Motorola AURA
Discontinued 21st October 2008
We will be the first to admit that we give Motorola
a hard time for coming up with products that are frankly
disappointing. But the new Motorola AURA shows
that Motorola can still come up with handsets that are
innovative and have plenty of "wow factor".
The good news is that this is a very exciting device.
The bad news is that the SIM-free price in the US is
a shocking $1999.99 (about £1200 or €1500) when
it launches in December (you can pre-order
it now). We could easily come up with 101 reasons why
you shouldn't spend that much money on what
is basically a fashion phone.. so we're going to give
you some reasons why you should instead.
Let's get something out of the way first - at its
heart, the Motorola AURA is not a particularly
sophisticated phone. It's a simple quad-band GSM device,
with a basic 2 megapixel digital camera and 2GB of internal
memory. The AURA lacks 3G support, WiFi or GPS..
if these things are important to you, then there are
plenty of better things to spend your money on.
But
there are plenty of things that make the Motorola AURA
unique - firstly, it's a very rare "rotator"
handset. Motorola have done this before, back in 2002
with the Motorola V70,
but that was six years ago and the whole format looks
completely fresh. Yes, to an extent the Nokia
7373 and the old Motorola
V80 do the same thing.. but they aren't in the same
league as the AURA. A lot of work has gone into the
rotating mechanism, but we will look at that more in
a moment.
The other truly remarkable thing is the display..
this isn't a rectangular display in a circular housing,
the AURA actually has a circular LCD display
that is 480 pixels and 1.55 inches in diameter. We don't
know how practical this is, especially when displaying web
pages, but we can say that it is very cool indeed. The
16 million colour screen is protected by a sapphire
crystal lens to prevent scratches, something that presumably
adds a great deal to the price.
The bulk of the phone is made from a chemically etched
stainless steel housing that has been hand polished
and given a protective coating. Motorola says that it
takes two weeks to make the front piece of the phone,
which again helps to account for some of the cost. The
aluminium keys are individually made and finished before
being assembled, and there are interesting features
such as nickel-chrome plated exposed screws.
Even the rotating mechanism is pretty cool - there
are 130 precision ball-bearings, hardened steel gears
and Swiss engineering to create something that is a
cross between racing car design and precision clockwork.
Motorola say that the idea is that the mechanism should
work just as well the 100,000th time it is used as it
did on the first time.
Despite
the lack of 3G or WiFi, the Motorola AURA does
come with a comprehensive media player supporting MP3,
AAC and Windows Media formats. There's a web browser
and email client, and the AURA feature's Motorola's
useful CrystalTalk technology for improved call clarity.
The AURA also has stereo Bluetooth 2.0 and USB 2.0.
Some of Motorola's technical specifications mention
microSD memory, although it is possible that this is
an error.
It's quite a heavy device at 141 grams, but in terms
of size it is pocket friendly at 97 x 48 x 19mm. Talktime
is around 7 hours with up to 16 days standby time.
Let's be honest - the Motorola AURA is an insanely
over-engineered device with a price tag to match. A
handset such as the Samsung
i8510 will deliver much more when it comes to "traditional"
phone features and it is an awful lot cheaper. But the
AURA is easily the coolest phone on the market, with
a design that should appeal both to the fashion conscious
and those that can appreciate the advanced engineering
that has gone into it.
The launch date in the US is 4th December, with other
regions slated for Q4 2008.
|
Motorola
AURA at a glance
|
Available:
|
Q4
2008
|
Network:
|
GSM
850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
|
Data:
|
GPRS
+ EDGE
|
Screen:
|
480 pixel
diameter
|
Camera:
|
2
megapixels
|
Size:
|
Rotator 97
x 48 x 19mm / 141 grams
|
Bluetooth:
|
Yes
|
Memory
card:
|
Unconfirmed
|
Infra-red:
|
No
|
Polyphonic:
|
No
|
Java:
|
Not
specified
|
GPS:
|
No
|
Battery
life:
|
4 hours talk / 16 days standby
|
|
|