Motorola W220

Expected Q3 2006
20th June 2006

Originally announced back in February, Motorola have chosen to "announce" the upcoming Motorola W220 again at this month's Communicasia event in Singapore.

The Motorola W220 is a RAZR-like clamshell phone with a 128x128 pixel CSTN display in 65,000 colours that weighs 93 grams. It has a long battery life giving up to 8 hours talktime and 12 days standby time, and there's a built-in FM radio. And really that's about it.. no camera, no Bluetooth, no MP3 player. It's only a dual-band GSM device, but it does at least have GPRS and a WAP browser.

The shocking thing is that Motorola have made no major product announcements for the GSM/3G market since January 2006 when they announced the ROKR E2, a handset so late to market that people are beginning to speculate that it might never arrive. Apart from a rash of ultra-cheap phones and colour variations of existing handsets, the W220 has been the most significant product announcement since the E2.

Motorola's only other recent product releases are the V3i and A1200 smartphone (which is shipping in the Far East only). At Communicasia, Motorola have also announced the W375 which is basically a W220 with a VGA resolution camera.

So, this is possibly the nearest thing to a new Motorola you're going to see in the near future, slated for a Q3 2006 release.

 Subscribe to our newsletter for more news on upcoming releases