Motorola bide its time to duplicate the success it had several years ago with its RAZR. One moment the RAZR was winning awards, and being the darling of all the media’s collective eyes. Then now, Motorola has just announced the future availability of three new mobile phones in its ROKR family: EM30, EM28 and EM25. The handsets target young consumers who want their handsets to pack lots of music related features.
The coolest one of the trio is the ROKR EM30. This phone uses Motorola’s ModeShift technology to illuminate the keyboard. When the phone is in music mode the keypad with controls for music are red. When the phone is in talk mode, the handset keys are blue. The EM30 also features a FM receiver built-in with RDS 4 technology for identifying the song and artists being played. The EM30 is also compatible with Windows Media Player 11 and has a 3.5mm headphone jack built-in.
Both the EM25 and EM28 pack in the same features, with the latter strutting its stuff in a clamshell and the former in a sharp slider frame.
The next up, the EM28, is a clamshell with touch sensitive media buttons on the front display for media control. Connectivity comes through the EDGE network, with around 250 mins music playback. A boring 1.3MP camera and expansion up to a paltry 2GB make this a phone for those on a budget but still want fancy controls. The EM28 also offers a 3D sound effect (whee) and 11 EQ presets for different music genres and up to 9 db of bass boost. The phone comes with Bluetooth 2.0, a 1.8-inch 128 by 160-pixel internal LCD (the external display is 96 by 80 pixels), and offers a WAP 2.0 browser.
The final handset, the EM25, is a slider with standard GSM connectivity. Coming in with a similar 2GB capacity to its clamshell brother, at least this one packs in 11 hours of music playback. Also present is a 1.3MP camera, with FM radio recording and the 3.5mm headphone jack. The handsets are designed for a global consumer base, and will be hitting the shelves later this year, so try and contain your excitement for a little while.
