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Motorola rolls out the mediocre W series phones, creates a ripple of silence
Motorola has apparently decided that the stripped-down, low-end market of the mobile phone industry was being neglected, and today they've announced a slew of new, totally regular handsets: the W156, W160, W206, W213, W165, W180, and W377. Just how regular are these things, you ask? Well, let's just say at least one of them actually has a black-and-white display. It seriously looks like Motorola had to clear out some backstock of old parts, but what do we know? Here's a breakdown of the new models and their "features" -- see if you can spot the trends: W156 / W160: Candybar form-factor, 128 x 128 black-and-white display, 20K onboard memory, quad-band GSM, FM radio (W160 only), speakerphone, 590 minutes of talk time, 465 hours of standby W175 / W180: Candybar form-factor, 65K 128 x 128 display, 70K onboard memory, quad-band GSM, FM radio (W180 only), 590 minutes of talk time, 465 hours of standby W206 / W213: Candybar form-factor, 65K 128 x 128 display, 1MB onboard storage, quad-band GSM, FM radio (W213 only), speakerphone, 525 minutes of talk time, 384 hours of standby W377: Clamshell form-factor, 128 x 160 "vibrant" color screen, tri-band, VGA camera with 4 x zoom, FM radio, 10MB onboard memory, 450 minutes of talk time, 250 hours of standby
Motorola busts out slew of low-end candybars
From our "never have so many handsets collectively interested us so little" department come these six gems, all Moto candybars from the low-end "W" line that are presumably destined primarily for emerging markets. We've yet to see any press releases detailing exactly what Motorola intends to do with these, but the imagery in its media database pretty much says it all; heck, two of the six even have monochrome displays (and no, they aren't e-ink, either). Four of the handsets -- the W156, W160, W175, and W180 -- do at least carry over the F3's wedge-shaped slim design, while the last two, the W206 and W213, look like they're straight outta 2003. We'll pass on this bunch, but if you want to send us a GSM 850 / 1900 MOTOFONE, guys, be our guest!
