Specifications for the device, called the A920, appeared on the Federal Communications Commission’s web site late last week. Motorola appears to have built the device for Hutchison Whampoa Ltd’s networks in the UK and Italy. Photographs and drawings of the A920 show Hong Kong-based Hutchison’s 3 branding on a button that allows users to gain fast access to its multimedia services.
Hutchison would neither confirm nor deny its interest in the handset. We are talking to companies all the time, we’re always exploring new products and services as part of our commitment to continuing evolution and development, but we have no announcements to make, a Hutchison spokesperson told ComputerWire.
Motorola is already supplying Hutchison with consumer-oriented 3G handsets. However, the A920 not only uses Symbian Ltd’s operating system, it has also adopted the London, UK-based company’s UIQ pen-based user interface, as used in Sony Ericsson’s P800. This marks the device out as primarily a corporate tool.
Other features of the A920 include the now de rigeur integrated digital camera and a full complement of multimedia and messaging applications. Significantly it also adds GPS positioning technology, the first Symbian-based device to do so.
The appearance of the A920 should help remove some of the doubts over Motorola’s commitment to Symbian. In spite of being a long-time shareholder in Symbian, the company has shown little interest in launching handsets based on the technology so far. Motorola did introduce a hardware reference design for 2.5G and 3G phones using Symbian OS in February, however.
Just last month, Motorola announced its intention to launch a Linux-based smart phone into the Asia Pacific market later this year. It has also expressed interest in building devices based on Palm OS or Microsoft’s software variants.
Source: Computerwire
