Speed and style are keywords as Motorola unveils its very first 1xEV-DO handset, offering blazing data transfer speeds and more. Michael Oryl reports from CES in Las Vegas.
Just in time for Verizon's announced roll out of its EV-DO data services upgrade to its network, Motorola brought out their new CDMA2000 1xEV-DO based E815. The E815 is an overhaul of the V710 that is currently being sold by Verizon, one of the few devices mobile network operator offers with Bluetooth.
The new E815 takes the basic specs of the V710 and adds the aforementioned EV-DO high-speed data services and a host of other upgrades. One such upgrade is the use of a new 1.3 megapixel imager in digital camera that Motorola says will deal with a lot of the issues people had with the V710's camera. The E815 should have more room for photos, too, with 40 MB of internal storage that can be augmented by inserting TransFlash memory cards. Sandisk, the memory specialist behind the format, claims that 256 MB TransFlash cards should be available within a few weeks.
Also upgraded is the ObeyMoto voice command/dial system of the V710 that was developed by VoiceSignal. The new version of the software eschews the use of voice prompts that ask for the desired command ("name dial"), contact name, and phone number type ("home") for a single "Call John Doe's Mobile Phone" type of English language command that is faster and more convenient.
Just as it has been doing with other recent models like the V635, Motorola has decided to upgrade the UI of the E815 to make use of the new skinnable system first seen on models like the E398. The new skinning system takes things a step beyond themes by actually reshaping the UI, not just applying new colors and graphics. The E815's camera UI does not make use of the new semi-transparent, auto-hiding effects offered in the V635, though, and instead keeps the existing UI from the V710.
A couple of obvious physical changes versus the V710 have also been made. For one, the V710's stylish but somewhat clumsy keypad design has been replaced with a far more traditional keypad that offers both better feel and action. The new E815 also sports a larger battery than does the V710. While it is only ever so slightly thicker than the older model's battery, it has about a third more power potential and should greatly extend the E815's standby and talk times.
The Bluetooth system that is in the E815 supports the Dial-Up Networking profile (DUN), but whether that profile will make it past carrier revisions remains to be seen. As of CES, Motorola was unwilling to say which carrier would be first to offer the device, but they did say that they expect to see it on the market during May of 2005 and that it probably will retail for about the same price as the V710 did when it was first launched.
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