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Motorola's i95cl
thefalconer writes "MSNBC has a very detailed article about Motorola's new all-in-wonder phone offered by Nextel. It is a PDA, has a Walkie-Talkie, phone, web browser, instant messaging, addressbook, it has a high resolution Color LCD screen, and it's running on a Java Based OS! It even comes in a variety of styles and colors just to your taste. There is so much to this phone that it makes you ask "how'd they get all that, into this tiny little thing?" Makes me want to ditch my old phone for one of these right now!"
I have an i85s and aside from the color and the flip phone form factor, it has almost the same specs as the i95...The color is a big thing from implemenation standpoint, but not so much from usability. Unless they've made great strides in the UI design, the thing won't work that well as a PDA...I don't think any phone can be a good PDA without either a touchscreen or qwerty keyboard.
Just my $0.02
~Adam
SPAM
.... from four months ago...
Motorola's i95cl Press Release
- HeXa
give me C or give me death!
Would unemployment do instead? You fool, the Java programs for EMBEDDED systems are compiled down to machine instructions. It's part of the CLDC (j2me) package. Your comments were about the j2se package (and are incorrect, considering the new jit technologies in Tiger and JDK1.4).
It's like running your mouth off about flaws in Fortran 77 when the conversation is about Fortran 90. Read a little more about j2me before you ask for death, ok pal?
Motorola i95cl
... battery life seems to be its most apparent weakness. My LG VX1 / TM-520 is rated at 180 min talk / 110h standby from the standard battery.)***
:-)
General Features
* Color Display
* Voice Recorder
* Speakerphone
* Voice Activation
* Multi-Language Support
* Time & Date Display
* SIM Card Operation
* Custom Styles Settings
* Pre-Installed Software Applications
* JAVA(TM) 2 Micro Edition Capable**
SLIM BATTERY: 19g, up to 2h talk time, up to 45h standby
EXTENDED BATTERY: 33g, up to 3.33h talk time, up to 75 standby.
(hmmm
Digital Cellular Phone Service
* Voice Activated Dialing
* 250 Entry Phonebook
* Quickstore Phone Numbers
* Last 20 Recent Call List*
* Turbo Dial® one-touch dialing
* VibraCall® alert
Digital Two-Way Radio
* One-Touch Private & Group Call
* Quickstore Private IDs
* Built-In Speaker
Message Service
* Consolidated In-Box Storage
* Voice & Message Mail Indicators
* Time & Date Stamp*
Data Capable*
* Software Download Capability
* Internet Access Services
* T9® Text Input for Fast Entry
Performance Specifications
* Dimensions: 90mm X 50mm X 28mm with Slim Battery
* Weight: 154.4g
* Power 600mW typical
* Frequency Range:
Tx 806 - 825 Mhz/Rx 851-870 Mhz
* Channel Spacing: 25 kHz
* Channel Access: TDMA
* Operating Temperature: -10C to + 60C
* Storage Temperature (Radio Only): -40C to + 85C
Specifications are typical and subject to change.
* Network and subscription dependent feature not available in all areas.
** Visit www.motorola.com/idenupdate for a list of downloadable software applications.
*** I was not paid by LG to type that
I have been living in Japan for a couple weeks and this article made me laugh. Third Generation cell-phones are very, very popular in The Land of the Rising Sun. A standard 3G phone comes with a hi-res color LCD, built-in camera, e-mail, decent sound, and lots of other stuff along with almost flawless service. Oh and all of this is about $150. The pink models with photo-stickers and custom flashing antennas added by their users are admittedly cute. =( In comparison to what I have seen in Japan, this Motorola model is bulky, ugly, boring, and overpriced. Anyway, the bottom line is the MSNBC article seemed naive to me, but I would love to see Third Generation cell-phones become popular in America and see the prices of these go down.
Oh and don't worry about the typing. Some Japanese people can get up to 100 kanji characters per minute which I would say is equivalent to 70-80 English words per minute. Granted, these are people who win thumb-typing contests, but if one were to have good word recognition software and a little practice, typing on a keypad would become much easier and usable for lengthy messages.
http://www.sonyericsson.com/cebit/p800.htm
I am suprised no one has mentioned this yet as this appears to be the first truly killer integrated solution to come along. Phone sized, with a decent display, bluetooth, java, gprs, camera, memory expansion and lots more rolled up in a symbian (psion) os.
--- I do not moderate.
You're obviously very old (at least 24) and from a country that hasn't had SMS for very long. You've got to check out the teens in Europe who all have cell phones and GSM service with SMS. They use it like crazy because they're all using pre-paid accounts and SMS is cheaper then a call. They can type with both thumbs on a normal telephone keypad faster than I can probably type on a normal keyboard. You've got to see it to believe it.
-Russ
Me
Time Division Multiple Access means taking a slice of spectrum, subdividing it into even more slices, and then subdividing each slice into different time slots. Each phone making an active call is given a time slot and spectrum sub-slice, which typically changes each time the time slot is used (so that the phone isn't transmitting on the same frequency all the time which helps eliminate static conditions - where one misaligned phone permanently screws up the calls of neighbours, for instance.)
You can already see there are a lot of variables. How large are the spectrum subslices? I don't remember the details off hand, but IIRC it's something like 30KHz for "TDMA" (IS-136, etc) and a much larger slice for GSM. GSM splits the time slot into 64 slots, IIRC, carrying 8 "calls" per spectrum sub-slice, whereas for IS-136 etc it's something like 18, carrying three calls per spectrum sub-slice. And, all importantly, what is the encoding used? Splitting the frequency and time space is one thing, but there's always the question of what types of waveform you transmit - FSK, MFM, etc. A V.21 modem doesn't use a transmission protocol remotely similar to a V.32 modem, and the same sorts of differences apply to how your mobile phone works. This is becoming more of a concern recently now that Ericsson has developed "EDGE". EDGE keeps most of the details above the same for GSM, but massively increases the bitrate, simply through using a different type of waveform.
A phone that offers both IS-136/etc functionality and GSM needs either a special chipset developed or needs to have chipsets for both underlying systems installed on the radio side of the phone. You wouldn't be able to, say, change the firmware on a GSM phone and expect it to work on an IS-136/etc network.
I think part of the confusion here is that there's a lot of CDMA advocates around, who have "Amiga-fan" syndrome, where they'll simply accuse everything other than CDMA, as Qualcomm implements it (IS-95 and cdmaOne), of being the "same" technology and attribute GSM faults to IS-136 and vice-versa, because of emotion rather than logic (anyone who saw the Amiga wars during the early 90s has an idea of what I'm talking about, where the Amiga was the "only" computer that multitasked and only it had shared libraries and... and...)* Anyone who's used all three types of phone (cdmaOne/IS-95, IS-136/D-AMPS/"TDMA", and GSM) will know that there are radical differences between all three systems, but people who haven't still believe things like GSM and IS-136 have the same voice quality, that the underlying systems work the same way, etc.
It would save AT&T and Cingular wireless, both of whom are switching to GSM, a huge dollop of money were it true. Upgrading their base stations to support GSM would be a simple matter of loading new firmware.
(* Note: I loved the Amiga to death and thought it genuinely was superior. "CDMA", IS-95, on the other hand, suffers from having relatively lousy functionality compared to GSM, call quality is roughly equivalent and call reliability seems poor, on Sprint PCS's network at least. I wouldn't use a PDA phone with something that doesn't support personal mobility, which makes GSM the only choice for me right now. GSM is starting to support a variety of underlying transport layers, including EDGE and a CDMA-based system [not compatable with IS-95], which we'll start seeing in newer phones as 3G begins to take hold.)
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I am a user and administrator for our company's Nextel account. The biggest selling point for the Nextel/Motorola phones is the direct connect feature. What they don't tell you is that this is that you can only use this "radio feature" in your local calling area. Users do not have the ability to connect across the country (USA). Or even in the next State in some sections of the country. Our office is based in Connecticut, but we cannot communicate via the "radio" to our field personnel miles down the road in Rhode Island or Massachusetts. Users are restricted to using the phone to communicate. However the Internet part will work anywhere that there is service.
I have been told by people working inside Nextel that the Direct Connect radio feature will be available beyond local calling areas next summer. I also read this in one of Nextel's brochures I received the other day. This will be a big plus for their service.
Check this out, a $399 Motorola i95cl gets you:
- A color display, with no programmable color themes, no picture caller ID and no image upload. (maybe in an upgrade they say.)
- A nice Java Virtual Machine with some downloadable applications from Mot/Nextel.
- Two-way, and the rest of the Nextel iDEN features.
But, a $199 Sony Ericsso T68i on AT&T gets you:- Bluetooth AND Infrared.
- GPRS and a color graphic-supported microbrowser.
- A color display with uploadable themes, images, ringers, animations, screen savers.
- Killer talk and standby times
- Synchronization capable
Anyways, I just ordered a T68i from AT&T Wireless GSM. They are in the process of building out their GSM coverage, but I think it's worth it to be an early subscriber and taking advantage of lower phone and monthly costs. One thing about Nextel, is their rates are expensive!-Pat