Motorola exec reveals next-gen slimphone: the SCPL

Talk about a tease: Motorola's head honcho for cellphones, Ron Garriques, revealed the existence of an upcoming handset called the SCPL (that's scalpel, in case the lack of vowels made it unclear) during a recent company investment conference -- but kept all the important details to himself. All that's known about the SCPL (which we hope no one will mistake for the surgical tool pictured here), other than the obvious fact that it will be quite slim, is that it will sport five features that promise to set it apart from the pack -- which we'll take to mean WiMax, GPS, 3CCD HD camcorder, 30GB hard drive, and probably a DirecTV dish as well. At this point, we can't even say for sure that the SCPL is not the same as the supposed RAZR 2, or "Canary," that's been fluttering around recently, but whatever they're working on, we'll have to wait until next year to get our hands on one.

[Thanks, Shamste]

[Striggity @ May 24th 2006 3:14PM]

If, and only if, it comes w/ that 30GB hard drive and DirectTV dish..will I get one of these! ^-^

[Todd-self-proclaimed-iRiver-fan-boy @ May 24th 2006 3:20PM]

SCPL? Wow, that’s a horrible acronym. Very disapointing Moto. RAZR is fairly intuitive, SLVR lossed too many vowels, but rode on the coat tails of the RAZR. But SCPL is just lame.

A Google search for SCPL leads you to the Shelter Canadian Properties Limited website.

[Brian Baigorri @ May 24th 2006 3:28PM]

Bah... no good! Not enough memory! C'mon, if it has DirecTV, how much HD DVR can we possibly get from 30 gigs?!?! Useless!!

That said, I am actually interested to see what this next little baby is going to look like... Afterall, its design may predicat the trend for the rest of the market.

On a different note, I'm really liking the new black outline on the Engadget homepage. It makes it seem sleeker, more sophisticated, faster, and expensive, than the white bordered homepage.... kinda just like a certain apple product...

[Brian Baigorri @ May 24th 2006 3:30PM]

All of the sudden the black outline on my engadget page dissapeared!! Guess it was a glitch. Oh well, back to the same on mundane grey...

[tcc3 @ May 24th 2006 3:31PM]

Wsh Mtrl wld lrn sme vwls.

[Paul @ May 24th 2006 3:32PM]

Didn't The Daily Show have a joke about this too? Except theirs was The Motorola SHIV

[matt t @ May 24th 2006 3:35PM]

i remember a story about anothe phone called the SCPL a few months back. only it wasnt a smartphone, it was supposed to be a low-end SLVR but a few mm smaller.

[Don @ May 24th 2006 3:35PM]

This article is from Crain's Chicago Business that I remebered reading last year. It gives some minor details about SCPL.

http://chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/article.pl?article_id=23933

[adrian @ May 24th 2006 3:35PM]

"WiMax, GPS, 3CCD HD camcorder, 30GB hard drive, and probably a DirecTV dish as well"

I was in awe when I read that, but then I reread what engadget said, and frowned.

Just having a phone with WiMax will let me buy another phone (well, having a 30gb HD would help make that decision faster.)

[ketsugi @ May 24th 2006 3:48PM]

Shouldn't that be the CNRY?

[shirizaki @ May 24th 2006 4:30PM]

Why not just make a SWRD? Have the one glaring special feature:

-Theft Prevention

It can make calls, prevent crime, and dice vegetables.

Yummers! ^_^

[Los @ May 24th 2006 4:32PM]

Wait shouldn't it be SCLPL?

[garu @ May 24th 2006 4:42PM]

When are they going to release the BTCH?

[garu @ May 24th 2006 4:48PM]

Or the FCKR?

[Justice @ May 24th 2006 5:27PM]

Uhhh... old news, anyone?

http://www.engadget.com/2005/07/13/motorolas-new-scalpel-on-the-way/

[Master misChief @ May 24th 2006 6:22PM]

If only their software and user interface matched their product design !!

Until that time, I won't touch a Motorola phone. Pure dungcrap of a UI !!

[bliss @ May 24th 2006 6:53PM]

#13 hit the spot... good design only goes so far with poor UI.

[willgood @ May 24th 2006 7:40PM]

i dont believe any of that and if they managed to stick all that shit into a phone slimmer than the slvr then it would.... actually thats impossible

[willgood @ May 24th 2006 7:41PM]

..jk!

[Jeff @ May 24th 2006 7:47PM]

I'm waiting for the XACTO.

[someone @ May 24th 2006 8:02PM]

Um, just for clarification (that's CLRFCTN in case any Motorola people are reading this), the whole "WiMax, GPS, 3CCD HD camcorder, 30GB hard drive, and probably a DirecTV dish" was sarcasm unless I'm very much mistaken.

[Dull @ May 24th 2006 9:39PM]

& their next music/smart phone will be called nsync....

[Tim @ May 24th 2006 9:47PM]

What Motorola really needs to do is use their SCPL during their brain surgery. I mean seriously...SCPL?

[Dean @ May 25th 2006 1:08AM]

What is this, shitty name month?
Come on! One cock-up of "Wii" proportions was enough.
Moto, save this BSHT for June. We're fed up.

[Joe Mobile @ May 25th 2006 1:51AM]

You guys are all suckers. You really think the commercial name for this phone will be SCPL? Motorola, like all companies, uses internal code names for products before marketing get hold of them. And did you ever hear Zander himself refer to anything Scalpel in the Crain article? No...

[Joe @ May 25th 2006 2:44AM]

I hope it's a codename, but I think Canary sounds more like a codename than SCPL. SCPL follows their commercial naming scheme which leads me to believe that that would be the real name. Scalpel maybe would be the codenname. Why would they use their commercial abbreviation scheme for codennames?