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Motorola releasing MOTOSURF A3100 smartphone and MOTO W233 Renew green handset

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Mobile | by Stephen Schenck | Fri Jan 9, 2009 3:38PM | 0 comments

Motorola has several mobile devices to hawk at the 2009 CES, including two we're seeing for the first time, the MOTOSURF A3100 and the MOTO W233 Renew. The A3100's a touchscreen smartphone running the latest Windows Mobile software. It can be tricky hitting the small buttons in some Windows Mobile apps, so thankfully Motorola's include a BlackBerry Pearl-like mini-trackball for finer pointer control. Unfortunately, on-hand accounts found the trackball a tad unresponsive, but there's still time for Motorola to tighten things up before the phone goes into mass production. The 3G handset has tri-band UMTS 3G support with quad-band GSM for voice. There's also WiFi for getting online a little cheaper, which you can make use of with the Opera browser and YouTube software the phone comes with.

The W233 Renew is trying to take advantage of the "green" bandwagon tech companies all around are jumping on. Not only is the handset's casing made from recycled plastics, but Motorola has outsourced an eco group to plant trees to offset the phone's carbon footprint. The Renew's packaging is supposed to be as minimal as possible and is — you guessed it — also made from recycled materials. The company even throws in a mailer you can use to send away your previous phone for recycling. All this sustainable manufacturing aside, the phone itself isn't very impressive. It's only a dual-band GSM model with GPRS for data. The Renew supports up to 2 GB flash memory, most likely microSD, and can play MP3 files. The battery life actually looks pretty impressive, with about nine hours of talk time, but ultimately you're going to be buying this phone for its earth-friendliness, not for the tech it offers. We'd love to see Motorola put this kind of green effort into one of its more capable handsets. Both of these phones will be out first quarter this year.

This story around the web:

Trusted sources:
external link Hands-on with Motorola's touchscreen MOTOSURF… [MobileBurn.com]
external link Hands-on with the Motorola Surf [Crave]
external link Motorola Surf A3100 [What's new on CNET]
external link Motorola to showcase its new touch tablet… [AVING WORLD]
external link Motorola Renew W233 [LetsGoMobile - News Feed]
external link First information on the Motorola Renew [Phone Arena - Latest News]
external link Motorola W233 Renew [Phone Arena - Latest Phones]
external link Motorola Renew: Nothing to see here [WMExperts]
external link Motorola goes for green with the MOTO W233… [DotGizmo: The Best gadget Blog Posts]
external link Motorola announce the W233 Renew: The… [Gaj-It.com - UK Gadget and Tech News, Reviews and Shopping]

Get more information on topics relating to this story:


Related company news:
Motorola
Related glossary terms:
3G, Touchscreen, Smartphone, GSM, Quad band, Flash memory, UMTS, Trackball, GPRS
Related devices and services:
Motorola MOTOSURF A3100, Motorola MOTO W233 Renew, Windows Mobile 6.1
Related event news:
CES 2009

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