The Motorola Franklin… or should we say RAZRberry!

Ok, so here's a quick refresher for you, in case you've forgotten just how much we've been anticipating the RAZRberry. Last we heard, Motorola was working on a Blackberry-killer type qwerty candybar that was going to be done in the style of the RAZR, which some were referring to as RAZRberry. Well, we've got the exclusive for ya: the device is codenamed the Franklin, and will have quad-band GPRS/EDGE, 128MB flash and 64MB RAM memory, Bluetooth, a 1.3-megapixel camera, MiniSD slot, 2.4-inch 320 x 240 65k color screen, and will apparently run Windows Mobile 5.0. Oh, and did we mention it's freaking 112 x 64 x 11.5mm (4.4 x 2.5 x 0.45-inches) and won't weigh more than 115g (4oz)? So this is what it feels like to be in love.

[Thanks, Rudi]

[IK-47 @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

WOW

Im gonna get this. how much do you guys think it will cost when it comes out?

does it have SD slot?

[ventivent @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

I'm tearing up...it's so beautiful. I was going to get the Samsung i730, but I may just have to hold onto my i-mate JAM until this thing comes out. Despite the naysayers, I love Moto.

[LH @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

If it really is 112 x 64 x 11.5 mm, then those buttons are really small.

[pnarse @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

Quote from the article: "MiniSD slot"

.....Does it have SD Slot?

[Jacob @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

Yeah, the post says it has a MiniSD slot.

I read that and then held a couple fingers up to envision those dimensions... wow. Would you believe I still don't even have a cell phone? lol

[Kris @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

Motorola sucks. Good idea, but I'd bet the thing is going to be full of bugs (and yeah, tiny keyboard).

[Luis @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

Does anyone know when this phone will be available?

[Tom @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

That looks very slick.

[mattb @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

I refuse to buy a so-called "smartphone" unless it has WiFi integrated or available as an add on.

If someone's gonna replace a PDA/PocketPC with a smartphone, it needs to have all the features that the previous gadget had if possible. Phone makers just dont like WiFi because if they sell products without it, they get more $$$ from vendors because the vendors get more $$$ from people going online. it is quite stupid.

[Dave @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

Look NEXTEL it's a motorolla can all of us that have stuck it out with your crappy outdated bulky phones for so long have this??? Please!

[Sebhelyesfarku @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

Windoze crap on Motorola crap. can't get worse.

[Justin Nolan @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

I dont see how this is a RAZR style MPX, as was initially reported. Looks more like an awekwardly shaped candy bar Smartphone with a streched out screen...

[pnarse @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

This might be moto's first useable phone yet!

Windows Mobile... hate to say it but windows mobile is a **** lot easier to use than moto's crap. That's always stopped me from buying moto phones before (besides the usually hideous looks, but recently it looks like they actually have some designers on board now!)

Small keyboard? No problem! I rarely type more
than your average 180 char SMS message, and maybe the odd email, who cares?
The keyboard just makes that a little bit easier!

No Wifi? Meh I'm not too bothered about this, with a decent (unlimited?) data package, you're not going to worry too much about finding a hotspot anyway.


Still. One feature short of a sale. Where's the UTMS/WCDMA? My network is 3G only, so what good is this and most every other phones these companys are churning out? Bah.

[Barry B @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

What gives! I thought you guys hated watermarked photos!

[James @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

I really do hope you people arn't going to start watermarking all your images.. I want to see gadgets, not blog logo's..

[infrarae @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

Umm, not cool to rip off others. PocketPC Dubai was the first that I know of to break this and they did it yesterday. http://pocketpcdubai.com/

r

[VVV @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

so damn hot I want one of those and one V1150. I'll stick with those 4eva

[Chris @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

4 hours "Digital usage" battery life it says on the Powerpoint presentation from http://pocketpcdubai.com... In other words, no chance I'll be getting this.

And yes, watermarking = not cool. You guys complain about it when other people do it, so why do it yourselves? Love the site, but that just isn't cool baby!

[John Griffith @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

I want one, but prefer it not have a camera. It is .2" wider than a Treo 650 so the keyboard should be usable. They could have added a few tenths more and I would still want it because it is so thin. I wonder what battery life is going to be along with performance. Too bad they didn't sell the design to RIM so it would have Blackberry software installed. By the way you can copy and paste the picture into a word document and scale it so that it is 2.5" wide and you can get a feel for the actual size. It is amazing! It appears to have better keyboard spacing than the Treo 650 and the looks, well...drool!

Any word on whether it will support a speakerphone?

[gerald` @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

where's the EV-DO love?

:(

[Sam @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

And you can have it all for a low low price of eleventy kajillion dollars

[Meles meles @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

Guys, check this link from a microsoft site....

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=46&p=5&SrcDisplayLang=da&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId=9b6e5b07-0103-4077-9428-045f40bdfaf1&genscs=&u=http%3a%2f%2fdownload.microsoft.com%2fdownload%2fa%2fe%2f0%2fae08cc7a-a297-4762-bc6c-770efccd03a7%2fQtek_Motorola_Presentation_MS_070605.ppt

It is where the powerpoint came from in the first place.....

[tpp @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

No wifi, no sale.

[Joel @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

Mmm... FranklinBerry... delicious cereal

[Peter Rojas @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

We actually didn't get this from PocketPCDubai, so we couldn't rip them off. Unfortunately the person who sent this to us as a tip didn't bother to tell us where he found it, we had no idea where it was first spotted. That's life. We always credit either the site or the person who has pointed us towards something, and in this case we credited Rudi, the person who sent this to us.

Also, watermarking isn't something we do often (or are planning to do often), but in this case we thought it was warranted.

[VASpider @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

Hm. I wonder if it'll have Motorola's absolutely shitty RF ratings and the tendency to crash repeatedly that every other Motorola or Windows Mobile product I've ever seen has had.

Yeah, right. Until something comes out that can actually hold a candle to a Blackberry (or a Sidekick II, for that matter, as I just ditched my iPaq for one due to a disgusting number of crashes) as far as overall stability? No gimmicky thinness is going to pull me away. It's only nice to have something that thin if it works reliably.

[TZK @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

I like this. All they need is one built landscape style, and that would be awesome :)

This thing looks so thin, might have to check it out as a potential replacement, though.

[Julian Kay @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

Is it Pocket PC or Smartphone?

I'm guessing it's Smartphone, but the touch screen and the apps of Pocket PC would have been awesome.

[andy @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

this thing just might replace my Jam, sounds good cant wait to see it

[Thought @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

I'm skeptical, because it's Moto...meaning there's a likelihood of it being buggy, and not very user friendly. I'll believe it's a viable design when I see it.

As for its features...well, it's lacking.

Without WiFi or 3G its useless. What's the point of having a smartphone without some measure of broadband internet access?

As for it competing against the Blackberry...good luck. For email capability, I doubt if Moto will be able to match the stability and usability of the Blackberry and the RIM network.

I agree with one of the above commenters...the thinness is just a gimmick. This is actually lagging behind the TREO in terms of release technology...yawn...the TREO already gave us similar features a while ago...

By the time this comes out, there will be at least a few good smartphones on the market with EVDO capability on CDMA networks, and it will be infinitely more valuable to have 3G access...and for email only, the Blackberry will still be a better solution...

[Julian Kay @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

Where's the shift key...?

[Rich @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

Wow, the comments about Blackberry not being buggy crack me up. If you have ever tried to run any additional apps on the BB's it is a nightmare.

As for a competitive service, check out Good Technology and their Goodlink. It's a better product that runs on any OS (Palm, MS, and soon Symbian) and is more secure than BES/BB. Also, you never have to cradle your devices, even during provisioning.

Notice that the big hardware manufacturers are all designing 'BB killers' (HP, Moto, Dell). It should be a fun battle with better choice of handsets/services for us!

[rick @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

i have a Razr...Razrberry, here I come.

[Shane @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

Who said tiny keyboard?? It is 'alledgedly' 6 millimetres wider than the Treo 650! If it were bigger, there would be complaints that it is too big!

[monal @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

to #31, I completely agree I have a few blackberries (one of which is a 7100t) and a treo 600(crap) which is running on Goodlink software. The Goodlink service It is definetly a big improvement in interface and dependibility over any blackberry OS. Too bad Good just doesnt have the name brand recognition that RIM is gettin.

[Vance @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

whoa, beautiful phone. Anyone know if the Moto's OS accepts Palm-style beaming? This might replace my Tungsten C if it can accept text beaming from my Neo.

I don't know what to think about the button size, though. I'm don't think I can deal with buttons smaller than the TC's.

[Victor @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

You know what should happen? Apple should enter the cell phone market.

I can see it now:
You could sync your contacts via BT
iChat Mini for texts and AIM mobile
Put a few songs with iTunes
An integrated 2 MP camera syncs with iPhoto
Mini Safari
Large hi-res LCD
Qwerty keyboard
Mini Mail to view and maybe send some emails.

Put it in a sexy, sleak shell like every other Apple product and you have a winner.

"Put a Tiger in your pocket!"

I would buy that. I don't have a cell phone, but that would definately put me in the market.

[gerbick @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

It's already taking forever for the iTunes phones to debut... an Apple phone. Bleh. And I actually use Mac products.

This looks hot. Horrible battery time is just the killing part of it though. Well that and buttons the size of a tic-tac. Big hand version one day, perhaps Moto?

[jg @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

this thing is close to perfect. the no wifi bothers me a lil bit but i'll live. windows mobile 5.0, blue tooth all in a 4 oz slick package you sold me!

[Jerry @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

is that a real picture of it?

[Rohith Thumati @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

I wonder if it's as fragile as the RAZR. Windows Mobile can't be too bad, at least compared with the RAZR's interface.
Does anyone know if Windows Mobile can sync up with a Mac?
As I understand it, mini-SD is not the same as SD, right? It's a smaller form factor, similar to TransFlash, I believe, so your SD cards won't fit in this.
I won't be in the market for a new phone for another year, when my contract runs out, but a Treo-style phone is what I'm going to go with next, but this looks very, very interesting. And considering it's about as tall and thick my current phone� just an inch wider� this is very much in the running. WiFi would put it over the top, though.

[acidreflux @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

Look at the depth on that baby! WOO-WEE!

This is my first crush in a long while, but if they slapped Palm OS on it, I WOULD be in love.

[psykokat @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

WHEN DOES IT COME OUT.

[Z @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

No WiFi? Square screen? No thanks. And I can't say that I care much for the keyboard. But the rest of the specs are pretty nice and the device looks good overall.

But I'm holding out for the HTC Universal.

[Cem @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

Wow, stunning design! WiFi would be nice though.

[gopi @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

Given the battery life of most Windows-based devices, I think it's amusingly appropriate that the screen shot shows one with a nearly dead battery :)

I like Wifi on my handhelds, but I do have a problem with the way WinCE often handles it: it makes it annoying to just try out a Wifi AP. It doesn't really give you a convenient way to check if one works, without first shutting down your GRPS connection.

In other words, it works just fine if you _know_ you have a good, stable 802.11 link, but is very frustrating if you're at the edges of the range or if you are looking to see if there is an open AP near you.

[strider_mt2k @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

It's pretty clear we all want WiFi.

Anyone NOT giving us WiFi is our enemy and should be crushed.

[Mike @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

#41
Missing sync for windows mobile, due before the end of the month from markspace.com. The old version worked pretty well for my Mpx200.

This looks great, but I'd like to see some functional design to make this thing more durable - like a G-shock version, or one without shiny chrome that picks up oil and looks like crap unless it's polished...

[Paul @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

That outward-tilting keypad scheme is patented by RIM - Motorola's either licensing it, or they're in for an expensive tooling change... Same thing happened with another well known smartphone.

[Mary Branscombe @ Dec 19th 2005 1:01AM]

Pocket PC not smartphone - look at the screen. See the Windows key? That means it's running Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC Phone Edition; the smartphone-style soft buttons are on Pocket PC Phone now. And those dimensions - that's barely smaller than the SPV M2000 I just measured. It's a very similar size to the HP Mobile Messenger. It's wider and taller than a BlackBerry 7100g and only a smidge less wide than a trad BlackBerry; the 11.5mm depth beats most things unless that's not including those bezelled edges when it's the same as the BlackBerry - and they have to fit two processors in there for Windows Mobile so it can't physically be the same as the RAZR. I look forward to more Windows Mobile devices with keyboards - we run our own Exchange server so we'll actually get the push email for WM5, which not all users will - but I don't think this will necessarily be sleek. Motorola does some fab phones, but its Windows Mobile phones have been on the chunky side.

And the HTC Universal is rather like a brick; all the keys are square, the same size and with the action of a boiled sweet. No differentiation between typing keys, action keys and modifiers.