Motorola ROKR E8

• Handset
• 970 mAh Li-Ion battery
• microUSB data cable
• Wired stereo-headset
• User Guide

This is a preview of the Motorola ROKR E8, which will be updated as soon as it starts shipping!!!

Positioning

Some time ago Motorola decided to develop the range of music-minded phones; it started things off with the Motorola E2, which was a decent performer as far as sound quality goes, although it never became popular. In 2006 the manufacturer considered that the ROKR line-up had to be one of hottest offerings of the summer-fall season of 2007, however, in light of some problems with the creation of the LJ platform it had no real chance of success. The release date for this model was repeatedly postponed, which cast a shadow over its future. This made it all the more interesting to see how Motorola’s product placement campaign for this phone unfolded last summer; for example, Fergie’s video “Clumsy” actually featured the E8 for a whole 7 seconds. All this took place before the handset’s official announcement, as you might have already guessed. Then there is the lack of proper timing and cooperation between the company’s different divisions, but that’s another story. The fact of the matter is that because of this mess inside Motorola the ROKR E8 couldn’t make it to the market on time. Its software platform, to be more specific the L7.1, simply wasn’t delivered on time. As far as white papers are concerned, the ROKR E8 should differ tremendously from the Motorola U9 in most departments, however, in reality it doesn’t.

So the natural question everyone already has in mind is how this handset is positioned, and what products it competes with? The answer doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out, it is a music-centric phone, an interesting one at that, which aims to beat back the likes of the Nokia 5310 XpressMusic.

From Motorola’s point of view, this phone had to be the first mass music phone out there, but in reality this phone is very late to the market, which somewhat shifts the priorities and makes its price seem out of line with what it offers. The philosophy of the E8 is also questionable, the bundled storage of 2 Gb seems appropriate for an ordinary phone, but obviously not for a music-savvy device. Taking the availability of 8Gb microSD cards into account, the handset’s package of inbuilt storage and a memory expansion slot don’t seem to be of much interest. What they really had to do is shrink the inbuilt storage space down to the minimum and offer memory cards of different size in the box, but they didn’t do that, for exactly the same reason why they advertised the E8 long before its debut.

Motorola’s major flaw is still hazy positioning, as every product appears to be torn out of the line-up and acts on its own, seemingly oblivious to the continuity of the range or succession lines. So discussing the phone’s positioning in these circumstances is next to pointless; the E8 is just a music-focused solution, and will be guided on the market according to the dictates of the current situation, and that’s about it. Regrettably Motorola no longer shapes the market, and instead only tries to follow the latest and greatest trends, but without much spirit. It is a pity since the Motorola ROKR E8 employs some good, and interesting, ideas, which many manufacturers will add to their arsenals and intensively utilize in the future.

Source : http://www.mobile-review.com