Motorola adds Wi-Fi to 3G phone for NTT DoCoMo

NTT DoCoMo will begin selling a mobile phone combining Wi-Fi and 3G functions on July 1, according to the phone's manufacturer, Motorola.

Outwardly, the phone resembles another Motorola 3G phone, the A1000, and like its sibling can connect to Wideband Code Division Multiple Access 3G networks and older, slower GSM and GPRS networks. However, the M1000 can also connect to wireless LANs based on the Wi-Fi or IEEE 802.11b standard.

Like the A1000, the M1000 has a touch-sensitive, 2.9-inch TFT LCD with a resolution of 208 pixels by 320 pixels in up to 65,536 colors, a 1.2-megapixel still camera and a 300,000-pixel video camera, according to details supplied by a Motorola spokeswoman.

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NTT DoCoMo will begin selling a mobile phone combining Wi-Fi and 3G functions on July 1, according to the phone's manufacturer, Motorola.

Outwardly, the phone resembles another Motorola 3G phone, the A1000, and like its sibling can connect to Wideband Code Division Multiple Access 3G networks and older, slower GSM and GPRS networks. However, the M1000 can also connect to wireless LANs based on the Wi-Fi or IEEE 802.11b standard.

Like the A1000, the M1000 has a touch-sensitive, 2.9-inch TFT LCD with a resolution of 208 pixels by 320 pixels in up to 65,536 colors, a 1.2-megapixel still camera and a 300,000-pixel video camera, according to details supplied by a Motorola spokeswoman.

The M1000's battery contains enough energy for 80 minutes of videoconferencing over a 3G network, 280 minutes just talking over a GSM connection, or 200 hours on standby, according to Motorola figures.

In addition to its Wi-Fi connection, the phone can also hook up to computers over Bluetooth 1.1 short-range radio or a USB 2.0 cable.

The phone runs the Symbian operating system, and contains the Opera 7.5 browser; an e-mail client compatible with POP3, IMAP4 and SMTP servers; the movianVPN 4.0 IPSec VPN client; and document viewers for e-mail attachments in formats including PDF, JPEG, PNG, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint or Zip. It can also run Java applets compatible with the MIDP 2.0 specification.

The phone will ship with a 32M-byte memory card in the tiny TransFlash format, launched by Motorola and Sandisk last year.

Although the M1000 will work anywhere with a GSM or a GPRS network, it will initially only be sold in Japan and there are no plans yet to launch the device elsewhere, according to Motorola spokeswoman Naomi Kondo.

"Japan is where consumers expect high-end handsets," she said.

The handset's price will be set by NTT DoCoMo, she said.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.