Motorola’s last stand: Sir Alexander, the 8 megapixel camera phone
One of our Motorola ninjas hit us up to give us the low-down on their brand new unreleased flapship phone. It was described to us as being Motorola’s “last stand”, so to speak. Internally, everyone is hedging their bets on this bad boy, and if this doesn’t get accepted like Motorola hopes it will, it’s all over for them. Then again, it’s been all over for them for a while now, no? In any case, the specs on the phone codenamed Alexander are:
- Originally a 5 megapixel camera, but possibly scrapped since the ZN5 is out. It looks like it’s going to be an 8 megapixel camera phone. At least that’s what is floating around in the R&D labs…
- The device will have a built-in NVIDIA chip which will handle both video and 3D graphics.
- It will have GPS
- It might possibly be a touch screen but that has not been confirmed to us just yet.
- The phone is rumored to run UIQ as the OS, “probably version 4.0 or higher.”
- It’s called a “Dark Project” phone because of the secrecy surrounding it. Well, that worked out really pretty good.
- Release right now is set for October, but as always, that could change.
- Again, this is said to be Moto’s last big attempt at getting back their market share and reclaiming victory. If this doesn’t work out, we’re told it’s all over for them and they will sell the company.
How many RAZRs does it take to save Motorola? Apparently way more than 100M.
Moto is still alive! And it R.A.P. , not R.I.P. Motorola is the best cell phones company.And Alexander will be the best phone of the whole world! It’s a pity the company doesn’t really develop LinuxJava platform, but at least UIQ 4 will be the most powered platform on mobile devices. Also companionship with KODAK increases the potential of cameras in motophones. If in the Zine5 there is a RAW format , I cannot imagine what feautures will be in the Alexander. Nvidia chip makes this phone the most powerful in mobile 3Dgraphic and video. I think that there will be the TV-tuner in this phone. Motorola also makes the best productivity of it’s phones, and this phone won’t be exception.I also hope, that music opportunities of Alexander will be also on very high level. Motorola – the best , and don’t argue! Its last creature will stand in memories of lots of people!
if motorola doesnt release the zn5 & this 8 megapixel phone in america they’re done. we are motorola’s biggest market
You need to check your leaks better because this one is confused. There is an Alexander, but it is a mass market phone.
This may be another phone out of Europe, but even than some of it is wrong. Why put in a NVidia chip, use the OMAP3430 and get the same results and more. Using a seperate graphics chip is for phone 2-3 years ago.
As for some of the comments, some people need to learn more before posting. UIQ is from Motorola and SEMC. Nokia uses S60.
Someone else asked if GPS is a feature, when something is in less than 15% of phones it is. As for being late with a touch screen, Motorola had one first (MING) they just have lousy marketing and didn’t bring it to the US.
The person that talked about the ‘one-hit wonder’ issue got it right. Motorola is to concerned with coming out with iconic phones that the between periods are dead.
Good attempt! It would at least help Motorola to win back some market share in the mobile industry. Good luck Moto!
October release?
Did you mean to say, to be announced in October, translation: available Fall 2009, by which time Samsung and LG will have released five dozen brand new models with most of the new Moto features and more…
… and iPhone 3.0 too.
(sigh…)
One clarification…
It is completely false that “Alexander” is MOTO’s last bet..it will seriously be a top notch phone..
Just read reviews of ZN5…u can imagine how good further phones cud be..
I know of atleast 10 -15 phones in their lineup for another year starting ZN5..and they are ..
Remeber my word..when u see them in pic eventually some time later…ur jaws will drop!!
The design of these phones are too good..
I guesss the lean periods this year was used to design & develop new phones..
MOTO will be back!!
Exciting. My first and last Moto phone was the ROKR E6. It was a cool phone. Though I was not totally happy with its MP3 player (lacks volume). I replaced it with the LG Viewty, and believe me or not, I wished I kept my E6. I was so unhappy with the Viewty, so I decided to go for the King (N95 8gb), but somehow, that Moto E6 really impressed me for its price and performance and still think that it was a cool phone. If Moto produces a phone than can equal the N95 in features, I will have no 2nd thoughts of getting one. To Motorola, go for VGA with high resolution display, and make it at least 2.8, but 3.2 even better. Full qwerty is always good, preferrably hardware. And use more metal casing than plastic. 5mp is actually enough. Make sure it can play & record videos for 30fps. Include, Wifi, FM w/ RDS, snappy browser w/ pre-installed YouTube application, at least 8gb of internal memory with an additional card slot & an intuitive calendar application. Have all that, and you will beat the rest.
The nVidia chip is powerful enough to save them, if it’s used correctly, but I don’t have faith in UIQ. As Tegra’s just a hardware platform anything can be written to run on it, but UIQ’s just too hokey. Apple has OS X (friggin Unix), and Windows is MS. The hot phones are marching towards real general purpose computers, and I can’t help but think sticking with UIQ over Windows Mobile would be the final nail in their coffin. I respect it as a phone OS, but only as that, and that’s becoming history.
As much as I’d LOVE to have a Tegra, and as much as I’d love to not buy Apple (the vendor lock-in king), I’m probably gonna get an iPhone 3G this week. Now that they’re jailbroken, of course :]
However if this is a reality I might just get one of them too
I believe this may actually be a good thing for consumers. As Motorola is going out of business, they have certain assets and developments they are willing to use in order to save their division. Out of desperation alone, we might see a very fairly priced, highly spec’d phone. Using the UIQ interface, it will be compatible with far more software. If we were to see an Xperia competitor, I guarantee Motorola will still go out of business and we will likely have a phone to buy for a good price. If they release some messiah phone to fill the boots off the RAZR, I guarantee that I will not buy one. It depends on how the UIQ is implemented and whether it is easily approached by the public. Marketing also doesn’t hurt.
@rileyfreeman I honestly think that you are deranged. First off, you should not be posting on BGR about your opinion if you are not educated enough to know where UIQ is from. You cannot comment about something if you are ignorant to it’s implementation, origin, and functionality. BTW, we are speaking of Sony Ericsson and Motorola joint venture. Motorola has just used it in far less phones, especially after their first failure in touchscreen phones using it. Motorola has a 50% steak so they don’t get it from anyone but themselves.
Secondly, perhaps equally jaw dropping is your immediate comparison of an in-development phone to a released phone. That would be similar to me comparing an Panoz Roadster to the Ariel Atom 500. “Sure the Panoz is a car… and released with set specifications from… ‘whenever’, but the Atom 500 is a prototype in development and so much better with the highest HP to weight ratio of any production car! So much better!!!” You sound like a fool and it sickens me to read your post reply. My solution, to not read it and never comment on a stupid post again.
To all other replies: Please do not comment out of your rear. It is a waste of space and time.
Mel Gibson played in Braveheart not Alexander the Great.:P
Alexander is based on Windows Mobile 6
That’s too bad. Motorola is responsible for the invention of the first succesful cellular cellphone standard and its associated commercialization of the system.
They have brought many excellent phones onto the market, much more durable and reliable than all that Scandinavian and Far-East crap.
And the Razr is truly an engineering marvel, the best phone I have ever owned. The Razr concept has now been copied by all the followers like Samsung, LG and Nokia. So much for originality, just a bunch of cowardish copycats. And that dumb iPhone? I won’t be caught by one of those silly things DEAD.
As usual, our US based industry comes up with great innovations, and the rest of the world copies all our stuff while hijacking our markets with unfair trade practices (like: They can sell anything they want on our markets, but we are being sabotaged all the way when we try to penetrate their markets).
And you know what bothers me most? All those “good patriotic Americans” I found on these blogs, undermining our own industry with their unfair rands. Bunch of traitors, why don’t you move to Eurotrash country if you like their crap so much.