The difference is pretty striking, interesting, amazing, unbelievable, really nice. [Matt Buchanan's Tweet, CNET]

Insiders always start by attacking Motorola's corporate culture, formed decades ago when radio was the company's bread-and-butter. Motorola made its bones building end-to-end systems—not just hardware, but the infrastructure that supports it. That, in turn, has led to a culture in which engineers reign supreme, and are allowed to sneer at their more right-brain-inclined colleagues. Marketers? Designers who focus on usability as opposed to circuitry? At Motorola, they're peons.

"There's this amazing wealth of engineering talent, but there's no system for harnessing that talent for the good of the consumer," says one former Motorola executive. The men in the R&D labs are permitted to indulge their flights of fancy, many of which center on fine-tuning antennas to optimize reception. Meanwhile, no one pays much attention to more prosaic fundamentals such as reliable software.

Another Motorola departee told Gizmodo that the company group charged with consumer research has been marginalized by the engineers, who dismiss its concerns—and, to a large extent, its very existence—as inconsequential. "With the engineers," he said, "there's this attitude of, "I create—what do you do? You pick out colors?'"

The engineers could theoretically be kept in check by corporate managers, but few suits are bold enough to act. A Motorola insider noted that long-serving managers have "deity status" at the company—no matter how many of their products flop, they never suffer repercussions.

The RAZR, a design victory as much as an engineering one, only came about due to the gumption of chief marketing office Geoffrey Frost. Following the RAZR's overnight success, Moto commissioned an in-house team to research the company's next step. Countless hours were spent pulling together focus-group studies and carrier feedback, but it was all for naught—the research was simply ignored by Motorola's top brass. "They have this attitude of, 'Well, I've built phones for 20 years, I know what I'm doing," says a frustrated member of that team, who noted that once Frost died in 2005, there was no one left with the chops and political capital to route around Moto's stick-in-the-mud managers.

Motorola's managerial bumbling has resulted in severe cultural malaise—a condition made worse by the mobile unit's location in the deep Chicago suburbs, hardly a place awash in creative energy. (Few 22-year-old design wunderkinds are willing to forego the Bay Area in favor of Libertyville.)

Keep in mind, too, that Motorola was the birthplace of Six Sigma, a methodology meant to eliminate product defects. But Six Sigma was created in 1986, well before the era of ubiquitous cellphones; its focus is engineering, not end-user experience. The methodology is therefore unequipped to address many of the shortcomings that have irked so many customers.

Take, for example, the navigation joystick on the ill-fated first-gen ROKR. It looked cool and worked as intended, but not without minor headaches: The joystick was a hair too sensitive, making it too easy to scroll past your music selection. Or take the Q—relatively powerful, but why in heaven's name didn't it auto-capitalize address book names, or allow for copy-and-paste? Sure these may strike you as minor details, but minor details make the difference in a competitive handset market. And Motorola's aging quality-control program wasn't designed to catch such annoying foibles.

Six Sigma and its companion product-development methodology, dubbed "M-Gates," both stress caution in the name of quality. But when it comes to innovation, there's certainly such a thing as too much wariness. In planning its software path after the RAZR's smashing success, Motorola knew (to its credit) that its Synergy OS was antiquated. But instead of developing a worthy successor, the company decided to wait around for Windows Mobile, ostensibly because it was a sure thing. Big mistake, as we all now know. Motorola next turned to Linux, which has never lived up to expectations. That's left the company scrambling for replacements, a panic that has led to the striking of numerous deals with potential software partners—"throwing darts at a board," as one former Motorola employee put it. It's also meant that different generations of the same phone end up running completely different software—the RAZR2 3G, for example, runs on the old P2K OS, while the 2.5G variant uses Linux. Both are painfully slow.

Motorola can still find the way forward—this is, after all, a company that's long done wondrous things in the lab. Surely it can figure out how to make its software work more fluidly, or realize that consumers actually care about such "trifling" issues as external volume rockers and intuitive menus.

Ex-employees are nearly unanimous in stating that bringing on Sanjay Jha as co-CEO (and designated handset-division savior) is a reasonable gamble. It's been clear for months now that CEO Greg Brown is in way over his head. "He has no idea how to run a consumer electronics business," grumbles one critic, adding that Brown's previous job was at an enterprise software company. While Jha is well regarded for his operational prowess and sheer intelligence, it's worth noting that he's fresh off a 14-year run at Qualcomm. Did chipmaking really prepare Jha to address the needs of Joe Sixpack consumers?

Our contacts contend that Jha's rescue plan needs to focus on two important areas—one technical, the other cultural. First, the company needs to streamline its wireless development, so that phone models are designed in conjunction with one another—thereby ending the lunacy of different generations featuring different (and inadequate) software. Second, there needs to be a reconciliation between the engineering heroes and the consumer research folks, who are currently out in the wilderness.

That can happen if Motorola opens its eyes to the very real design problems that plague generation after generation of its handsets. But does the company's leadership have the will to really shake things up? Some curmudegeonly engineers and managers are going to resist with every fiber of their beings. May the Force be with you, Mr. Jha.

Gizmodo columnist Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and author of the Now the Hell Will Start: One Soldier's Flight from the Greatest Manhunt of World War II.

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.

1.4 128 160 px 65K Color OLED display
Measures 90 48.6 16.4 mm
Weighs 87.5 grams
GSM850/900/1800/1900, GPRS/EDGE
2 megapixel camera (no autofocus, no flash)
1.8 QVGA 240 320 px 262K color internal display
MicroSD memory card slot
MP3 player
USB and Bluetooth stereo connectivity
Touch-sensitive keys.
But hey, I'm just a disgruntled Motorola user, so what do I know? [PC Pop via Unwired View]

It can either play it through speakers, or transmit it via FM to your car stereo. I am leery of this double-wireless action, and the demo was in too noisy a room for quality evaluation, but the Moto folks seem confident. One cool thing: it scans for clean frequencies, and when it finds one, it says aloud, "Tune your radio to 90.7." It also speaks caller ID out loud, and has 20 hours of battery life. Pricing and availability are not yet announced.

It's got RAZR2-like music controls, mini USB headphones (no 3.5mm jack), and the same round PEBL design. PhoneScoop is guessing that the "9" in U9 will mean this is going to have 3G, like other 9-series phones from Motorola, but it's still unconfirmed. [Phonescoop]

Old rockers never die. Unless you played for Thin Lizzy. Or Lynyrd Skynyrd. Or bought an original ROKR, the music phone that defined how music phones should never ever be done. If you bought one of those, you probably were dead already or wanted to get shot after a few minutes with it.

Motorola wants to change this (again) with the ROKR Z6, including 64MB of RAM inside and up to 2GB memory expansion slot, Windows Media Player sync and USB 2.0 High Speed connection in a 16mm thick slider phone with dedicated playback keys. Have they finally got it? More information after the jump.

ROKR Z6 Specs

Thin, narrow slider with a multi-modal design and rich colors, materials and finish
2.0 megapixel camera
Supports a variety of audio formats such as MP3, AAC, AAC+, WMA and other popular formats
3.5mm headset jack connection, and a dedicated lock switch
Bluetooth stereo support of Advanced Audio Distribution profile (A2DP) and Audio Video Remote Control Profile (AVRCP)
Internal memory and up to 2 GB of microSD* removable memory for extra storage for music, pictures and other media
USB 2.0 high speed connectivity for fast file transfers and data access
Video capture and playback
CDMA 800/1900, CDMA 1X/ EV-DO, 1900 Mhz receive diversity
Display: 2.0" QVGA with vivid colors
Browser: WAP2.0
BREW: 3.1.4
Messaging via MMS, SMS
Mobile Phone Tools support for PC synch of phonebook, contacts, and media
Integrated Bluetooth™ Class 2 wireless technology for hands-free connectivity

In other words, nothing new under the sun. Motorola claims their connectivity is better than the competition, transferring a song in 2 to 3 seconds. Whether that's Led Zep's "Stairway to Heaven" or The Sex Pistols' "God Save The Queen" is yet to be known. They are also selling the ROKR S9, a Bluetooth stereo headset that matches the phone styling.

Hopefully, the software will really be better than the previous generations. Otherwise, they don't stand a chance against the Samsungs and Sony Ericssons of this world. – Jesus Diaz

Product page [Motorola]

All in all, Noah says the phone isn't very polished. You can't go into widescreen mode, but it does run Linux and have some nice hardware features. Since it doesn't "rock as hard as it should," he's sending this back to Asia where it came from. You can make up your own decision though. – Jason Chen

Phonedog [Threebase]

When we saw the E6 passing through the FCC in October, we thought it might have iTunes on board, but now it sounds like Motorola's getting out of the way of something. What could that be? Oh, yeah, perhaps the iTunes contract has expired just in time for Apple's upcoming iPhone. Looks like cannon fodder for the looming Apple juggernaut.

Nevertheless, we're liking the way this E6 has a 3.5mm headphone jack instead of that oddball size of the Motorola Q's phone jack which won't let you use regular earbuds. Also along for the ride are a 2-megapixel camera and a relatively large 2.4-inch display. It also has an FM radio and an SD card slot for up to two gigs of storage.

Overall, it's similar to its predecessor, with the advantage of running Linux underneath but still making us wonder why it exists at all. No price was announced, but it'd better be cheap or it will again be DOA. – Charlie White

Motorola unveils iTunes-less ROKR [Reg Hardware]

The phone will have a touchscreen instead of a keypad, and will be loaded with a 2-megapixel camera, FM transmitter, and stereo Bluetooth capabilities. The iTunes integration seems like a long shot, seeing as this runs Linux. But, it does have GSM capabilities, which means it may be in your Cingular-stained hands someday soon. If you're looking for a break from the "me too" pretty, but low functionality thin phones, this may be the one for you. – Jason Chen

FCC Filing [FCC via Crunchgear]

The sound quality was good with both the iPod and the Bluetooth phones, but with the NaviPlay there was some distortion in the high end, possibly due to Bluetooth 1.2 not being able to handle that much data being streamed. Other than this, the calling part is acceptable and the buttons located on the left and right side are pretty easy to reach.

It's available now for $249. The NaviPlay for iPod integration costs $99. – Jason Chen

Review: Oakley O ROKR with NaviPlay iPod Transmitter [Mobile Mag]

The original ROKR E1 flopped and rumors of Apple's move to make a mobile phone means that manufacturers will probably be kept away from the iTunes license for the time-being. However, if the E2 is a big enough improvement, there may be some hope. No mention of it on the Motorola page, though.

Product Page [Motorola]

Motorola ROKR E2 to Include iTunes After All? [MobileBurn]

airplane mode
...You can use the phone's iTunes music player and other non-calling features in airplane mode

ROKR E2 Manual (pdf) [FCC via MobileTracker]

Other tipsters added that some Asian providers are allowing their customers only 50 songs on their ROKR phones, and that this is a page that lets them pay to upgrade to 100. One can only wonder if there is indeed some movement on this 100-song limit, though, especially with recent talk of a deal between Motorola and Microsoft and rumors of Apple's own 'Mobile Me' MVNO cellphone network.

Upgrade Your ROKR [3/25/84 via TUAW]