Linux Smartphone Motorola RAZR2 V8 Attracts Multimedia Lovers and Application Developers
August 9, 2007
It was inevitable. When the first tiny display was installed on the outer side of a flip phone, we should have known that one day, it'll be just as large and high-quality as the primary display inside the unit. The Motorola Razr2 V8 GSM phone comes with two large 320x240-resolution color screens. The product is targeted at multimedia, with touch sensitive music playback buttons on the cover display. Even more importantly, the Razr2 V8 is one of the first widely available smartphones running Linux.
Motorola Razr2 V8 Key Features and Specifications:
- Quad-band GSM phone for 850/900/1800/1900 frequency bands. GRPS and EDGE mobile data connectivity.
- Two large color screens. 2.0-inch display with QVGA (320 x 240 pixels) resolution and 262000 colors on the cover. The music playback buttons on the display are touch sensitive.
- The internal display is 2.2 inches in size and has QVGA (320 x 240 pixels) resolution with 262000 colors.
- 2 megapixel camera.
- MP3 player can play MP3, AAC, AAC+, AAC Enhanced, WMA, WAV, AMR, and MIDI tracks.
- Video capture in H.263 MPEG4 format at 15 frames per second. MPEG4 video playback.
- Opera HTML browser for accessing Web pages.
- Email, phonebook and calendar information can be synchronized via mobile network (MotoSync).
- Messaging features include text messaging (SMS), multimedia messaging (MMS), email (POP3, IMAP4, SMTP).
- Call features include conference calling and hands-free speaker.
- Available storage space for photos, videos, messages, extra applications, and other user data varies between 420MB and 2GB. The amount of memory depends on the product configuration in each market.
- Bluetooth 2.0 wireless connectivity. Stereo music capability for Bluetooth headsets.
- USB 2.0 cable for hooking up the phone to a computer.
- The device frame is made of stainless steel with metal and glass housing.
- Dimensions of the unit are 53 x 103 x 11.9 mm / 2.0 x 4.0 x 0.47 inches. Weight 117 g/ 4.1 oz.
- Battery life: up to 8 hours of talk time and 11 days of standby time. Playing music and video will shorten battery life.
Smartphones powered by computer-like multitasking operating systems (in fact, some experts regard smartphone systems to be more advanced than PC software), such as the Symbian OS or Windows Mobile have been around for years, but products built on an open source software haven't been available so far. Motorola has introduced two phones, the Razr2 V8 and the Rokr Z6 that are both powered by the Motomagx platform, an open source Linux operating system software.
Motorola has established a developer program for programmers who aim to create software products for Linux smartphones. New applications can be written in Java ME, using Web 2.0 technologies, or native Linux environment. There's more information, source code and software tools available at the Motorola open source resource center.
Smartphone owners who are interested in the advantages of particular software products may take a look at a comparison of Linux, Windows Mobile and Symbian OS for mobile devices.
Although a smartphone is running Linux, it doesn't necessarily mean it would have an excessive number of features, or on the other hand, a minimal number of features. The design of the Motorola Razr2 V8 is balanced towards music and multimedia. That's why we expected to find a memory card slot on the device, but instead, it relies on its large internal memory space (ranging from 420MB to 2GB). Also, there's no high-speed Wi-Fi or 3G mobile network connectivity for downloading music or uploading videos to the Internet.
Other products aimed at music and multimedia are, for example, the Motorola Motokrzr K1, LG Shine KE970, Nokia N76, or the Samsung SGH-U600.
Reader rating:
Motorola RAZR2 V8 15.03.2009 20:16 www.hightech365.com/phone/motorola-razr2-v8.html
Great design, great phone :) Ashame the camera's quality is that bad but then, eh, it's a phone, not a digital :p