One of the main gripes of Motorola’s latest flagship beast is it’s problem with getting a proper auto focus with its 5 Mp shooter. This has been the case since it’s launch and it now seems, to have been magically(through a silent over-the-air update actually) to have been fixed, until the 11th of December that is.  The strange thing is that according to Dan Morrill, from Google’s Android team, the bug is related to a time-stamp bug:

“According to Google Engineer Dan Morrill, there is an unfortunate bug in the Droid’s auto focus routine. It improperly rounds a timestamp used in the calculations, which somehow throws the entire focusing process off. Today it works, and tomorrow it will work…but 24.5 days from now, the bug will be back.”

Meaning to say that after the 11th December, if you do not update your droid, the camera’s autofocus will automatically go bonkers. But according to Verizon’s 5 page treatise on the Droid’s known issues, their firmware update will be coming with a permanent fix which should solve most of the droid’s software related bugs.

Still, its a little creepy in the way how the Droid got updated so silently and without the knowledge of the consumer. But for the year of 2009, were there an award for the weirdest bug, this auto-focus bug would surely win it…

Sources:

TechCrunch, Engadget

• Motorola Droid Enjoys Great Sales!
• Nokia N86 to have face detection in future firmware update!
• Sony Ericsson Patent shows Camera Zooming using Motion Gestures
• Protect Your iPhone’s Look and Improve Camera Quality with Clarifi
• Motorola MOTOZINE ZN5 Review – Camera Phone with Xenon Flash – Pics

Ranesh was a Nokia fan for a long time and had owned few Nokia’s including an E70. But he made the transition to Verizon for a decent deal on a Voyager two years ago (because he likes qwerty keyboards and that was the only one he liked at the time). Ranesh couldn’t wait for a decent Nokia device to hit the market he liked, so he took the plunge. When he tested out the N97, he was terribly disappointed with the overall OS and decided to hold out for the Christmas season of this year to see what was around the corner and settled on the Motorola Droid running the Android 2.0 OS.

Nokia is readying the release of their flagship handset, the N900. Unfortunately, Nokia posted it’s first loss in 10 years.(We know Nokia Siemens Networks was to blame.) The problem wasn’t lack of phones worldwide but the Chinese “bandit” or known as “shanzhai” manufacturers eating away at Nokia’s bottom line. Several of these manufactures including Shenzhen Evien Co., Ltd., SZ Telstar Co Ltd., T-Link Industrial Development Company Limited, ZTE Corp., Lenovo and Huawei Tech have already infiltrated the Chinese market with a variety of cell phones. This doesn’t include big boys like HTC and Dell, among others that are making a splash into the worldwide market.

Nokia is the largest mobile phone manufacturer but is feeling the confined spaces of the Mobile market more than ever. RIM’s Blackberry (the business mainstay), Apple’s iPhone (of course) and Palm’s Pre (and soon to be Pixi line), have all cut into Nokia’s overall market share. Not to mention Google’s Android is having huge success with HTC building some great quality phones and across other manufacturers too. While still fighting off fierce competition in the high end cell phone range, Nokia has to contend with middle and low end all at the same time. A feat never before performed for his Helsinki, Finland company.

Step in Maemo: Nokia decided to strike back with the flagship N900 which runs its latest OS based off of Linux called Maemo. This new handset is set to change the direction for Nokia in the mid to higher end device range. Nokia began shipments on November 10^th and are expected to hit retailers shortly, for an estimated price of EUR 500 ($746.00 USD).

Will Nokia be able to break through the obstacles of intruders into its once dominant domain? The N900 comes packed with plenty of features WAY ahead of phones in its class: ARM Cortex-A8 processor, up to 1GB of total application memory. widgets, contacts and shortcuts all on the desktop,. Pictures and videos taken with the 5Mpx Carl Zeiss camera automatically are tagged where they were taken, SMS and IM, standard built-in 32 GB storage is big enough to store up to 7,000 songs or 40 hours of DVD-quality video, and it can be expanded up to 48GB with an external microSD card.

Image Courtesy of tnkgrl

The phone is amazing and packs an MMA like punch compared to other phones in the market place at this time, but Nokia will have to bring the beautiful Maemo OS down to the mid and perhaps even lower range handsets to regain what market share has already been lost. If anyone can do this, Nokia can and with the N900, where they proved that they are listening to the consumer.

• Hello Moto becomes Hello Samsung as Motorola looses global market share
• Motorola launches Made in India phone
• Ebooks coming to your nokia smartphone
• Motorola Droid Enjoys Great Sales!
• Nokia N900 Fondle Video

Motorola might be on the road to recovery with their new handset. The Motorola Droid which is the company’s first Google Android device and an Apple iPhone Competitor.

The device had tremendous hype even before its release starting with rumours, leaked pictures etc. Now a week has passed since it’s release and sources say that Motorola might have sold as many as 100,000 Motorola Droid phones over the weekend.

Motorola is providing the Droid t customers through the Verizon Wireless network. The sales isnt anywhere close to the 1 million sales the Apple iPhone had in it’s opening weekend. But it is a very good figure for Motorola as it’s been sometime since the company has had a successful product.

The Motorola Droid costs $199.99 with a two-year agreement after a $100 mail-in rebate whereas Apple’s basic iPhone costs $99 with AT&T, while its newer 3GS model costs $199.

Motorola expect a rise in sales and even to hit the 1 million mark very soon.

Source

• Open Handset Alliance adds 14 members including Sony Ericsson, Toshiba, and Vodafone
• Are new operating systems in the smart phone field hurting Nokia?
• Droid Autofocus bug is the weirdest bug. Ever.
• Google bets that Android will outperform Apple iPhone
• HTC G1 coming to India, shows up on Univercell’s site

Motorola India plans to launch 7 handsets in the country in the next 3 months for the festival season.

The phones are expected to be priced between Rs.3500 and Rs.8000. The ZN300 is a cool looking slider phone with a 3 MP Camera and a stylish design. Motorola will be unveiling 6 handsets in the Yuva range along with the ZN300

"The ZN 300 and the MotoYuva WX generation were created in response to the need to stay connected and the variety of ways in which we do it today. The result is seven handsets with a range of features that provide an option affordable to everyone," Motorola India Country Head (Mobile Devices) Faisal Siddiqui said in a statement.

via PTI

• Motorola to setup facility in Chennai
• Abhishek Bachchan roped in as Motorola brand ambassador
• Motorola to give some handsets a Google icon
• Motorola ZN4 Official
• Motorola launches Made in India phone

Here are the leaked pictures of the Motorola A3300 which is a smartphone powered by Windows Mobile. The phone is the successor of the previous A1200 and A1600 phones with similar styling.

The phone has a large touchscreen and a 5 Megapixel camera with LED flash. No other specifications are known at this point of time. The handset is very likely to get announced soon.

We will keep you up to date on the information of this device.

Source

• MC55 Enterprise Phone Unveiled by Motorola
• Motorola ZN4 Official
• Motorola MING A1200
• Motorola Z9 spotted
• Motorola to Work with Kodak on Improving Camera Phones

Motorola Shules is a Google Android powered smartphone set to be released on the Verizon networks. Shules is the codename and the device will be known differently when launched.

The rumoured features include:

• 3.7″ Touchscreen with 480*854 resolution
• 512MB Internal Memory and micro-SD card slot supporting cards upto 16GB (8GB card included in package)
• 5 Megapixel Camera with Autofocus
• 256MB RAM, GPS, Wi-Fi
• 3.5mm Audio Jack, Bluetooth 2.0
• 60.00 x 115.80 x 13.70 mm, 169 grams
• 1400mAh Battery- 450 Hours Standby Time, 7 Hours Talk time
• Audio Formats-AMR-NB/WB, MP3, WAV, AAC, AAC +, eAAC +, WMA
• Video Formats-MPEG-4, H263, H264, WMV

Source

• Motorola ZN4 Official
• Samsung U900 FlipShot from Verizon
• Early Hands-On With the BlackBerry Storm 2

The Motorola A45 Murano appears to be a region specific device which is aimed at Brazil. But we are not sure of that. The phone is quite small but chubby. It has a squarish design and the back side resembles an iPhone. The screen looks like at least 2.4 inches big. Anyway it features a slide out QWERTY keyboard, 3G, 2 Megaixel Camera and micro-SD card slot. Other features remain unknown.

Read

Motorola E18 Ivory

The Motorola E18 Ivory is a device which has been cancelled but has been shown to the world by Eldar Murtazin, head of Mobile Review. The E18 Ivory was supposed to be a luxury handset following the design of the LG BL40 Chocolate phone of which we posted earlier. The Motorola E18 Ivory was developed along with the other luxury handset, the MOTO AURA. The E18 Ivory was set to be released in three luxury casings of gold, platinum and metal with the platinum model costing u to several ten thousand Euros. It has a 3 Megapixel Camera.

It’s design is very unique as it’s thin, long and narrow. It has a unique dual slide. You can slide it slightly to reveal the function keys and slide it further to reveal the numeric keypad too.

None Found

Interesting features include

• 5-Megapixel Camera
• Autofocus
• Xenon Flash
• 3.5 Mm Headset Jack
• WiFi
• FM Radio

Here is the photo gallery  of the Motorola ZN5. The phone sells at an attractive price of Rs.16000 approx and is a good value for money if you are looking for a Camera phone which takes GOOD pics . Only Nokia N82 and N86 seem be around this phone but price is what makes the Moto stand out ! We have camera samples coming soon so stay tuned !

• MOTOZINE ZN5 unveiled
• The Nokia E75 Camera Samples prove E75 beats the E71 Cam
• Nokia N97 Camera Samples
• LG Arena Camera Samples
• Nokia N97 Camera Samples from Hotel Oberoi Bangalore

SoundBuzz was acquired my Moto to improve its music offerings under the MotoMusic Service which is offered with few handsets like the Motorola Yuva

Well Moto is making huge losses in the handset division and this is move to cut costs

Its not clear if motorola will continue to offer downloads to exisiting users of the motomusic service.

Most handset makers try to jump into the services bandwagon and few turn into profitable business

Nokia is now promoting its OVI services and trying to become an internet company.

Nokia music store has not yet been launched in India. If MotoMusic is closed down, the time can’t be better for Nokia to launch its Music Store

The buzz about Soundbuzz shutting down in India has there for the last couple of weeks.

via MediaNama

• Nokia India eyeing Gaming and Music download market
• Motorola Z12 ZiNE pictures leaked
• Motorola might exit mobile handset business
• Motorola Yuva W396 Launched in India
• Nokia To Launch Music Store In India by Year End

“We understand the importance of having a mobile phone that helps you stay connected simply and seamlessly with your friends and family, whether you prefer to talk, text or network,” said Mark Shockley, corporate vice president and general manager, Motorola Mobile Devices. “Motorola Evoke offers the cutting-edge convenience and instant gratification of a full touch-screen, intuitive online browsing and the ability to stay plugged in on your terms.”

A 2.8” full touch-screen with a full touch-screen QWERTY keyboard and slide out traditional keypad, the handset also has a home screen content with integrated widgets and personalized RSS feeds1.

Specs & features at a glance:

• Intuitive dialing

• 2.8” screen

• Accelerometer

• Full-touch QWERTY keyboard

• Home screen messaging icons

• IM-style messaging

• Noise reduction technology

• Bluetooth® technology

• Full HTML browser

• Built-in integration with MySpace

Availability

Motorola Evoke QA4 will be available in Q2 2009.

No word on an India launch or pricing at this point. Watch this space for more!

Via: Motorola.com

• Palm Pre Pics FoneArena Exclusive
• HTC Touch Pro Unboxing Pics
• HTC Touch HD in India
• Blackberry Storm Preview
• BlackBerry Storm launched through Vodafone in India