Showing that Motorola, which practically invented the cellular phone, is as strong and optimistic as ever, local and regional executives met with members of the IT media recently armed with new phone models that range from entry-level units to music phones and Windows-based Qwerty-enabled types.

Recent Motorola regional officials who visited Manila — Jon Jinhok Lee, director, NorthEast Asia product marketing, Mobile Devices Business and Alvin Soh, product marketing manager, Mobile Devices, South East Asia Carriers — along with Motorola Philippines marketing manager Mari Litonjua, explained that their new phones have features that are tailored to the needs of the targeted market segments.

For instance, Soh said the Blackberry-enabled Moto Q9h is equipped with capabilities that allow high-end users to enjoy not just push-email but rich multi-media experience.

The unit, which will be retailed at P19,000, has a Qwerty keypad and falls in a category which Motorola calls "Dext" for (dexterity). The other categories are Rokr (music phones), Zine (multimedia) and Phone First (basic functionalities).

Under the music phone category, the company is rolling out the high-end Rokr E8 – a sleek phone that looks like an MP3 player. Slated to become available in the second quarter of the year, the Rokr E8 has a unique "song ID" feature that can identify the singer and title of a song being played somewhere else.

The phone has a navigation wheel to scroll through songs. It has a 2GB of onboard memory and up to 4GB of external SD memory.

For the "Phone First" category, Motorola is launching the mass-targeted but powerful W320. Instead of a camera, the unit is equipped with refined music-playing capability because, according to Litonjua, a study has found that music capability has replaced the camera function in terms of preference among phone users.

Reputedly the cheapest music phone yet at P2,450, the W320 is a no patsy with its booming speakerphone, external memory of up to 2GB, and long battery life of up to standby time of up to 465 hours.

Available in orange and silver, the phone model also has Crystal Talk noise-canceling technology and has FM radio record that clips a snippet of a song to serve as an alarm alert.

Motorola’s Soh said that as the company unveils more phone models in the country, local telecom carrier may want to introduce a more flexible offer to spur data usage among phone users.

"Offering it at an unlimited package perhaps would help in increasing the data traffic in the Philippines," he said.