I blogged about Motorola phones a couple of days ago and how they’re on my shortlist for my next phone (along with the iPhone of course). Today I came across a press release talking about the best selling cell phones of 2006 and just noticed that 8 out of the top 10 phone contracts are actually based around Motorola phones.
On a side-line, here’s some trivial about Motorola:
- The HT-220 series of Handie-Talkie was used by a higher percentage of public safety agencies than any other single handheld radio type.
- Motorola pioneered the use of subaudible tones (trademarked as Private Line by Motorola) to control radio equipment. The most common use of these tones is to open the squelch of radios when a certain tone is received, so that users don’t have to listen to all of the traffic on their frequency, listening for their own callsign. The most popular use of “subaud” tones in ham radio is to close retransmission systems to any radio not sending the appropriate tone.
- The first radio transceiver to have a “recurring role” in television was the Motran 70 shown several times per episode on the series Adam-12. This was a two-piece radio system with a control head under the dashboard and the actual radio in the trunk (or, later, small enough to mount under the car seat). The markings seen in the show were authentic, installed by the LAPD radio shop.
- The radios used by the California Highway Patrol officers in the television series CHiPs were Motorolas, seen most prominently on the motorcycle units of the show’s main characters: Officers Jon Baker and Frank Poncherello.
- Despite rumor, the software necessary to program modern Motorola equipment is available to any user, but the licensing fees are high to discourage “do-it-yourself” radio programming.
- Many ham radio mountaintop repeater systems operate Motorola radios which have been in 24-hour-per-day service, 7 days per week, since the 1960s.
Anyway, back to phones, the top phone on the list seems to be the Moto RAZR on a variety of different networks, which is a testament to how good the phone really is. Hmm .. so many phones, so little cash ..
The article you link to is based on Wirefly’s sales and they are a US only vendor.
The US market is very different to the European one – it’s a few years behind in terms of capability for a start.
[)amien
The network provision may be behind, however the handsets are quite equivalent to what we use here in Europe, don’t you think ?
I don’t believe so no.
Sure they have a couple of high-profile smartphones (Sidekick and Blackberry) but the majority of people I meet there are using the basic mobiles that rarely even have cameras in them.
Compare that to Europe or Japan where most mobiles are picture-taking J2ME-enabled mobile devices with Symbian & Windows Mobile powered phones turning up everywhere in business.
[)amien
I suppose you might be right. I haven’t spent all that much time in the states, so can only comments from what I’ve read on people’s blogs etc.