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Motorola ROKR E2 Preview
We previewed the Motorola ROKR E2 last month, and Motorola have confirmed that the ROKR E2 will be available during the first half of 2006. However, although the ROKR E2 looks quite like the one we demonstrated last month, the E2 is a very different handset underneath from the pretty poor ROKR E1.
So, the ROKR E2 looks like a promising multimedia handset, and it's much more competitive with the benchmark Sony Ericsson W800i. It's an attractive handset to look at too. But.. what exactly are Motorola playing at? We saw iTunes with the recent Motorola RAZR V3i phone, so the lack of it in the ROKR E2 is a real surprise. We feel that this is going to lead to some brand confusion, and customers are simply not going to understand which handsets are iTunes ones (i.e. the ROKR E1 and V3i RAZR) and which ones aren't. Sony Ericsson's range is much clearer - the W550, W600, W800 and W900 are all "Walkman" phones which is nice and easy to understand. Motorola's range looks muddled compared to this. Another shortcoming of the ROKR E2 is that it isn't a 3G phone, so this deprives operators of potential income from "over the air" downloads. There is a rumoured ROKR E3 though, that might just combine 3G and iTunes.. subscribe to our newsletter for updates on that. Discuss
this handset in our forum
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Available
now
The
biggest shock is that this isn't an iTunes
phones - it runs Motorola's own multimedia player. And
the surprises don't end there - this is a Linux-based
phone too. Not only that, but Motorola have ditched
TransFlash memory and included a SD slot instead, giving
the ROKR E2 up to 2Mb of memory and a 500 song maximum
capacity. The screen has been upgraded to a QVGA 240x320
pixel unit, there's a 1.3 megapixel camera and also
stereo Bluetooth. There's an FM radio, and flight mode
too (so it can be used as a music player without having
the telephone component active).
