News

Motorola announced its new bluetooth in-car speakerphone and Digital FM transmitter, MOTOROKR T505, its first road-ready, music-oriented ROKR accessory and the latest addition to its portfolio of in-car solutions. With MOTOROKR T505 you can connect a Bluetooth enabled phone to the car sound system and enjoy hands-free calling and your favorite music in outstanding stereo sound.

The T505 is extremely portable and requires no wires or installation. Drivers simply clip the device to a car's visor and pair the T505 using Motorola's EasyPair technology to a compatible Bluetooth device. When the T505 is connected to a stereo Bluetooth phone, such as a MOTORAZR or MOTOROKR Z6, or an MP3 player, calls and music are streamed wirelessly with the perfectly-tuned clarity and wide-ranging volume of a car stereo. Drivers with standard Bluetooth phones can use the T505 to make and take their calls over the car stereo. And when the ride's over, the T505 can be easily unhooked and taken to another car for the next trip.

We're glad to see Motorola starting to claw their way back to their days as a leader in the mobile industry. Moto just secured a significant portion of the top ten 3G handsets sold in the US this past Q3 2007, and they're not going to just sit back and bask (which is the mistake they made with their initial successes in the Moto RAZR V3) in their achievements. Motorola has announced that they'll be running a blitz on the mobile space by pushing some 20-30 handsets onto the market in 2008.

In the coming year, Motorola will also stress strengthening its relations with channel partners in Taiwan and to pursue a balance between sales volume and profitability while gearing up efforts to boost performance, according to Bill Chen, newly appointed general manager of mobile device business at Motorola Taiwan.

Motorola currently was ranked as the fourth largest vendor in the Taiwan handset market accounting for a 13.6% share, compared to Nokia's 32%, Sony Ericsson's 20.6% and Samsung Electronics' 14-15%, according a Chinese-language Economic Daily News (EDN) report as well as sources at Samsung.

Motorola on November 19 launched it RAZR 2 V8 Luxury Edition handset and other 2GB V8 models in Taiwan targeting the high-end segment, with the company planning to introduce its 3G-version V9, ROKR Z8 music handset and 3.5G Q9 smartphone in the local market before the end of this year, according to company sources.

Motorola has ventured into the development of Android-based handsets, but the company still has no timetable for the launch the open-platform mobile devices, Chen stated.

Finnish designer Ristomatti Ratia apparently admitted that he is working on a concept model for Nokia and Tommy Hilfiger, but when the journalists contacted him he would not confirm nor deny the allegations. That is a sure fire way of saying "I can't say yes, but my answer is yes."

Samsung has Armani, LG has Prada, Samsung has Levi Straus, Motorola has Dolce and Gabbana, about time Nokia got some fashion sense.

Philips may not carry a big name in the mobile phone industry but it tries to come up with other form of marketing gimmicks to attract the attention of the public. We don't see many ultra-powerful smartphones coming from the inventor of the CD, but they do have some nice devices that are certainly appreciated among their buyers.

One such devices is the Philips Xenium 9@9, which has a battery that can reportedly last for two whole months in a standby mode, or up to 17 hours of continuous talk-time. And while that's quite impressive, the phone itself provides users with (almost) only the basic features. Maybe that's why it can hold power for that long.

Philips Xenium 9@9 features a 65k color TFT display, a VGA camera, 2.0 Bluetooth Connectivity and a microSD memory card slot. On the other hand, you may consider it as a reliable music-phone whose battery lasts more than an average MP3 player. No word on pricing nor availability, but at the moment it's an Asia-only device.