even from another cell phone.

The U9 also offers full calendar and contacts, customizable and very well organized. During the SMS sending, in fact, after the user finishes writing, he will have a list of contacts in his agenda, after having been shown a mini-list with the most used contacts: a great implementation, considering that the group of people users generally exchange SMS’s with does not include all the agenda.