Motorola MOTOSURF A3100
Discontinued 6th January 2009
It seems that Motorola is keen to put
a poor 2008 behind them with the launch of some interesting
products at the beginning of 2009. Chief amongst these
is the new Motorola MOTOSURF A3100, a 3.5G touchscreen
device which is one of Motorola's most powerful handsets
to date.
The MOTOSURF A3100 is a Windows Mobile
6.1 smartphone with support for 3.5G data and wi-fi.
The display is a 2.8" 240 x 320 pixel touchscreen
- to put that into perspective, it is the same size
as the non-touchscreen panel in the Nokia
N95 8GB and Nokia
N96.
We
have criticised Motorola recently for not shipping phones
with 3G, but the MOTOSURF A3100 comes with tri-band
850 / 1900 / 2100 MHz UMTS with support for HSDPA
and HSUPA high-speed data. The A3100 also has quad-band
GSM, GPRS and EDGE support. With built-in wireless LAN
connectivity, this means that you should always be able
to get a high speed data connection wherever you go
in the world.
Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional is a
pretty familiar operating system these days but Motorola
have enhanced the A3100 with a customisable home screen
that can display RSS feeds, shortcuts, the weather,
calendar events or one-touch access to social networking
sites. The MOTOSURF can work with a stylus or finger
on the touchscreen, or alternatively there's a rollerball
mounted underneath the display.
On the back is a 3 megapixel camera
with autofocus, plus a secondary VGA resolution camera
on the front for video calling. It's not the greatest
camera in the world, but for some reason Windows Mobile
handsets suffer in this respect. It's certainly a better
camera than the one on the iPhone,
however.
As
you would expect, the Motorola MOTOSURF A3100 also supports
microSD expandable memory (up to 32GB), stereo Bluetooth
2.0 and USB 2.0. The MOTOSURF also comes with aGPS,
so you can use it with your favourite personal navigation
or mapping system.
Inside is some sort of Qualcomm MSM
7201A processor combined with 128MB RAM. Maximum talktime
is quoted as 6.8 hours on GSM with up to 12 days standby
time.
Inevitably, the MOTOSURF will end up
being compared with the iPhone. One obvious difference
between the two devices is the display - the 2.8"
panel on the A3100 is significantly smaller than the
3.5" unit on the iPhone, but then the Motorola
device is smaller and lighter than the Apple and altogether
more pocket-friendly. The MOTOSURF may lack the "wow
factor" of the iPhone when it comes to looks, but
it is clearly quite an attractive mobile phone in its
own right.
Our biggest complaint? Well, it's that
we have waited so long for Motorola to produce a handset
like the MOTOSURF A3100 in the first place. Motorola
could have done with the A3100 in their line-up twelve
months ago.. still, this looks to be a very capable
and appealing device and hopefully it is an indicator
of great things to come. A higher resolution display
would have been nice though.
There's no word on pricing or exact
availability, although Motorola do say that the A3100
should be available during Q1 2009 in "multiple
regions" including Asia and Latin America. There's
no reason why the MOTOSURF won't work in Europe and
North America too, so we very much hope to see this
phone worldwide.
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Motorola
MOTOSURF A3100 at a glance
|
Available:
|
Q1
2009
|
Network:
|
GSM
850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
UMTS 850 / 1900 / 2100
|
Data:
|
GPRS
+ EDGE + UMTS (3G) + HSDPA
+ HSUPA + WiFi
|
Screen:
|
240
x 320 pixels
|
Camera:
|
3
megapixels
|
Size:
|
Medium
touchscreen 110 x 60
x 14mm / 119 grams
|
Bluetooth:
|
Yes
|
Memory
card:
|
microSD
|
Infra-red:
|
No
|
Polyphonic:
|
Yes
|
Java:
|
Limited
|
GPS:
|
Yes
(A-GPS)
|
Battery
life:
|
6.8 hours talk / 12 days standby
(GSM)
|
|
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