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FCC likes Motorola's low-end KRZR clone
We reckon there's probably a good market in this country for cheap KRZR knockoffs -- phones that maintain the essence of the phone's high style, while offing the unimportant stuff. Who better to follow through on the vision than Moto itself? Of course, we're not entirely sure whether the low-end W210 will ever find its way to the US or whether it'll be relegated to servicing the needs of the world's emerging markets, but doesn't it seem like the sleek little CDMA flip would do brisk business on, say, Virgin Mobile or Verizon INphone? The lack of an external display might be a bummer, but status icons pick up at least some of the slack and it should sport a variety of shell colors when it launches. The FCC approval here gives us at least a sliver of hope that Motorola would like to sell a few of these statside, so we'll stay positive for the interim.Update: So, it turns out this isn't a W210; it's closer to a W220 in appearance, but packing CDMA instead of GSM. The user's manual on the FCC site conspicuously leaves the model number out, so it's anybody's guess what this thing might be called.
Samsung's dual-personality SCH-W210 with S-DMB
For some, "EV-DO Rev. 0 versus UMTS" and "EV-DO Rev. A versus HSDPA" are the eternal questions when it comes to picking one's 3G poison. Samsung, on the other hand, seems to be asking what we think is the right question: why not both? The SCH-W210 slider preferentially rolls on HSDPA for video calling goodness, but when roaming outside of the coverage area, EV-DO is used as a fallback (ha, EV-DO as a "fallback," that's a good one) so high-speed data is never too far away. Features include an S-DMB receiver, QVGA display, 2-megapixel rear and VGA front cams, microSD expansion, and TV out. We don't expect this thing to find its way too far outside South Korean borders, but we can dare to dream.
Motorola launches Motomobile brand with low-enders
Looks like Moto's slipped us another couple of low end phones (and a new brand) this week at CommunicAsia, the W220 (which we've already seen), and the W210 -- the CDMA and GSM versions of the same device, so far as we can tell. Much like the W170, W208, and W375 we saw announced this week, these two should also have about two weeks of standby time and an FM radio. More interesting than the phones, however, is the new brand they're rolling out in conjunction with them: MOTOMOBILE (say, shouldn't that be MOTOMOBL?). Aimed at "connecting the next billion" -- referring, of course, to the 2 billion mark just reached by GSM phones -- we can surely expect to see hordes of cheapy, low-margin MOTOMOBL phones in the future.[Via RCR]
