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Motorola Unveils Phone That Bends
An anonymous reader writes "According to CNET, who are out at 3GSM in Barcelona, Motorola has unveiled a phone that bends in order to make putting it up to your face more comfortable. The Motorola Z8, as the bendy phone is called, runs on a Symbian based platform and also displays video at up to 30 frames per second."
Usually it's users who have to bend over for cell companies.
Yawn.
How we know is more important than what we know.
There are some better pictures at engaget:
r izr-z8-a-symbian-kick-slider-with-hsdpa
http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/12/motorolas-moto
Can you make phone calls with it?
(Yo dog! Where you at?!!?)
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
The phone is a slider. All I see here is a slider made to emulate the bend of your everyday flip phone. If you notice, it has about the same bend that a RAZR does when open.
Seriously though, what exactly is the point? It's not as if getting the microphone 1 centimeter closer to your face will make much of a difference, and for people with oily skin it just makes more of the phone get dirty. I see absolutely no functional value whatsoever in making a slide-phone bendy.
Wizard Needs Food, Badly
Now if they can only make it bend the RF signal over that damned hill in front of the cell tower...
if this thing has an option to vibrate, instead of ring, they got a winner on their hands! What? Why are you looking at me like that..
First I wanted the RIZR Z3...but it wasn't available through US carriers, though you could order an unlocked phone for just under $300.
Then I heard the RIZR Z6 was coming out - Linux OS, shinier casing, Windows Media Player and associated DRM. Still no 3G.
Now the RIZR Z8, this bendable phone, is launching either with or in place of the Z6. It runs Symbian, has 3G data speeds, and some odd colors. It will probably cost $900 or $34 with a 2 year contract.
life just doesn't make sense anymore...that's wild...really
seriously WTF?
A goal is a dream with a deadline
I dont need a phone to bend around my face. However, thats not to say that the principle isnt good. I mean, surely it holds something over Samsungs "Worlds Slimmest" handset, that will, predictably, be subject to many breakages after being inserted into a pocket. http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/02/12/samsung_de buts_ultra_edition_deux/
Biomech
Taking a lesson from Sony, Motorola has declared this phone the winner in the bendy-slider phone format. In addition, remarked a Motorola talking-head, "we were going to call it the 'Eclectic Slide', but were afraid we'd get sued by Richard Silver".
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Last week's wierd story .
I can see the add campaign now:
The new Sony Razor - now with Bend-O-Tech technology,
The phone that conforms to your face!
Yea, that'll work...all they need now is a good "jingle".
A goal is a dream with a deadline
The were several bullies at the school that I attended; So, I developed a face that bends.
... battery!
http://outcampaign.org/
If Motorola could make a phone that doesn't drop every other call or have the OS not lag behind keystrokes or crash I'd be impressed. I've stuck with Motorola for the past ten years based on their performance back in the "good old days" of analog cell phones. I've been continually disappointed. I'm using my last Motorola phone. Thanks for producing shiny garbage, Motorola, you're not getting any more money out of me.
Slashdot = alt.religion.windows.mpaa.riaa.sucks
Why is there lag when trying to scroll through the address book in a motorola phone?
They seriously need to address the lag/performance issue before worrying about anything else.
This phone should be available* in the US just in time for the 2011 holiday shopping season!
*Only available from Verizon when coupled with a new 2-year contract. Not all features may be available. Additional Bent Phone Fee of $3.99 a month applies. The Bending Feature of this phone may only be used according to the terms and conditions set forth in the Customer Agreement.
For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
I wonder how much Verizon will charge to enable the "bend" feature.
--J(K) DOS is like Unix in exactly the same way that a pinto is like an aircraft carrier.
Will it Blend? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvvqUE-y3bo
Wow, kinky! A bendy phone that runs on a syb.. oh, a symbian! nevermind!
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
Whip-dee-freekin-doo.
This phone bends better. Okay so it may not exist (yet), but that's no reason not to watch the cool video.
that's nice, but my v220 (a stupid phone?) bends too.
Motorola's doing Symbian again? They where part of the Symbian group with Nokia and Sony when I first started writing software for the phone platform. However allmost right away they and Sony pulled out, taking with them a lot of technology from Symbian for their own phone software.
If you've not tried it before, Symbian is a realy kick ass platform for phones. Multi tasking, protected memory, TCP/IP the whole nine yards.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
In keeping with Motorola's lame-ass naming scheme, I don't see how they could pass on calling it the Moto BENDR ... except for the fact that Matt Groening would probably kick their asses.
I would personally like to hear some explanation of it. The hardware in a Moto phone is no slouch compared to its competitors, so why is it that I get a very very annoying delay every time I hit a button? It seriously hinders the usability of their phones, and this problem has existed for YEARS without a fix. Every time I use my friend's Sony-Ericsson phone I am continually amazed at how responsive it is.
C'mon Motorola, what gives?
Flip phones already "bend" in the middle to fit your face, just as this phone "bends".
Man, I want a bender phone. One you can bend to any angle: 30 degrees, 32 degrees, you name it. 31...
Any phone will bend. Once.
M-
You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas
All those fancy features and only Cingular and Verizon to play with. It'll probably have the reliability and performance of Rusty the narcoleptic dog.
I can't wait to get my hands on this one. (just a concept, but one can wish!)
And broken, I've had 4 different Motorolla 3G phones (A920, A925 and A1000) and a Nokia 3G phone (Nokia E61), all with the Symbian OS.
I think Motorolla and Nokia need to get over their fascination with the Symbian OS. In my experience (total of 13 handsets based on SymbianOS) Symbian is a very unstable platform, my phones will randomly restart themselves or turn themselves off, my email and text messages will stop coming in if I don't reboot the phone every 48 hours. I had a bug on my Nokia and my A1000 that stopped me from sending text messages until I installed a hack that cleared out some of the message memory (this is after I had already tried deleting every text message in the phone and installing a 2Gb memory card).
I've had a heap of other problems with Symbian OS too, but this probably isn't the place for this.. Sorry for the rant, but I really don't like SymbianOS at the moment, hopefully they can come up with something more stable soon.
It's pretty pathetic when something that Microsoft makes (Windows Mobile) actually looks stable and useful in comparison. Haha
- paul
http://www.paulpichugin.com.au/
Pmp @ DeviantArt
That's what I read the first few times...
I think a more applicable question is: Can you install Linux on it?
Now there's a thought, and Apple Banana phone!
What's the point in this?
It's a stupid Gimick to get your sister to buy a new phone and that's it.
The only feature that would get me to buy it would be if it is running
Linux underneath, and it's not. This is just another Consumer Phone.
I'm waiting for OpenMoko and the Neo1973.
Money is the root of all evil?
I tried to bend my phone once, it just snapped shut right on my face. I would buy this if I could still use phones.
Kharma is like a boomerang. Mine is broken.
For what other reason would you want to put the phone up to your face?
On second thought, don't answer that.
http://www.symbian.com/news/pr/2007/pr20078776.htm l
Interestingly, I believe this is the first UIQ phone without a touchscreen.
I agree though that the screenshots look more like S60 than UIQ to me.
Puke green and black. The new wave in cell phone decoration.