Motorola ROKR E8 Preview

Motorola has taken the wraps off a new Linux-based phone with a strong focus on music, the ROKR E8.

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This device will be one of the first using a mobile version of Linux put together by the LiMo Foundation.

The E8 was on display this week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, and Brighthand's Kevin O'Brien was able to spend some time with it.

He said:

Motorola did not hold anything back when it wanted to design a portable music player that could also act as a phone.

This device includes a semi-circle scroll wheel for quickly searching file folders, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and direct access media keys to easily dive into music wherever.

When inside the media player, the standard number keys vanish, leaving only media functions, to clear away any distractions. The music searching interface worked quite well using the scroll wheel, letting you make quick movements to move past a few items, or hold your finger to the edge to make it scroll continuously. My only complaints with the interface were the surface controls that were more difficult to operate than standard buttons, needing more force to trigger than a normal button.

Going beyond the user controls, the display on this phone was incredibly bright. While many phones on the show floor had to be shrouded away from the intense ceiling lamps to be usable, this phone was easily readable even with tons of glare.

Hopefully all of these features won't add up to a phone with a short battery life, since any MP3 player worth its weight in plastic needs to work for an extended period of time.

Video Preview

An Overview of the Motorola ROKR E8

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The E8 will offer ModeShift, a user interface that eliminates confusing "button clutter" so users see only the buttons they need when they need them. In addition, the virtual buttons will provide Haptic feedback.

It will marks the debut of the FastScroll navigation wheel from Motorola, a variable-speed touch control that lets consumers scroll through all of the content stored on the device. With a slide of the thumb, the wheel can scroll through music, contacts, calendar, or multimedia content.

Naturally, a phone with a multimedia focus like this one will require a decent amount of storage capacity. The E8 includes 2 GB of internal memory and a microSD card slot for additional storage.

The device will be compatible with Windows Media Player 11 on a desktop PC, which also provides access to more than 200 online music stores. Music can be transfered quickly with USB 2.0.

The ROKR E8 will be a quad-band GSM phone, but be limited to only GPRS and EDGE when accessing the Web. It will include stereo Bluetooth, though.

It will also come with a built-in 2.0-megapixel camera.

According to unconfirmed reports, T-Mobile will launch this device in the next few months.