Smartphone Thoughts: Alltel Wireless Debuts Two Bold Choices, Moto Q 9c and Moto Q 9c Lime

"Alltel Wireless, America’s largest network, and Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT) today announced that Motorola’s leading smartphone will be available in two color options, MOTO QTM 9c in licorice and MOTO QTM 9c lime, expected this summer. MOTO Q 9c and MOTO Q 9c lime provide on-the-go consumers with the tools and applications needed to keep up with their fast-paced professional and personal lives. ... The smartphones offer innovative features wrapped in a sleek design and Alltel Wireless customers can choose their color preference, MOTO Q 9c in licorice with a silver sail band or MOTO Q 9c lime edged in tin silver. The QWERTY keyboard has been precisely engineered for fast and accurate typing and provides the ideal experience for frequent messaging¹. The large 2.4 inch color display is perfect for viewing pictures or videos, including those captured via the device’s 1.3 megapixel camera with flash and fixed focus. In addition to the 128MB of on-board memory, MOTO Q 9c and MOTO Q 9c lime are future-proofed and will support up to 32GB of external memory when larger capacity cards become available, providing plenty of room to store photos and other multimedia."

Motorola's fascination with colors keeps on going. Instead of adding useful features like Wi-Fi, better camera and GPS; Motorola just likes to change the color and announce a "new" model every six months. And the company execs wonder why the mobile division is not doing well? The thing that really surprised me in this press release is that it didn't mention GPS as one of the features, not sure if this is a mistake in the press release or if the product really doesn't have GPS. The Moto Q 9c announced on Sprint has GPS. Alltel Wireless will offer MOTO Q 9c and MOTO Q 9c lime for $99.99 after a $100.00 mail-in rebate and requires a two year service agreement. The handset will be available this summer and will ship with Windows Mobile 6. The Alltel Q9c is one of the models supposed to receive the Windows Mobile 6.1 upgrade. Let's hope that the product will ship with 6.1 and save us the hassle of the backup-upgrade process.