MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Motofone F3 - the first impression plus rant about text input

kacir · 03-18-2007, 08:43 AM

Today I have had a chance to hold Motofone - a mobile (cellular) phone featuring e-ink display.

It looks similar to following picture
http://www.eink.com/press/images/ima...ne_072506.html
I say similar, becaust the actual model I have tried had different shape of segments on display. They were a little bit curved.
like here:
http://www.mobileburn.com/gallery.js...ource=MOSTREAD
I have found the above pictures using this thread
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...light=motorola

I was very, very surprised.
Here are the reasons:
1. I live in Slovakia. So I expected to see this technology after it is established in Japan, USA and other, richer, countries
2. I was told that Motofone is THE cheapest mobile phone you can buy here. GASP. Only 40 Euro for a phone over the counter without any contract.
3. Motofone is a phone. Period. Nothing more. You can use it to:
- make a phonecall
- send an SMS
- store a few phone numbers. It doesn't even have a memory, you can only use a very limited memory on the GSM card itself
- That is ALL. No organizer, no color display, no camera, no Java, no games, no loads of stuff most of people no not use anyway.
This is what we have been asking for for years. An equivalent of the basic "landline" phone.
4. It is beautiful. It is only 9mm thick, the display has VERY high contrast. It is simple. Very simple. Simple is bautiful.
5. It is ugly. It doesn't use matrix display like Reader or iLiad. The segments on the display are OK for numbers. But they are also used to display text. And the resulting text is ugly.
6. I is the very first example of e-ink I have ever seen, so I was *bound* to be surprised by the crispnes and the high contrast of the numbers on display.
7. It doesn't invert the entire display to refresh. It just changes segments that have to be changed. No ghosting and the speed of refresh is very high. A fraction of the second.

<rant mode>
DO YOU HEAR ME SONY?
DO YOU HEAR ME IREX?
Sory for shouting.
Please read point seven again.
You could use a little strip of cheap segmented display as an input line for text. It works for motorola. So why couldn't it work for iLiad v. 3.0 or PRS 1000?
Motophone has 10 numeric buttons. Just like Reader. And yet, motofone has no problem with text input for sms messages. So why couldn't Sony Reader have a simple and primitive text input for text search, or filename renaming, or a simple console (shell like ash or editor like ed or whatever applications busybox offers)
</rant mode>

Have a nice day.

03-18-2007, 08:43 AM	#1
kacir Wizard Posts: 3,463 Karma: 10684861 Join Date: May 2006 Device: PocketBook 360, before it was Sony Reader, cassiopeia A-20	Motofone F3 - the first impression plus rant about text input Today I have had a chance to hold Motofone - a mobile (cellular) phone featuring e-ink display. It looks similar to following picture http://www.eink.com/press/images/ima...ne_072506.html I say similar, becaust the actual model I have tried had different shape of segments on display. They were a little bit curved. like here: http://www.mobileburn.com/gallery.js...ource=MOSTREAD I have found the above pictures using this thread https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...light=motorola I was very, very surprised. Here are the reasons: 1. I live in Slovakia. So I expected to see this technology after it is established in Japan, USA and other, richer, countries 2. I was told that Motofone is THE cheapest mobile phone you can buy here. GASP. Only 40 Euro for a phone over the counter without any contract. 3. Motofone is a phone. Period. Nothing more. You can use it to: - make a phonecall - send an SMS - store a few phone numbers. It doesn't even have a memory, you can only use a very limited memory on the GSM card itself - That is ALL. No organizer, no color display, no camera, no Java, no games, no loads of stuff most of people no not use anyway. This is what we have been asking for for years. An equivalent of the basic "landline" phone. 4. It is beautiful. It is only 9mm thick, the display has VERY high contrast. It is simple. Very simple. Simple is bautiful. 5. It is ugly. It doesn't use matrix display like Reader or iLiad. The segments on the display are OK for numbers. But they are also used to display text. And the resulting text is ugly. 6. I is the very first example of e-ink I have ever seen, so I was bound to be surprised by the crispnes and the high contrast of the numbers on display. 7. It doesn't invert the entire display to refresh. It just changes segments that have to be changed. No ghosting and the speed of refresh is very high. A fraction of the second. <rant mode> DO YOU HEAR ME SONY? DO YOU HEAR ME IREX? Sory for shouting. Please read point seven again. You could use a little strip of cheap segmented display as an input line for text. It works for motorola. So why couldn't it work for iLiad v. 3.0 or PRS 1000? Motophone has 10 numeric buttons. Just like Reader. And yet, motofone has no problem with text input for sms messages. So why couldn't Sony Reader have a simple and primitive text input for text search, or filename renaming, or a simple console (shell like ash or editor like ed or whatever applications busybox offers) </rant mode> Have a nice day.