The Price: $199 (after 2-year contract)

The Verdict: Long story short, the hardware is great, the music interface is decent, the T-Mobile interface sucks. But let's start with the good. Not only do I like build quality, and how the button layout changes according to the phone's function, I also like that the haptic feedback really feels like the phone has buttons (Herrman is still convinced there aren't haptics). As a music player, the capacitive ring and menu system give it an iPod sort of feel, which is nice. It's pretty easy to use, and doesn't suffer from much lag. Syncing with Windows Media Player is a relatively painless process, but that means it's also Windows only (Mac Users have to transfer files via MicroSD, ugh).

The thing that makes me never want to touch the phone again is T-Mobile's UI skin, which takes competent phone software and turns it into a laggy, unresponsive pile of crap. Seeing as this phone is a T-Mo exclusive, I think it's important to highlight how much I dislike it. Frequently I try to enter into a menu for the camera, or text messages, only to be thrown back to the MyFaves home screen. After hitting another button in response, the phone decides it wants to go to the app I was originally trying to use, and then respond to my subsequent button pushing. The dialog boxes also like to clash with the menus, which allow for frequent input errors. I liken the process to playing voicemail tag with someone, which is to say it's totally annoying.

Other than that, it's just slow, the capacitive ring is no good for navigating the main menu, and trying D-pad feels cramped. So while I think the phone is an above average candybar, I'd hold out for a version running different software.

Given the fact that Motorola is using Hollywood to garner publicity for one of its products makes me think that they are not bowing out without a fight. Athough *whispers* from a style point of view, fake iguana-skin boxes won't increase sales in my book—what you need, Greg Brown, is a new interface and sexier, non-four-letter-upper-case-word handsets. [Electronista]

ROKR E8

The rokr E8 is the next gen of Moto's music player phone line. It has a smooth surface, no visible keys. ModeShift / morphing turns the device from phone to music player to camera. They've built in haptic feedback for tactile response when keys are pressed, and a navigation wheel above the touch pad. They also threw in an FM radio, 2GB of internal memory, expandable via MicroSD. USB 2.0 for fast song transfer. It's a Quad Band GPRS/EDGE phone.

Moto Z10

This one is a kick slider multimedia phone, with built-in video editing tools. The 2.2-inch QVGA screen displays video at 30fps, and in 16 million colors. External storage for up to 32GB, when it becomes available. So 8GB for now. 3.2 megapixel camera, which launches in 1.5 seconds-they made a big deal of this although the iPhone doesn't seem to take any longer to get into camera mode. It's3.5G HSDPA, GSM/GPRS/EDGE, for all that wireless video you're going to be uploading.

As much camera as phone.

Moving on to the Rokr E8.(This leaked a few weeks back.) Moto has been trying to get the music phone right for a long time now. This one has a no-button surface, touch activated it lights up. When you listen to music, the phone keys automatically disappear and the music player buttons show. When you switch to camera mode, the buttons for the camera appear on the front of the handset. Morphing technology on a single glass-like surface.

But people like to know when they've pressed the keys. So they added a haptic touchpad that gives tactile feedback. it also has a scroll wheel like function.

Motorola's audio engineers developed a new algorithm for in-ear music listening. The innovation here is that while most in-ear headphones make it sound as though the music is vibrating from inside your head, now it sounds like the music from the in-ear headphones are coming from outside your ears.

Motorola is acquiring SoundBuzz, a provider of wireless ota music downloads and buying in southeast asia.