Motorola W161 and W181

Discontinued
12th February 2008

Motorola's meagre offering at this year's Mobile World Congress continues with the Motorola W161 and W181 in addition to the Motorola Z6w already announced.

Motorola W161

Calling the Motorola W161 a new phone is basically stretching the truth. As far as we can tell, there is no difference whatsoever between the W161 and last year's W160 model.

A very basic handset with a built-in FM radio, 128 x 128 pixel monochrome display, speakerphone and predictive text in several Asian and African languages, the W161 is clearly aimed at emerging markets where it is ideally suited. Talktime is a shade under 10 hours with up to 19 days standby time.

Motorola say that the W161 will be available during Q1 2008.

Motorola W181

The Motorola W181 is basically the W161 with a colour screen and more conventional looking keypad. Again, this is almost exactly the same as last year's Motorola W180 apart from some cosmetic details.

The impressive talktime on the W161 is carried through to the W181 despite it having a colour display. The W181 also has more internal memory for storing text messages and the like. The W181 is slated for release during the first quarter of 2008.

Handsets like these have an important place in the market, although Motorola are really just recycling last year's models.  What bothers us is not the fact that Motorola are making this type of low end device, but that these three phones (along with the Z6w) are the only things that Motorola have to bring to the Mobile World Congress when rivals have much more to offer. Samsung, for example, has around 10 completely new handsets - Motorola have three warmed over devices from last year.

We were hoping for something much better from Motorola. If this is the best they can come up with, then the future is looking pretty bleak. Perhaps if they had ever gotten round to making the E1120 or A1010 handsets announced three years ago, then maybe Motorola's fortunes would be very different today.