Motorola ROKR Z6 (formerly Motorola RIZR Z6)

Expected May 2007 (China), June 2008 (rest of world)
9th January 2007 - Updated 15th May 2007

The Motorola ROKR Z6 (formerly the RIZR Z6) is an upgrade to the original RIZR Z3 handset that's only been around for a couple of months. Although on the surface the ROKR Z6 looks to be almost identical, it's actually a very different handset underneath.

First the basics - it's a quad band GSM slider phone with EDGE data, the ROKR Z6 also has a 2 megapixel camera, 2" 240x320 pixel display in 262,000 colours, a comprehensive media player (including support for MP3, AAC, AMR, WAV and Windows Media formats), microSD expandable memory (expandable to 2Gb, plus 64Mb on board) and Bluetooth. Surprisingly, the RIZR Z6 is now a Linux smartphone with Motorola's new user interface on it. Another surprise is that the media player is actually Windows Media Player 11.. yes, Windows Media Player running on Linux.

So what we have here is a Linux smartphone with very strong multimedia capabilities shoehorned into the same form factor as the old RIZR, which is a shame because the Z6 is basically completely new underneath.

In terms of technical specification and features, the Motorola ROKR Z6 looks to be a very impressive handset. Unfortunately, consumer interest in these RAZR-style devices is drying up pretty quickly and for that reason alone the ROKR Z6 might not make much impact.

Motorola say that the ROKR Z6 will be available from May 2007 in China and June 2007 in the rest of the world.

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