Motorola makes PEBL-ish U9 official

It's real! Motorola has made official its latest PEBL-esque device -- though there's no actual PEBL branding to be found on this one -- the U9. Think of the U9 to the original PEBL what the V8 and V9 are to the original RAZR, rocking Motorola's "CrystalTalk" noise reduction tech, microSD expansion, and a 2 megapixel camera. Media's the focus here with support for syncing with Windows Media Player 11; WMA, MP3, AAC, AAC+, and AAC+ enhanced files are all good to go, while the stereo Bluetooth support and "floating" external display with touch sensitive controls certainly don't hurt. Look for it to hit in the fourth quarter of the year in Asia, Latin America, and Europe. No North American release plans have been outed at this point, but it's a quadband GSM / EDGE phone, so we'd expect to find its way onto importers' shelves (and probably Motorola's own online store) right quick.

[Johnathon Zirkle @ Oct 11th 2007 12:32PM]

Looks pretty sweet. I'm liking the floating screen bit. Great work like always!

[Xavier Gill @ Oct 11th 2007 1:42PM]

They copied that from Sony - http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_ericsson_z610-review-110.php

If that was an Apple product I was linking to I suspect Engadget would be ramming the similarities down our throats...

[Johnathon Zirkle @ Oct 11th 2007 1:45PM]

Looks to me like they have improved on the idea though. Screen seems a little better. Thanks for the link though, I didn't know about that one!

[yacoub @ Oct 11th 2007 12:39PM]

Is that hinge asking for a snapping or what? Design looks flimsy and will be flexed more than one where the top piece lies perpendicular to one's ear instead of angled toward it.

[nikster @ Oct 16th 2007 6:57AM]

I wouldn't dare to judge that until I held it in my hands. Moto has many flaws but building flimsy phones is not one of them. It's pretty unlikely Moto would screw up that part of the design - they have done plenty of folding phones after all.

These actually look pretty ... dare I say it ... nice! And if Moto didn't have a 100% record for crap software on their phones I would consider getting one.

[L @ Oct 11th 2007 12:45PM]

The hinge is a bit weird, but other than that it is pretty sweet and quite small...

[PJ @ Oct 11th 2007 1:09PM]

Unless the price is relatively low, this will suffer the same fate of the U6 PEBL. No differentiation from the V8 RAZR2 other than design. Same 2MP camera, same WMP 11 support, same external touch controls, prob exsct same OS. This is why the U6 did so poorly, it was a majorly overpriced RAZR with a smoother design.

[nikster @ Oct 16th 2007 6:59AM]

xcept it's not fugly and huge like the razr... i like this infinitely better than the razr.

[Phil Perman @ Oct 11th 2007 1:24PM]

Does this have the same opening mechanism? If not they've removed the best feature of the original. I own one and find it a lot nicer to use than regular flip phones.

[beyond vision @ Oct 11th 2007 1:33PM]

has anyone ever tried skipping one of these things on water? if so how many jumps?

[mike @ Oct 11th 2007 1:37PM]

oh god yes, I want to wear it around like a hat

[Jake Geiser @ Oct 11th 2007 3:12PM]

Maybe the U5 will be the cdma variant of this...

[Joey Geraci @ Oct 11th 2007 3:18PM]

AAC, AAC+, and AAC+ Enhanced???

[Naveed @ Oct 11th 2007 9:34PM]

i really liked the the material of the shell on the old pebl. i wish more electronics used that material. durable and scratch proof

[Matthew Woodward @ Oct 12th 2007 7:53AM]

In fact the official uk Motorola shop (www.motorola-shop.co.uk) and the U9 listed for sale on tuesday but it got taken down