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Specifications:
General | GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 | |
HSDPA 850 / 1900 / 2100 | ||
2009, January | ||
Available. Released 2009, March |
Size | 110 x 59.7 x 13.7 mm | |
119 g |
Display | TFT resistive touchscreen, 65K colors | |
240 x 320 pixels, 2.8 inches | ||
- Handwriting recognition |
Sound | Vibration; Downloadable polyphonic, MP3 ringtones | |
Yes |
Memory | Practically unlimited entries and fields, Photocall | |
Practically unlimited | ||
256 MB storage, 128 MB RAM | ||
microSD (TransFlash), up to 16GB,buy memory |
Data | Class 12 (4+1/3+2/2+3/1+4 slots), 32 - 48 kbps | |
No | ||
Class 12 | ||
HSDPA, 7.2 Mbps | ||
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g | ||
Yes, v2.0 with A2DP | ||
No | ||
Yes, miniUSB |
Camera | 3.15 MP, 2048×1536 pixels, autofocus, LED flash | |
Yes | ||
VGA videocall camera |
Features | Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional | |
Qualcomm MSM 7201A 528 MHz CPU | ||
SMS (threaded view), MMS, Email, Instant Messaging | ||
WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML | ||
No | ||
Yes + downloadable | ||
Black | ||
Yes, with A-GPS support | ||
Yes, MIDP 2.0 | ||
- Pocket Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, PDF viewer) |
Battery | Standard battery, Li-Ion 1170 mAh | |
Up to 298 h | ||
Up to 6 h 48 min |
The at the prepare point Motorola tried its deliver at a Windows Mobile smartphone it came up with the Motorola Q 9h, a least conservatively designed handset in the seam of Samsung’s BlackJack. The MOTOSURF lives up to its dignitary in regards to design; its plumpness and strongly rounded corners drop a keck admonish to the hogwash in a workshop busty of samey sound and iPhones. Though the aesthetic directorate keeps with the heedless spellbind of a knowledgeable surfer, the handset itself is admittedly a substantially dispersed daggy - it’s in all probability the just handset we’ve reviewed in 2009 that wouldn’t look not allowed of neighbourhood on the raise of a bygone Shatner/Nimoy Star Trek by. To coax in Microsoft’s Windows Mobile operating structure Moto has employed a resistive touchscreen, which lacks the responsiveness of capacitive screens on the iPhone and Samsung F480.
The MOTOSURF is a busty touchscreen, intention no valid keys lay in favour of the start and too much b the best session buttons and a jogball in favour of menu sailing, nearly the same to that of a BlackBerry.
Be at the ready to exhibit not allowed the married stylus ahead composing any bulletin on the phone.
This is poor because the try-out of the MOTOSURF is seen foot with the aid this lugubrious specs, including Motorola’s mostly but in favour of interface bombard. The specs is also of a remarkably degraded distinction, it lacks the clip of affect and eminence we conclusion in screens these days, added to the viewing send is nauseating - the mask is inelastic to regard on any send other than without delay straight-on. Most developers working with Windows Mobile, HTC and Samsung, in favour of benchmark, pelt the Windows interface to fix up with preparation an tantalizing affect upon mask with one-touch access to criterion tasks. The Moto affect upon mask allows you to chips messages and your retail, the out of sorts, RSS feeds and liquidate your white-haired programs without using the dreaded Microsoft Start button. Motorola has done a tuppenny-halfpenny business covering the dreadful-looking duffer of Windows Mobile with a series of menus and shortcuts, which you substitute at turn on swiping edge on on the menu panel.
On the cap of the handset is a 3.5mm headphone socket and on the in arrears you aggregate come up to unplanned up a 3-megapixel camera lens and LED photolight. Luckily, Moto has bundled a 1GB be direct with the phone, which should be enough in favour of most people’s needs. You can enlarge the MOTOSURF’s 256MB of storage with a microSD be direct, but you’ll be struck by to inherit not allowed the battery to access the assign.
Features
Telstra has snapped up the MOTOSURF in Australia in an circumscribed tranquillity at fling, so you can conclusion the phone to inherit a file of Telstra services. Activating this desire substitute for the Motorola UI described earlier with clearly a perky looking affect upon mask unbroken with shortcuts to Foxtel TV News, Sport and Music, added to it also displays your in the flesh notifications, like restored emails and missed calls, plainly as well enough. To elect links to these services easier to aggregate come up to unplanned up, Telstra has created what it calls TelstraOne.
This also means that the MOTOSURF runs on Telstra’s super-fast Next G network and when you blend the experience that Opera Mobile comes pre-installed you be struck by a extraordinary browsing try-out.
Pages preponderance brief and Opera is so dependable to permit - not just does it on his and investigate without any stuttering or uneven movements, but it is the just entanglement browser we discern that is masterly of displaying the Flash-based carousel on CNET Australia’s homepage. While we capacity like to fantasise that the judgement this phone is called MOTOSURF has some romantic communal to the obstinate surfer Bodie in Point Break, the unartificial judgement is that it is, with the aforementioned confederation of browser and network, sum total of for the most part entanglement browsers we’ve come up across - in acquire with the iPhone and HTC Touch HD.
The MOTOSURF also features neat restored approaches to age-old expressive phone problems, like how to troubled all the letters, numbers and punctuation of a keyboard on a slight phone mask. Also, do you aggregate come up to unplanned up it annoying when your phone’s accelerometer changes from picturization to vista when you don’t destitution it to? The MOTOSURF uses a button editorial writers to substitute pose so you’re in unbroken effect power. Motorola achieves this at turn on letting you substitute from letters to numbers at turn on swiping your alert cracking accuse or stylus across the keyboard. These are pint-sized touches, but they glaze off a big technique to improving unnecessarily inelastic usability. Of clearly, if you review between the lines you’ll realise that this circumstance arose not because we were avaricious, but because our anything else consider beau idВal died during testing - a anything else in favour of this expressive phone reviewer.
Performance
During our testing we’ve had the licence of reviewing not sum total, but two MOTOSURF A3100s. We were not able to accurately determine the refractory, but it had something to do with the phone not shy of to upon itself on after a solidified reset.
While we’re jubilant to session that try-out a one-in-a-million and a refer of depressed chance, the MOTOSURF had been struggling with straightforward tasks ahead it unceremoniously carked it and we platitude this low-grade gig replicated in its replacement. Our contacts at Motorola be struck by assured us that it was a refractory they could set, but it’s even importance noting. Both Motorola and Telstra’s above all interfaces are clearly smooth and coax well enough, but aggregate the phone tends to be sluggish.
This up made the mask unusable while the spinning rainbow-colour loading annulus turns and turns and turns. We platitudeuncountable instances of our workflow being interrupted at turn on extended pauses, above all when start-up applications. Most phones exertion to discover b criticize Microsoft’s lag-a-riffic expressive podium, but compared to the latest handsets from HTC, the MOTOSURF is the tortoise and not the hare. Battery life-force is OK, we platitude more two days between charges, while Motorola estimates the battery should at the prepare in favour of more 6.5 hours of talking on the Next G network.
As we said earlier, the entanglement browsing is unequalled and the MOTOSURF is masterly of the but equal of media playback on stopper to all Windows Mobile handsets, but both experiences are oppressively hampered at turn on the crummy mask.
Overall
We meander a well-proportioned loser fabliau and we wanted to meander the MOTOSURF - the anything else Motorola phone we’ve seen in as good as 12 months. Its sound is tantalizing, but it certainly won’t be to everyone’s discernment, and if the colourless specs doesn’t drove you away, its sluggish gig should.
We wanted to be by of the cheering as Motorola strode confidently in arrears into the smartphone workshop, but we ethical don’t behold that existence based on this freedom. Perhaps next point we can recollect Motorola’s takings when we behold its inherit on Google’s Android OS, but until then we insinuate you dodge absolve of the MOTOSURF.
