Motorola A3000 Review - Take Bite of Market
In the world of smart phones which operating system do you prefer? Window Mobile and Symbian S60 are among the strongest, and phone manufacturers have been racking their brains to make sophisticated phones. When Symbian S60’s 5th Edition was released, and adopted in the Nokia 5800, the competition was clearly hotting up.
In the year 2008, HTC Touch Series phones hit the market with Windows Mobile operating system. Sony Ericsson gave up UIQ and launched the Xperia X1, and Samsung the Samsung i900 Omnia. Nokia is as loyal to Symbian as it has always been.
Then how about Motorola?
Motorola A3000, also called “internet navigation” phone, was released in January, 2009. It is the first Motorola phone to have adopted Windows Mobile 6.1 operating system. A Smartphone with GPS is not a surprise now, and the Motorola A3000 claims it has an internet info sharing function as the selling point. Let’s have a detailed review of it.
Trackball
The device features a 2.8” touch screen. The black outline and silver polished edge give an iPhone-alike impression. At the same time the arc flank has a perfect joint with the hand, and feels very comfortable.
With moderate dimensions – 110x13.7x60mm- Motorola A3000’s edge and lines look elegant and sleek. A trackball, which can usually be found on Blackberry phones, is adopted in this device. It could be used as a navigation button and has great sensitivity - sometimes it is over sensitive.
Appearance
As a result of Windows Mobile’s limitation, the color is only 60K. So Motorola A3100’s 2.8” QVGA display is a good arrangement in delicacy and vision. Its refurbished back is of scientific style.
Touch N Roll Users’ Interface
Windows Mobile’s dynamic UI is almost standard configuration. However HTC, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson have developed their own UIs, as has Motorola. This device uses its unique Touch N Roll and the UI effect is similar to HTC’s Touch FLO 3D. Function icons on the UI can be switched by flicking the finger as well as through the operation on the trackball. The reflection is rather swift and smooth.
Motorola A3000 has great weather page. It gets weather information through the connection with Accu Weather.com. Users can add or delete cities freely. Weather information for three days from tomorrow is accessed by clicking the city. Centigrade and Fahrenheit can be switched from each other by clicking F/C sample. What’s more, the weather interface can be set to be display background.
The shortcut contacts make calling time-saving and convenient.
Camera
As a business phone Motorola A3000’s camera is not the selling point. But the 3.2 MP AF camera isn’t weak at all. And the interface gave us a little shock!
By pressing the shutter we get into the camera interface. It is panoramic framing. The upper reign area states indications; on the left of the lower part is an icon for photo view and on the right is a spanner icon for setting. The interface turned out to be a little Sony Ericsson style when the setting icon is clicked. It is so easy to use that even a child knows how to operate it.
The camera mode supports continuous shooting, framing, smile detection, video recording, landscape mode, and timing. Additionally it features flashlight, white balance, and brightness. The trackball can also be used to accommodate modes.
When half pressing the shutter, you’ll find a focusing square. It is essential that the square shows green then it starts to focus. That’s to say, the green square means the camera is focusing rather than having focused. It deserves mention that Motorola A3100 has speedy focusing.
Just like Motorola A1600, panoramic is available in A3000. We could take no more than 5 panoramic photos and on each photo there is “edge” space for seamless joint. But flaws are inevitable because of the vision problem.
Smart Navigation
The internet Navigation is what Motorola A3100 has been using as its marketing point. To make it simple, it is actually internet information added on the basis of GPS. 15 million pieces of info are preset to support online sharing. Pictures and other info of Users’ location can be sent at any time. This is a very useful concept – you can change your location info with other Motorola A3000’s users. However when we ran the test “overtime connection” happened several times. It remains to be seen if Motorola has figured it out.
Anyway the preset navigation software is excellent. You can find almost all functions you need. The map supports three-dimensional, two-dimensional, daytime mode, and night mode as well as horizontal display.
Location searching and collecting are available as are all other mainstream GPS devices. Besides, it supports location share. Detailed location info will be sent to your contacts. All you need to do is type the phone number.
This device has a powerful ability to search satellites. It took us 30 seconds to find nine satellites. It is also very quick to turn on or off. In a word, the navigation function is outstanding.
Hardware configuration
Windows Mobile phones have an advantage in expansion and software resource. Naturally we have high regard for the hardware configuration to make all programs run well and fast. Nobody wants a slow phone. Motorola A3100’s frequency is 528MHz, MSM7206A, with 256MB ROM and 128 MB RAM. That is a main stream CPU whose running speed is satisfying in the test.
It also supports 32G micro SD card expansion. With the help of resource manager users, even a Windows Mobile stranger will find it very easy and convenient to get files managed.
We conducted the hardware test using VSbenchmark2007 which was specially developed for the Windows mobile smart phone testing by Virtual Spaghetti Software Company. Here are some other mobile testing values as a reference: HTC U1000, 67xx; ASUS P565, 58xx; LG KC1, 37xx; Samsung I908, 27xx.
As we can see MOTO A3100 was not on the top list, with the result of 1786, while Samsung I908, Sony Ericsson X1 and Topod touch diamond were over 2500, but considering their CPU frequencies and running memories, the result is acceptable. However, there is no doubt that A3000 could satisfy the common user requirements.
Windows Live Messenger, Note, FM Radio, Calculator, Recorder, Memo, Calendar, and common document viewers as Excel?Word ?PowerPoint have good reason to be inherited as advantages of Windows could be well displayed by these traditional functions.
Battery
Motorola has not been bountiful of battery life. But in this device an 1130 mAh battery is equipped. After 1 hour’s test, 15 minutes talk, 20 photos, and 10 texts, it stood by for one day and a half – that is not bad.
The only issue we have with A3000 is that the machine’s back turned to be very hot when it’s charging or connected to the computer, because its metal cover worked as a radiator for the battery due to the high calorific value.
Conclusion:
This device is publicized as an “internet navigation phone”. There is indeed some “interactive” conception and elements added. But the navigation seems not to be a reason good enough for us to buy this phone. We thought the most attractive aspect lies in Motorola’s brand and its excellent design. This phone doesn’t have top equipment at all, but the hand feeling, UI, as well as other small aspects all present Motorola’s great ability in phone design.
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