The SURF report: A sneak peek at the
Motorola A3100 SURF

At the January 2009 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Motorola announced the A3100 SURF, a brand new Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional smartphone, and I had the opportunity to get some hands-on time using one. It's a phone that Motorola is initially releasing in South-East Asian markets, but it might make its way to the North American markets later in 2009. Motorola has a long history of making Windows Mobile Standard smartphones, dating back to the original MPx200 with its clamshell design, but this is their first real foray into the world of Windows Mobile Professional touch screen phones (not counting the MPx that never made it to market).

The A3100 is a relatively small, slender phone, weighing in at 4.19 ounces and 0.54 inches thick. It has a bright, 2.8-inch QVGA (320 x 240) screen and two cameras: one on the back, a 3 megapixel camera with auto-focus and a flash, and a front-facing VGA-resolution camera for video calling. The flash can also be used as a flashlight. What’s it got under the hood? 256-MB flash memory for storage, 128 MB RAM for running software programs, and a microSD card slot for up to 32 GB of add-on storage. Currently 16 GB is the largest card size on the market, but it’s only a matter of time until we see a 32-GB microSD card.

USB 2.0 means moving music and photos to it will happen quickly, and Bluetooth 2.0 support means it’s compatible with both phone headsets and stereo headphones for listening to music. Worth noting is that there’s no Wi-Fi; instead, high-speed wireless is provided through 3G HSDPA 7.2 (850/1900/2100 frequencies). Because it’s destined for Asian markets first, it lacks the radio frequency needed for 3G access in North America. It does support quad-band GSM however, making it a true world-phone. Powering all of this is the Qualcomm MSM 7201A processor, which clocks in at 528 mhz.

The chief innovation on the A3100 is the combination of hardware and software that's used for navigating the interface. The hardware component is a small front-facing trackball, allowing quick navigation of the Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional software. Motorola created a custom software interface they call the “carousel”; it’s a neat way to move from screen to screen using your finger or the trackball. You can access your favorite contacts, favorite applications, web updates (an RSS reader), and the Home screen. The A3100 comes with a stylus, but everything I saw looks quite finger-optimized, so the number of times a stylus would be necessary should be minimal.

Bundled software includes Shozu, software that allows you to interact with sites such as YouTube, Facebook, flickr, Blogger, Picasa, and many more—I counted well over forty services that Shozu allows you to connect with. You can look at content your friends have uploaded and upload your own content to share with others. I haven’t used the service, but it looks very useful. Other programs included are Pac Man, Spore, song identification software, and turn-by-turn navigation software to go along with the GPS that’s on board.

If you’d like to see a video of the Motorola A3100 SURF in action, please check out this story over on Pocket PC Thoughts.

Although the A3100 won’t be available in North American markets for a while (and it is possible it may not be introduced here at all), it does provide a look at what Motorola is doing with Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional smartphones. Here’s hoping for more of them, soon.