Motorola prepping "last stand" 8 megapixel phone?

While our homeboy Boy Genius may not be quite as well-known for his Moto scoopage as he is for his streak of RIM leaks, we're totally intrigued by his report today that Moto is working on an 8 megapixel phone code named "Alexander" that's being internally described as the company's "last stand." The unit is said to feature an NVIDIA-sourced chipset for video and 3G graphics (Tegra, perhaps?), an integrated GPS chip, and "probably" running "UIQ 4.0 or higher." It's not confirmed whether it'll have a touchscreen or what the final form factor will be, but release is set for October, and BGR says that if it's a flop the Moto brass will give up and sell the company off. That's a lot of pressure -- but with Moto's struggles lately, we can't say there's much to lose by betting the company.

[phanbouy @ Jun 23rd 2008 3:31PM]

Well at least Moto don't have rim leaks.

[HektikLyfe @ Jun 23rd 2008 3:50PM]

Why is that? Have they been staying away from baked potato chips?

Padum pum.

But seriously, I really like my Rizr and my wife's Razr. Sure they haven't innovated in a long while but I compare those phones to those from other companies and they feel so flimsy. The Motorola phone's usually have a solid feel and intuitive interface. Provided you get your hands on the MPT.

I will still be going with the $200 3G iPhone though come July so I will never look back.

[PCIV @ Jun 23rd 2008 4:06PM]

Maybe if my first moto phone didn't crack it's screen, i wouldn't hate it so much... my PDA spends every day in my pants pocket, and it's perfectly fine, knock on wood.

[phanbouy @ Jun 23rd 2008 4:10PM]

@Hektik

yeah that was the joke... guess it was too dry =D

[Simon P @ Jun 23rd 2008 4:16PM]

Please man, for the love of god, avoid usage of "pants pockets" and "wood knocking" together in your next post

[Raiden @ Jun 23rd 2008 5:10PM]

When has Motorola ever made a successful camera phone? Hoping on big guns isn't going to save them at this rate, they should rather make another V3 type phone that'll sell bajillions and eat iphones for lunch

[maff @ Jun 23rd 2008 5:59PM]

Raiden, like the RAZR 2, that didn't hold up the company by any means? u don't kno jack!

[bonoriffic @ Jun 23rd 2008 6:55PM]

Wow the author of this article lacks basic reading comprehension skills. The phone is code named Alexander, not Dark Project. Any phone at Moto that has half a chance of being decent is designated as a Dark Project, meaning the ID is not published anywhere. A placeholder icon is used, and the majority of engineers working on the phone are unaware of the final design.

[CTC XBL-supapaypamawio PSN-ctclaw @ Jun 23rd 2008 3:39PM]

Moto deserves to fail after making the Razr. I had to use one as a temporary phone while a replacement Blackberry Pearl was coming in and it was horrible.

[HektikLyfe @ Jun 23rd 2008 3:51PM]

Why was it horrible? I have had nothing but good things to say about that phone. It had a great large screen. Relatively good reception and audio quality, a solid feel that didn't compromise with any added heft.

What didn't you like about it?

[ByronGman @ Jun 23rd 2008 4:15PM]

Both of you two are idiots....

The Razr and Blackberry should never be compared, as one is a productivity/smartphone and the other is pretty much a fashion statement.

[Kris @ Jun 23rd 2008 4:26PM]

ByronGman you're an idiot. No one compared them. He only said he had to use one as a temporary phone and it sucked.

I used a razr and would have to agree.

[insertAlias @ Jun 23rd 2008 4:32PM]

I'll add my sentiments. The Razr really sucked. Low volume, poor quality audio, stupid menus. My earpiece developed a horrible buzz after a few months.

Best move I ever made to get rid of it.

[CTC XBL-supapaypamawio PSN-ctclaw @ Jun 23rd 2008 4:33PM]

The whole menu interface just annoyed me...It might just be the fact that I was stuck with one that made me hate it so much, and to make it worse the idiotic t-mobile store gave me a chinese charger for it...WTF.

[Jason @ Jun 23rd 2008 5:29PM]

fwiw I was really happy with my circa 2005 RAZR. It was the plain original one too. For its time, the form-factor couldn't be beat (or duplicated for a while) and overall it was just a nice phone to use. It was far and away better than any moto phone I'd had before. My only complaints were the quality of the photos it took and a lack of really usable mobile connectivity (ie: web, email, etc).

I had a Sony-Ericsson T616 before the RAZR, and I just replaced the RAZR this past Christmas with an iPhone.

[ByronGman @ Jun 23rd 2008 6:30PM]

@ Kris

Whether or not you think the Razr sucked will depend on your priorities.

Obviously people who use Blackberries are looking for a good UI and productivity. Hence, saying the Razr sucked as a replacement for a Blackberry (and thus comparing them) does not make a lot of sense. Neither does defending a the Razr to someone like CTC, who won't have the same set of priorities for his phone:

"It might just be the fact that I was stuck with one that made me hate it so much"

I'll agree the Razr did have some shoddy features, but tell that to the thousands of teenagers who only cared about how it looked.

Qualitative standards (i.e. good/bad) can be measured according to a variety of scales, and my whole point is that these two were viewing the same product with different priorities in mind. That is an argument that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

[Roni Solomon @ Jun 23rd 2008 7:04PM]

I don't agree with that. I loved my first edition RAZR, for the time, its design, size and build were pretty impressive. The two issues I had with the RAZR were relatively minor; freezing due to massive amounts of saved text messages and the microphone died after over a year and a half of use. Now I have an LG eNV and it's totally the opposite. I love the functionality, but the phone is huge and bulky. I've also had more problems in the first three months of owning it than in the two years I owned my RAZR. I'm currently on my third replacement for the eNV, and I am pretty gentle with my gadgets. Somedays, I wish I still had my RAZR.

[Todd @ Jun 23rd 2008 3:42PM]

Whoa, wait. I thought Ryan Block took over as CEO at Motorola months ago?

http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/06/motorolas-cellphone-business-needs-a-new-leader-okay-im-in/

[Kris @ Jun 23rd 2008 4:26PM]

That's why they're about to fail.

[Kris @ Jun 23rd 2008 4:27PM]

That's why they're about to fail.

[Lowest Ranked @ Jun 23rd 2008 4:52PM]

Kris, I think you beat him to the punch.

[kinshadow @ Jun 23rd 2008 3:49PM]

Moto's biggest problem wasn't features or hardware, it was software enablement. Their UIs suck and their applications suck. Cramming in a 8MP camera, GPS, and '3G graphics' in won't make Moto not suck.

[Striker @ Jun 23rd 2008 3:58PM]

The Moto UI is great, it is fast, responsive, and has plenty of eye candy, and it is very logical and well designed. My RAZR V3xx is great.

[thatrotierkid @ Jun 23rd 2008 4:03PM]

...and yet i still flashed my verizon firmware back to the original motorola UI on my RAZR

o verizon when will you learn

[Jeff @ Jun 23rd 2008 5:51PM]

I agree with kinshadow. Moto's UI implementations are horrendously bad. (which is why i will never own one, and why my girlfriend is so terribly excited to get her iPhone and throw her razr in the garbage.)

[Rich @ Jun 23rd 2008 6:03PM]

UIQ 4.0 is not the default MOTO UI....

[Chris @ Jun 23rd 2008 10:22PM]

Striker: Are you practicing for a job at the Onion? Keep it up!

[JayC @ Jun 23rd 2008 3:50PM]

RIP Moto, I did enjoy my RAZR v3 years ago.

[Rich @ Jun 23rd 2008 3:50PM]

I hear UIQ 4 is a total copy of the iPhone interface. If Moto get this out in the next 6 months, it might be a contender.

[Craig @ Jun 23rd 2008 3:51PM]

The final phase of the deathwatch has begun...

[Don-Don @ Jun 23rd 2008 3:58PM]

This is just like how Squaresoft created Final Fantasy...

Take that to mean whatever you want.

[koresho @ Jun 23rd 2008 4:05PM]

If I'm not mistaken, I think this is how the RAZR came to be as well.

[kjb434 @ Jun 23rd 2008 5:36PM]

The RAZR was a make or break phone for Moto. There existing lineup (while having some good phones especially for Nextel) was not a high profit division. The RAZR changed all that. The head brass wanted every phone to meet this standard. So far it hasn't.

There are right back where they where before the RAZR came out.

[Haikibutsu @ Jun 23rd 2008 4:00PM]

I don't like the razr. My HTC startrek may be a bit thicker, but it actually has a nice UI, Windows Mobile.

I don't get what makes these phones so popular.

[Will @ Jun 23rd 2008 9:47PM]

They're a bit thinner

[aka_mr_make_it_rain @ Jun 23rd 2008 4:05PM]

Moto has been around forever and remember how innovative the razr was when it first came out. True they havent come close to that big of a product in years but dont think that they are out of the game quite yet i bet they still have a few tricks up their sleeve. either that or they will come out with a total p.o.s. phone and we can all say goodbye to phones with misspelled names of phones that are supposed to sound cool

[Jonathan Keim @ Jun 23rd 2008 4:07PM]

Make the above phone a smartphone and I will DEFINITELY check into it

[Rich @ Jun 23rd 2008 6:04PM]

If it's running UIQ, it IS a smartphone.

[ShogunMaster @ Jun 23rd 2008 4:09PM]

Sounds like Palms' battle strategy. They're putting all their eggs in their (fictional) new OS and hoping it will turn everything around for them. Hope it works out, but I'm not going to back to a Treo nor a Razr/Crazr/Lazr from Moto.

Though I still love that hot chick in the Razr commercials ;-)

Yumm....

[chainstay @ Jun 23rd 2008 4:16PM]

This will never ship. They will also not be able to sell Mobile Devices, it needs too much capital to stay afloat. They will simply shut it down and lay off somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 people. This will also happen sooner than later, much sooner.

The company is a disaster internally. I bet there are Moto PMs reading about this here for the first time and are sharpening their hatchets to kill it.

[Fernando @ Jun 23rd 2008 4:18PM]

Godspeed motorola, shush those naysayers, SHOW THAT YOU'RE STILL IN THE GAME!

[Striker @ Jun 23rd 2008 4:20PM]

We'll be saying the same thing once your IP gets banned.

[Michael @ Jun 23rd 2008 4:21PM]

Listen up moto. Here is an idea. iPhone has got the whole candybar smart phone thing down to a science. What is missing now is a really great flip phone. Doesn't have to be a waffer thin razr. But here are some things it should have.

1. Nice large 3" touch screen.
2. 3.5mm headphone jack
3. A really solid MP3 player that integrates with a desktop app for syncing. Not some POS desktop app either. We have to want to use this app for playing our music/videos even if we don't own the phone.
4. Video playback (xvid, H.264) with TV out.
5. Try using a real digicam sensor and not the type created for cell phones. Megapixels really don't matter when the quality is sh*t.Find a way to work out the power issues.
6. Full sized SDHC card slot
7. Priced maybe around $75-100 with contract.

[Zach @ Jun 23rd 2008 4:45PM]

...and make it shoot laser beams, and have a Batman-like grappling hook for scaling those tall buildings when you forgot your utility belt.

[Penguin @ Jun 23rd 2008 5:21PM]

Instead of making their own app. Why don't they just allow it to be synced using an app I already have. I don't like programs for each device. PLEASE!

[Marklar @ Jun 23rd 2008 4:24PM]

Mobible Devices is being spun off regardless of what this or any product does. The rest of the company (The government and enterprise side) is doing extremely well, you just wouldn't know it because of their down syndrome cousin thats losing billions a year.

This happened once before with Motorolas semiconductor business (OMG UR OLD MAC HAS A MOTOROLA CPU?) which became Freescale and they managed to survive it. Whether or not mobile devices can do the same thing remains to be seen.

You'll find out for sure by 2010.

[Steffen Jobbs @ Jun 23rd 2008 4:33PM]

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Palm you suck. It is too late for that last stand.

Apple kicks Palm and Engadgets arse.

[Zach @ Jun 23rd 2008 4:48PM]

ok riiigghhtt...........all your phone are belong to us! Palm? I thought this article was about Moto...I need more coffee I guess.

[Matt @ Jun 23rd 2008 4:52PM]

Good to see reading comprehension is alive and well.

[Leejin @ Jun 23rd 2008 4:36PM]

It'll still be another poopy Moto phone. Booo...