It's official - Orange / Motorola MPx200!

[Guest Paul [MVP]]

It's official! Full press release, specs and pic follow... :)

Key points i've noticed...

- The MPx200 is based on SmartPhone 2002. Although 2003 is around the corner, all of the reports i've heard from people who have used the device say the implementation is top notch, very speedy and very stable! The processor is running at 200MHz.

- The MPx200 features 32MB RAM, as opposed to the SPV's 16MB, so expect more free space!

- A clip on camera will be available, which is cool, although the handset is aimed primarily at business users.

- The phone appears to include IA Utility Pack.

- The base connector is Mini USB!

Expect a full review soon, when I get my hands on a real device... ;)

I think the entry of Motorola into the Smartphone market is very positive. Motorola is without doubt the grand-daddy of todays mobile market, but for me, they have always epitomised innovative design and great build quality, but have been lacking in the UI department. This will resolve that of course, and I look forward to having the workhorse qualities of a Motorola with my favourite OS ;-)

P

ORANGE TO LAUNCH NEW MOTOROLA MPx200 WITH MICROSOFT WINDOWS MOBILE SOFTWARE

September 15 2003. London. Orange, Motorola and Microsoft today unveiled the Motorola MPx200 - with Windows Mobile software – combining the familiarity of the desktop computer with the convenience and accessibility of a mobile phone. The Motorola MPx200 is aimed at professional consumers and is the latest phone in the Orange Signature handset range – a series of phones designed to marry the best customer experience with exclusive Orange services.

Today’s news follows Orange and Motorola’s alliance announcement made in June and Microsoft and Motorola’s alliance announcement made today. It also marks another major landmark for Orange – the operator was first to launch a Windows Mobile -based smartphone, the SPV (Sound Pictures Video), in Oct 2002.

Orange customers can use the handset to surf the internet in full colour, watch and listen to music and video clips, download games and synchronise their PC with their phone, allowing them to keep up to date with their Microsoft Outlook® contacts, calendar and emails – all in a sleek clamshell design. They can also send photo messages with a small attachable camera (available separately). The Motorola MPx200 delivers all the tools to conduct wirefree™ business and after-work fun.

As an Orange Signature handset, the Motorola MPx200 also features exclusive services for Orange customers such as an innovative function called Orange Backup.  Orange Backup allows customers to store their personal data – such as contacts and calendar – on the Orange network and restore those details when required.  That means that if a customer loses their phone, the information remains secure on the Orange network and can be restored on a new phone. There is also the Orange Update feature which lets customers update their phone with the latest software as well as download and store new applications – such as games and tube maps – over the air.  

The Motorola MPx200 is aimed specifically at the professional consumer market – customers who want to stay in touch and synchronised when working or socialising, while benefiting from entertaining features such as Windows Media® Player for video playback and MP3 capabilities as well as 3D games. These applications and more are all available within the sleek, black clamshell design of the Motorola MPx200.

Richard Brennan, Executive Vice-President of Global Brand, Products and Marketing for the Orange Group, said: “At Orange, we pride ourselves by offering our customers the most innovative products and advanced, easy to use mobile services.  

“The launch of the MPx200 builds on our previous work with Microsoft as well as the alliance with Motorola that we announced in June. Our previous work on products using the Windows Mobile software has given us a head start in the development of future advanced phones of this kind. By forging a mutually beneficial relationship with both Motorola and Microsoft, Orange and its customers are reaping the benefits of superior performance and sleek design.”

He added: "Orange is developing a range of Signature devices, which are easier to use and are packed with applications that demonstrate real customer benefit such as Orange Backup, which saves customers data on the Orange intelligent network.”

Tom Lynch, President of Motorola's Personal Communications Sector, said: “The Motorola MPx200, combined with Orange’s services and intelligent network, the power of Windows Mobile, and the quality guarantee of a Motorola mobile phone, is a breakthrough experience for the mobile professional. In addition to extending the office desktop to the wireless world the MPx200’s powerful multimedia features makes their life simpler, smarter, more synchronised and a whole lot more fun.”

Pieter Knook, Corporate Vice President of Mobile and Embedded Devices at Microsoft, said: “This announcement will deliver truly smart mobile devices with great applications and services on great handsets that will be attractive and appealing to our customers.  I am confident that Microsoft’s relationship with Orange and Motorola will go from strength to strength and we’re looking forward to developing even more exciting products together in the near future.”

The MPx200 will initially be available to Orange UK customers in October.  Other countries within the Orange Group may also range the device. The phone will retail at £239.99 (inc. VAT) subject to an Orange monthly contract.

Motorola MPx200  

GSM 900/1800/1900 MHz GPRS  

Size: 48 x 89 x 27 mm; 1.88 x 3.5 x 1.06 inches

Battery Talk Time: up to 5 hours

Standby Time: up to 5 days

Display: Vivid color display, External CLI display  

Features:

• Synchronization with Windows® via Microsoft® ActiveSync®

• Orange Backup

• Orange Update

• One-touch access to key Orange content (news, sport, Orange Today)

• Ability to download all Smartphone applications wirelessly

• Video capabilities with Windows Media Player supported by up to 1 Gigabyte SD storage  

• Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) capabilities for sending photos, ring tones, screensavers and more

• Full Personal Information Management (PIM) functionality through Microsoft® Pocket Outlook® to view and interact with your inbox, contacts, calendar and tasks

• Pocket Internet Explorer supports HTML and WAP to view internet sites, streaming video or music files  

• Instant messaging with MSN Messenger

• Utility Pack includes file manager, task manager, space maker and system information

• Downloading capabilities to customize the device with screensavers, home screens, and ring tones of choice

• 32 Megabytes ROM and 32 Megabytes RAM

• Mini USB connection, IrDA port and a secure digital/multimedia memory slot make for easy transfer of files

• Clamshell design with chrome accents  

• Smart Dial allows for easy dialing

Connectivity: Mini USB for accessories, SD card

[Guest dewslat]

YahooO!!!!!!!!!!! :) ;)

A new phone to sabotage!!!! hehehe.. this is good news!!! hope this will come out soon!! MORE POWER!!! 200mhz!!!! :D But no blueTooth? :x

[Guest Paul [MVP]]

No bluetooth, primarily because SP2002 does not support it.

Pretty interesting bearing in mind this is a business targeted phone...

P

[Guest Brody]

If only they had used a homescreen with the date plugin :)

[Guest mcwarre]

Sigh! :) ;)

If only it had a built in camera and bluetooth (Windows Mobile 2003). I would definately get it then. Oh well just have to wait......

[Guest Rog42]

Can't believe that 2 years into the technology, 2 months prior to the release (I believe) of SP2003 and they still haven't included Bluetooth.

Of everything on the s'phone, the one thing I miss is Bluetooth. How many thousands of people are buying something they will just have to upgrade in a couple of months to get this functionality.

Oh well!

BTW The SPV and SPV100 (QTEK) support SDIO, is anyone on this forum a developer? Couldn't somone look into writiing a BT driver for the phone to support a BT SD card? That would certainly increase the lifespan of this device for throusands of users, and if Sandisk produced an SD combo BT & memory card, as they've done with WLAN, they'd see great sales.

Cheers

[Guest congeuro]

Is it just me but does it really look like the NEC606 on 3? Even down to the colouring, shame... That phone cant help but evoke negative feelings about it! Pity the new Motorolla looks like it

[Guest Gorskar]

a lovely phone, but no bluetooth is a real shame :)

... and the camera being a separate clip on thingy is a shame too.

Will this phone get a WM2003 update though?

[Guest broeren79]

it also looks like one of does vodafone-live sets, but without the camera

[Guest fozzie]

Is it just me but does it really look like the NEC606 on 3? Even down to the colouring, shame... That phone cant help but evoke negative feelings about it! Pity the new Motorolla looks like it

That was exactly my first thought :?

[Guest ranzz]

am I missing something here? isn't this the Motorola V700 that has its details out on the web like 3 weeks ago?

Or was all that V700 talk unconfirmed, and now it's out officially under the modelname MPx200? same thing?

[Guest Monolithix [MVP]]

This is the "Official" Orange press release.

[Guest Simon Desser]

It's now on Motorola's website too :)

874_MotPromo.gif

[Guest jonblakeburn]

Its a.... er... Clam Shell design... *sigh*

:)

[Guest londonlad]

it looks like the wrong end of a ps2 to me, i dont like the holes and flip phones take too much effort, apart from that its ok, ill wait for the spv2.

[Guest Maverick]

Its a bit like Sharp GX10

[Guest eggontoast]

this phone is old! been knocking around the uk for ages...spv rulz ;)

[Guest Matt Whitfield]

The Register has an article about it too...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/68/32847.html

"Apart from the obvious difference in form factor between the MPx200 and the SPV, the device evolves the Windows Smartphone slightly. Among the most conspicuous changes, the handset uses a mildly tweaked version of the current Windows Mobile 2002 software for Smartphones (formerly Windows Powered Smartphone 2002).

This adds new features such as bulk deleting of messages, a new MMS picture messaging client and a number of other new applications. These include a SIM-card manager, a task manager, a space maker for freeing up memory, an app for monitoring system information and several games.

Motorola has also raised the performance benchmark over the SPV by employing a 200MHz Texas Instruments OMAP chip in place of the SPV's 132MHz version. Initial impressions with a pre-production sample of the MPx200 suggest that the chip upgrade has significantly improved both device and application boot time compared with the poor performance experienced with the SPV.

Talk and standby times of five hours and five days respectively also appear reasonable for the smart phone category [Matt - Um, blimey that's a bit better than the old SPV!]. The device, which offers tri-band GSM/GPRS connectivity, will also ship with a 32MB SD memory card."

[Guest Monolithix [MVP]]

New MMS client sounds great!

[Guest Simon Desser]

It's now on the UK Orange website ;)

Here

[Guest nickcornaglia]

Not really excited about this one. It's cool that there's a new phone on the market. And the 200MHz is nice....But it's really not much more of a phone compared to what you have already. My recently estranged Mitac's built in camera makes it a slight step ahead of this already. And I think it's better looking as well.

Being a US consumer...I'm not even really all that excited about the Samsung i600 due out soon in the US under Verizon CDMA...it's pretty much featureless as far as NEW GOODIES go.

Don't be fooled by the big Motorola Name! Every new phone is a step in the right direction and new users are bound to embrace these new phones...especially in the US.

But the next one I buy needs to be better than what I had.

[Guest moto_man]

encece makes great points. It would not make much sense to buy a new phone when its not better then the one you have.

I am also a US consumer. And like most other US consumers the MP200 is better then what I had before. There are really not a lot of choices in the smartphone arena for us. There is that sprint phone..im not sure who makes it though..that thing is HUGE.

That is the main problem with most of the smart phones..They are freaking HUGE!! There is no way that I would want to carry one of those around. Motorola has the best of both words with this new phone. It form factor is actaully smaller then many "normal" phones and smaller then all smartphones. At least the ones i have seen that is. The screen however is really big. That is something that US consumers want. they want a phone what sounds good has a really big color screen and can play games. this phone fits that bill to a tee.

All im saying is, dont knock it untill you have had it in your hands.

[Guest idavid]

also worth considering is that these phones are still basically first generation. so far there have only been a few releases and no chance for manufacturers to build on their first designs. look at the improvements the c200/e200 will have over the e100, or the shrunken size of the next mio, or the extra abilities of the next moto.

i feel quite lucky. i will ahve to wait another nine months or so before i can upgrade my spv. by then i expect far more Smartphones to chose from. the leap, year on year, will still be pretty big. it only seems small when we have a handset turnover of three months! :twisted:

[Guest AngelOfRage]

my contract is up for renwal before christmas, so i presume that both the new Mitac and SPV2 will be out. would i be best off switching to orange and getting a new price plan with a discounted handset or staying with vodafone and getting any old handset as an upgrade, selling that and then buying a sim unlocked SPV2 or Mitac?

[Guest goinnuts]

prob best goin with orange get spv2 or moto and care. because you never know if your gonna bugger it up beyond repair. also its the cheaper option o will match most network tariffs (as long as its not promotional) so theres a good chance you can keep that and you can definatly keep your number. also theres a chance member get member will still be running where you £50 off the price of the phone or credited to your bill. although not seen the oct promo guide so so dont quote me on the mgm. am sure you get 2000 txts though if you join next month. 168 a month free for 12 months cant be bad.