When Motorola first showed the A1010 at this year's 3GSM World Congress in February, initial reactions were quite positive. An evolutionary device, most of the criticism targeted towards the A1010 regarded its somewhat angular design (yes, I'm being nice) and the apparent lack of UIQ 3.0. Stumbling across the A1010 yet again at this year's CeBIT, I was plesantly surprised to discover Motorola has been hard at work incorporating feedback post-3GSM.
Now sporting a more rounded design in line with previous communicators in the A1000 series, the first sanely-sized range of 3G communicators, the A1000 actually looks rather nice. Oddly, it appears larger than its predecessor, for which I cannot find any particular reason - but it may also very well be that my memory is playing tricks on me as I didn't have the opportunity to conduct a side-by-side comparison.
To boast a wide range of advanced features, the A1010 wil be powered by the Symbian OS based UIQ platform, however slightly disappointingly so by version 2.1 as opposed to the new version 3.0 as confirmed by Motorola at CeBIT. The device is navigated by means of its touch screen, offering a broad suite of basic tools which include PIM management as well as comprehensive messaging and telephony features.
In addition, the A1010 will also offer VPN support, push e-mail, Internet browsing and instant messaging, as well as software for viewing and editing Microsoft Office file formats including Excel, Word and PowerPoint; as well as Adobe Acrobat Reader (PDF) documents.
Also present in the A1010 is memory expansion, courtesy of the TransFlash format which since 3GSM World Congress has been adopted by the SD Card association and is to be renamed microSD. A less than ideal choice given the A1010's inclusion of a 2 Megapixel camera, microSD is likely to retain a higher price-per-MB ratio than similar formats such as SD and miniSD.
Any remaining functionality in the A1010 remains top secret for now, but I was able to get a confirmation that despite persistant rumours among my peers at the 3GSM World Congress, the A1010 will not have support for Wi-Fi - which is fortunately less important in a 3G-enabled device than one with sole support for GPRS or CDMA2000 1xRTT.
Wi-Fi or not, however, Motorola won't have much time to bring the A1010 to a state where it can be previewed to the press, however, as it's slated for availability some time in the fourth quarter.
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