Mot SLVR L7 iTunes Mobile Launched By Motorola

Mot SLVR L7 iTunes Mobile Launched By MotorolaFour months after releasing their first iTunes-enabled mobile phone, the disappointing Motorola ROKR E1, Motorola have had another stab at creating the perfect music phone.

Their new, none-more-black SLVR L7 is a slinky non-folding affair, with a design reminiscent of the box-shifting RAZR clamshell phone.

Motorola are hoping that that the new handset will go down better than the ROKR E1, whose well documented shortcomings pinned sales around the 84,000 mark last year – compare that figure to the tens of millions of RAZRs that flew off the shelves in the same period.

Mot SLVR L7 iTunes Mobile Launched By MotorolaThe biggest complaint was the laughably feeble memory on the ROKR that could only hold a maximum of 100 iTunes songs – regardless of memory capacity – and a treacle-slow song transfer rate.

Crazily, the SLVR L7 doesn’t fix these sales-losing issues, and comes with the same ridiculous storage limitation for iTunes files and the same Ye Olde Super-Slowe USB 1.1 connection.

Someone’s ‘avin’ a laugh, surely?

Looking at the spec sheets, things get even worse, with the handset lacking the useful music-oriented features seen on the ROKR – there’s no external stereo speakers or dedicated headphone jack, so ‘phones have to be plugged into the charging jack via an adapter. And that’s rubbish.

At least the L7 looks a lot better than its predecessor, with a glass-infused plastic case, anodised aluminium back, stylish flat-keypad design and a large, 176×220, 262k-colour screen.

The pocketable quad-band handset (1.93″ x 4.47″ x 0.45″) also comes with a VGA camera, TransFlash memory card slot and Bluetooth (but not for listening to music).

Mot SLVR L7 iTunes Mobile Launched By MotorolaIn a flurry of arty waffle, Steve Lalla, vice president and general manager for mass-market products at Motorola, explained that the, “L7 is really in what we call our ‘self-expression portfolio,’ where design and style is the key premise behind the product”.

We suspect punters would have been far happier if they’d just designed away the ridiculous 100-song limit instead,

The Motorola SLVR is expected to be available in Q3 2005. Pricing to be announced.

SPECIFICATIONS: Sleek, super-thin design without sacrificing advanced functionality
PTT with icon presence indicators for one-touch connections
Integrated VGA camera with 4x zoom and video capture and playback
Bluetooth Class 2 for hands-free connectivity
MP3 player to store, repeat, shuffle and play favorite tunes; 22Khz polyphonic speaker
Up to 512 MB or removable TransFlash memoryWAP 2.0
Downloadable wallpaper, screensaver and MP3 ringtones
J2ME™ MIDP 2.0
Integrated hands-free speakerphone
Messaging via MMS*, IM Wireless Village* and email (POP3, SMTP)
Motorola’s SCREEN3 technology solution featuring zero-click access to news, sports, entertainment, and other premium content.

Motorola SLVR

XRoad GPS System Offers World Spanning Maps

XRoad GPS System Offers World Spanning MapsInternational men of mystery, jet setters, globe-trotters and drug smugglers might just be the niche group targeted by Carpoint’s world-spanning navigation system.

As far as we know, this is the world’s first car (or mobile) GPS system with the capability to guide users through a huge variety of countries and continents, with the attractive looking device loaded with a total of 24 maps covering the USA, Europe, Australia and – naturally – Korea.

XRoad GPS System Offers World Spanning MapsCalled the XRoad Paris (but, thankfully, no relation to the cash-rich, time-rich airhead of the same name) the device can guide users through nation after nation in a choice of seven languages.

The $600 XRoad GPS system comes in a rugged-looking silver case with two buttons either side of the LCD screen offering access to power on/off, menu (on the left side) and zoom in/out (on the right side).

XRoad GPS System Offers World Spanning MapsWe assume the two chunky buttons each side of the screen are for making onscreen selections and scrolling through the map, but seeing as babelfish packed up mid-way through our attempt at a Korean translation, I guess we’ll never know.

We can tell you, however, that there’s also a windscreen/dashboard kit available for unit.

XRoad GPS System Offers World Spanning MapsWe can’t think of any over-riding reason why anyone would need a GPS unit stuffed full with half the world’s maps, but it’s certainly a well styled model and its encyclopedic knowledge of the world’s cities might come in useful in a pub quiz at the very least.

Seeing as we can’t understand a word of Korean, we haven’t a clue about availability or pricing at the moment.

Carpoint

Epson RX640 Do-It-All Photo Centre Released

Epson RX640 Do-It-All Photo Centre ReleasedIt won’t be long before kids think that “going to the chemists for some prints” is some kid of euphemism for scoring drugs, but with the onslaught of cheap digital cameras and high quality printers, the writing’s on the wall for the print developing business.

Keen to hammer a few more nails into the printer’s coffin is the new Stylus Photo RX640, an advanced all-in-one printer aimed at photo enthusiasts.

Like a mini photo-lab in a box, the Epson RX640 is a sophisticated do-everything photo centre offering printing, copying and scanning functionality.

The multifunction device lets users print, scan and copy direct from memory cards, PictBridge and USB DIRECT-PRINT digital cameras.

Epson RX640 Do-It-All Photo Centre ReleasedImages can be read from a built in CD-R drive for printing, with high quality scanning afforded courtesy of a 3200 x 6400 dpi MatrixCCD scanner scanner.

Images can be printed out from images stored on USB flash memory devices, with an optional Bluetooth module letting users print directly from suitably enabled mobile phones.

A neat function lets users print their own designs directly onto the surface of inkjet printable CD’s.

There’s an integrated transparency unit for scanning and printing directly from positive and negative film sources with Epson’s Easy Photo Fix technology claiming to automatically “restore colour to faded photos and film.”

The built in software also includes a dust and scratch removal function for negative and positive film scans.

Epson RX640 Do-It-All Photo Centre ReleasedUsers can monitor what’s going on through a high definition (256 ppi) 2.5 inch colour LCD preview monitor, with a USB port for backing up data on to external storage devices (such as CD-R/Zip drives).

The printer uses six individual ink cartridges to help reduce running costs (although replacement ink cartridges will no doubt remain eye wateringly expensive), with Epson’s PhotoEnhance technology automatically detecting image types and adjusting image brightness and contrast accordingly.

Tracey Leslie, Consumer Product Manager – General Purpose Inkjets and All In Ones for Epson UK was on hand to big up the product: “The Stylus Photo RX640 builds on Epson’s strong offering in the all-in-one category. With premium photo quality output and exceptional scanning and standalone features, this will appeal to photo enthusiasts at all levels of experience.”

The Epson Stylus Photo RX640 will retail for around £230 ($410, €338).

Epson