New Motorola products play catch-up

Motorola Inc. is rolling out new products to turn around a slide in sales that has dropped the Schaumburg, Ill.-based company to No. 3 in global mobile phone sales, according to estimates.

Unfortunately, it put the “wow” factor in the wrong items — headphones — and not the mobile phones that until recently made Motorola a solid No. 2 in market share.

There are things I like about Motorola’s new phones, follow-ups to the Razr and Q smart phone, yet both are me-too copies of their predecessors and not the groundbreaking products competitors rushed to copy.

Here’s a look at four new Motorola offerings:

Razr 2

The Razr 2, the next incarnation of a product that has shipped more than 100 million units worldwide, is nice to touch and hold. Its key new feature is a big screen on the front of the flip phone.

The phone itself is thinner than the original Razr, yet it is slightly longer and a touch heavier. It has a metallic finish and is designed, thanks to the screen, to take advantage of the multimedia features U.S. wireless carriers offer. In my tests, music sounded very good and videos played without fail.

But since Motorola is introducing the Razr 2 at all major wireless carriers over the next month, the experience is different for each phone. The Sprint version has the carrier’s full multimedia package, featuring live TV and access to the Sprint music store, but the Verizon version doesn’t include access to the carrier’s video offerings.

The colors differ, too, depending on the carrier, but pricing is expected to be between $250 to $300 across the board.

One new feature is the touch controls for media applications, such as playing music or watching a video. This works well, but in the wake of Apple’s iPhone, which is operated solely by touch, Motorola’s efforts here are too little and too late.

The touch controls, which Motorola calls “haptics,” are different than what Apple uses. For one, users touch the front screen on the Razr 2 and feel a little vibration that acknowledges the command. Apple doesn’t use the vibration; instead, the user swipes a finger to open applications.

On the Sprint version of the phone I tested, I was able to access music, videos and the 2-megapixel camera by touching the phone’s front screen. The applications opened quickly, and I was able to move up or down a menu of content choices by touch. Likewise, the music commands worked as advertised on the Verizon version.

On the AT&T phone, however, the haptics were not as intuitive or as integrated into the phone. It took several trial-and-error attempts of opening and closing the phone to get the music commands on the front screen.

The phones performed well when accessing the media applications from the carriers. This is an important distinction over the iPhone.

On the iPhone, users do not have access to AT&T’s MediaNet application, which includes useful services such as XM satellite radio or clips from “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart. This is a choice Apple made to have complete control over how the iPhone should be operated. You can get YouTube clips on the iPhone, and pretty much any other media-enabled phone, but that’s it.

Overall, the Razr 2 is a nice phone that should please Razr fans, but there’s nothing here — why not a better camera or at least Wi-Fi? — to indicate blockbuster sales.

Q9m

Likewise, where’s the Wi-Fi in the new Q9m? That’s just one omission from a device most affected by the iPhone.

Motorola has a lot of work to do on the innovation front if it wants to be taken seriously as a smart phonemaker. Like the Razr 2, this phone is banking on the success of its predecessor and not blazing any new ground that will make competitors shudder or consumers rush out to the store.

Basically, the new Q looks like the old Q, featuring the same squarish design as the first model. The screen is the same size and the function keys, with a few exceptions, are the same.

So what’s different?

The keyboard has bigger keys for typing (a nice improvement), the ability to switch “home” pages to make the device more media-centric (nice, but confusing), and a new black-and-red color scheme. Also, it runs on the Windows Mobile 6 platform, an upgrade.

One plus is that this device syncs better with Internet-based e-mail services than the first Q. My tests worked great. And it is designed to access Microsoft’s Outlook software for corporate communications.

But the biggest problem with the Q9m is simply navigating the device. It’s not nearly as intuitive as the iPhone, which begs the user to discover new features via touch. With the Q9m, I spent way too much time searching for content — song downloads and digital photos — that should be a snap to find.

It took a half-hour and a combination of button pushes I probably could not repeat to find a short video I shot in the office, music I downloaded from Verizon’s store and pictures of the kids I e-mailed to myself. Is the video in my pictures and video folder? No. Is the music in my Windows Mobile library? The song titles don’t appear, even though one of the Prince tunes I downloaded is playing.

I eventually found it all, but the search was perplexing. It shouldn’t be this hard for a device Motorola hopes to use to lure everyday users and not just the road warrior.

An example of ease of use between the Q9m and the iPhone can be found with photos.

On the iPhone, a photo sent with an e-mail is pasted right into the message. On the Q9, the e-mail tells you there is a photo attachment and then you have to hit a button to download the e-mail again to fetch the image. Finally, you are asked to click on the attachment to open it. That’s three steps.

Is this a problem with the Q9m or with Windows? Perhaps both, but I’ve also used Windows Mobile 6 on the T-Mobile Wing, another smart phone (it has Wi-Fi, by the way) optimized for media, with much more satisfactory results.

In my view, there’s no compelling reason to buy the Q9. It does not raise the bar in any notable fashion.

New headsets

Motorola is delivering products of note, however, when it comes to Bluetooth accessories. Two new headsets, the H680 and the MotoRokr S9 active headphones, pair exceptionally well with the new Razr, the Q9 and Bluetooth-compatible phones from other makers.

The H680 is remarkably comfortable, light and fits well in my ear. It didn’t fall out as I walked and talked or when I vigorously shook my head.

To pair it with a phone, you just turn the device on. As long as the phone is in pairing mode, or “discoverable,” it will be recognized.

Motorola calls it EasyPair technology and it most certainly is. You don’t have to hold it down for eight seconds and wait for a flashing blue light.

It also passes the dork test. You don’t look like an Uhura impersonator (from “Star Trek,” people) when it’s in your ear.

As for sound, calls sounded clear and concise in my ear, but, depending on the phone, call quality for my voice was mixed.

If you buy this gadget, keep your receipt until you give it a thorough tryout on your phone. The H680 will be available in September and priced between $50 and $100, a representative said.

Wireless headphones

If you run, bike or briskly walk and like to listen to music, the MotoRokr S9 headphones might be of interest.

These are stereo Bluetooth headphones that send music to your ears wirelessly. But there’s one caveat: The phone you use must have a Bluetooth stereo profile in order to work. Inexplicably, the iPhone does not have this capability, but many music-enabled mobile phones, including the new Razr 2 and Q9, play stereo Bluetooth.

The S9s weigh less than an ounce and fit well in my ears. It took some time to get used to wearing them — they felt too big and can’t be adjusted, an oversight — but they performed well in the gym and never slipped.

They worked almost instantly after pairing them with Sprint’s Razr 2. Using Sprint’s media offerings, I was listening to the songs I downloaded from the Sprint store, as well as the Sirius satellite radio service Sprint offers.

Priced at $129, the headphones are available at Verizon Wireless stores and other retailers.

The one downside to this otherwise fine product is that it lacks a way to adjust for fit.

And if there’s anything Motorola should focus on right now, it’s making adjustments. They need to make more, and quickly, if they hope to regain their status as the world’s No. 2 seller of mobile phones.

Company’s latest phones, follow-ups to the Razr and Q models, are merely me-too copies of their predecessors instead of new must-haves.

XEric Benderoff writes about technology for the Chicago Tribune. Contact him at ebenderofftribune.com.

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