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Home / Cell phones / Business smartphones / CES 2009
Motorola MotoSurf A3100 social smartphone begs to be touchedBy Philip Berne, 6 January 2009
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Motorola MotoSurf A3100
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Motorola MotoSurf A3100
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Motorola MotoSurf A3100
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Motorola MotoSurf A3100
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Motorola MotoSurf A3100
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Motorola MotoSurf A3100
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The new Motorola MotoSurf A3100 is an all-touch tablet powered by Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional. Will we ever see it stateside?

Motorola today announced the Motorola MotoSurf A3100, an all-touch social smartphone so simple in its design that Motorola has taken to calling it a "touch tablet". The Motorola MotoSurf A3100 is a rounded design with a dominating touch screen and a trackball at the bottom, making this one of the first phones we've seen with that input combo.

Inside, the Motorola MotoSurf A3100 uses Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional for access to personal and corporate e-mail, documents, etc. Like many other manufacturers today, Motorola has pinned its own home screen and interface ideas on top of Windows Mobile. Motorola is saying that the customizable icon-based interface, which uses a carousel design (similar to Sprint's One Touch?), takes advantage of widget technology to offer continuous "live" feeds, with weather, news and calendar events. There will even be a Facebook app to connect with friends and update your status, as well as a YouTube video playback app.

For hardware specs, the Motorola MotoSurf A3100 is no slouch. The smartphone uses tri-band HSPA (7.2Mbps for downloads and 2Mbps for uploads). It also has the correct radio bands for AT&T's 3G network, but this seems more like an international import than a carrier phone. Without a firm carrier commitment, we have a sneaking suspicion this phone will never make it stateside.

The Motorola MotoSurf A3100 also features aGPS for navigation, Wi-Fi for browsing with the included Opera Web browser and a 3-megapixel camera with auto focus. It's also got a front-facing VGA camera for 3G calls. Furthermore, the included stylus means the Motorola MotoSurf A3100's 2.8-inch QVGA screen will use resistive touch technology, instead of the more finger-friendly capacitative touchscreen technology.

The Motorola MotoSurf A3100 will be available in Asia and Latin America during the first quarter of 2009. Stay tuned for our hands-on impressions of the Motorola MotoSurf A3100 in the coming days.

Motorola MotoSurf A3100 specifications:

Talk and Standby Time 
 GSM Talk Time – Up to 6.8 hours 

 GSM Standby Time – Up to 12.4 days 
 
Bands/Modes 
 GSM: Quad-Band EDGE/GPRS
 WCDMA: HSDPA 7.2 850/1900/2100 Triband
 
Weight 
 119g 
 
Dimensions 
 110x59.7x13.7mm 
 
Battery 
 1170mAh 
 
OS
 Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional  
 
Connectivity 
 USB 2.0 HS, Stereo Bluetooth wireless technology with A2DP2 
 
Display 
 2.8" QVGA with Touch Panel 
 
Messaging 
 MMS, SMS, Multi-Head IM, Email [Exchange] 
 
Audio 
 AMR, MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA, MIDI 
 
Video 
 MPEG-4, H.263, H.264 & WMV playback support,
 .3GP and .MP4 file playback support,
 H.263 capture support 
 
Camera 
 3 megapixel auto focus, VGA secondary camera 
 
Memory 
 256MB Flash, 128MB RAM, MicroSD up to 32GB 
 
Chipset 
 Qualcomm MSM 7201A 
 
Software 
 Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional 
 
Form Factor 
 Touch tablet smartphone 
 
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