The MOTOSURF A3100
Written on 1/07/2009 01:16:00 PM by poison_ivy
Motorola has finally again joined the full touchscreen mobile phone wagon with their Motosurf A3100. However, they’re kinda a year late, aren’t they? First, they launch their 5 megapixel mobile phone while everybody else is already launching their 8 megapixel phones and now, while every touchscreen phone is touting more than 3 inch screens, they’re still in the stone age with their 2.8 inch screen.
Design
I would have to give a point to the Motosurf A3100 for its design. Motorola didn’t succumb to the iPhone mania by copying their bar design. Instead, they’ve made the MotoSurf A3100 more rounded albeit, without the larger screen.
Features
I highly regret Motorola’s choice of screen size. 2.8 inch?!!! It’s like the ZN5 all over again. I surely hope that the MotoSurf A3100 has a lot more under its hood to compensate for the mere screen size. Let’s see, since the MotoSurf A3100 is running Windows Mobile, the processor has to be great, right? A 528MHz Qualcomm Processor with 128MB RAM is not bad at all. I was a bit worried that like the Motorola Q 11, Motorola is going to scrimp on the processing power.
As for the camera, a 3.15 megapixel camera with auto focus and video recording capability plus a secondary VGA camera for video calling is also not bad. It can compete with the HTC Diamond and hopefully, if the A3100 is not made by HTC, then the camera on the Motosurf A3100 would probably be better compared with the Touch Diamond.
As for multimedia, since the Motosurf A3100 is running windows mobile 6.1, you can expect the windows media player on this device though Motorola would probably add their own video player since in the product specs, Motorola boasts that the Motosurf A3100 will be capable of MPEG-4, H.263, H.264 & WMV playback support, .3GP and .MP4 file playback support, and H.263 capture support.
The MotoSurf A3100 will also have aGPS, Bluetooth with A2DP, WiFi, and MicroSD support. No mention if it has a built-in accelerometer though I doubt that it would have one.
Hmm, looks like the only new thing on the Motosurf A3100 is an omni-directional trackball (the one in the middle), probably to compete with Samsung and Sony Ericsson’s optical mouse directional pad.
Outlook
Looks like I’ll be holding on to my Samsung Omnia a little while longer. Samsung and HTC can rest easy knowing that the MotoSurf A3100 won’t even put up a good fight in the smartphone department although die-hard Motorola fans who didn’t bite the Motorola Q 11 might be interested in this one. Expected release date of the MotoSurf A3100 is first quarter of 2009. I won’t be holding my breath.
Design
I would have to give a point to the Motosurf A3100 for its design. Motorola didn’t succumb to the iPhone mania by copying their bar design. Instead, they’ve made the MotoSurf A3100 more rounded albeit, without the larger screen.
Features
I highly regret Motorola’s choice of screen size. 2.8 inch?!!! It’s like the ZN5 all over again. I surely hope that the MotoSurf A3100 has a lot more under its hood to compensate for the mere screen size. Let’s see, since the MotoSurf A3100 is running Windows Mobile, the processor has to be great, right? A 528MHz Qualcomm Processor with 128MB RAM is not bad at all. I was a bit worried that like the Motorola Q 11, Motorola is going to scrimp on the processing power.
As for the camera, a 3.15 megapixel camera with auto focus and video recording capability plus a secondary VGA camera for video calling is also not bad. It can compete with the HTC Diamond and hopefully, if the A3100 is not made by HTC, then the camera on the Motosurf A3100 would probably be better compared with the Touch Diamond.
As for multimedia, since the Motosurf A3100 is running windows mobile 6.1, you can expect the windows media player on this device though Motorola would probably add their own video player since in the product specs, Motorola boasts that the Motosurf A3100 will be capable of MPEG-4, H.263, H.264 & WMV playback support, .3GP and .MP4 file playback support, and H.263 capture support.
The MotoSurf A3100 will also have aGPS, Bluetooth with A2DP, WiFi, and MicroSD support. No mention if it has a built-in accelerometer though I doubt that it would have one.
Hmm, looks like the only new thing on the Motosurf A3100 is an omni-directional trackball (the one in the middle), probably to compete with Samsung and Sony Ericsson’s optical mouse directional pad.
Outlook
Looks like I’ll be holding on to my Samsung Omnia a little while longer. Samsung and HTC can rest easy knowing that the MotoSurf A3100 won’t even put up a good fight in the smartphone department although die-hard Motorola fans who didn’t bite the Motorola Q 11 might be interested in this one. Expected release date of the MotoSurf A3100 is first quarter of 2009. I won’t be holding my breath.
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I have had a comment from Alex of New Zealand, unfortunately, I inadvertently rejected it along with some spam comments. So sorry, Alex. Anyways, here was the comment:
"Motorola touchscreen, finally??? What about the Rokr E6. Far ahead of it's time, surely!"
Thanks for pointing that out. Since I've only started blogging a year ago, and the E6 was released in 2006, I was unaware that the E6 was a touchscreen phone.
Yes, Motorola's products could be ahead of its time if they want it to be. I was actually impressed by the E8. But they've been slacking recently and it's quite disappointing specially for a company who makes top quality products.
The A3100 seems like a half-hearted attempt to compete in the smartphone market.