Motorola Cancels MPx

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.phonescoop.com/news/item.php?n=1170' target='_blank'>http://www.phonescoop.com/news/item.php?n=1170</a><br /><br /></div><i>"A Motorola spokesperson today confirmed that the company has canceled production of the MPx Windows Mobile Pocket PC device, confirming a report last week by DigiTimes. Motorola has dropped plans for commercial launch of the device beyond Malaysia and several smaller Asian countries where the phone saw limited release. The company will continue to use the MPx for limited carrier and market trials to learn more about the mobile enterprise market. Motorola emphasized that it is still committed to the mobile professional market..."</i><br /><br />While it's unfortunate to see Motorola pull the plug on the MPx, we can hope that they'll be back with something more in line with consumer needs. I've heard that poor build quality was partly responsible for this move, but I wonder if all the negative feedback around the MPx's limited 32 MB of RAM played a small part in the decision?

[carphead]

Nah. It's because it look like a turkey, run like a turkey and guess what?

It was a turkey.
To little to late.
To quote me from a previous post

"Did anybody hear the splash when Motorola missed the boat?"

At least Moto had the good sense to bin it before it fell into Consumers hands. Unlike HP with the 6xxx series. :D

[yslee]

Well, thank goodness. 32mb of RAM is a disaster on a PPCPE device, it seems. Oh well, hope version 2 is better.

[Kevin Daly]

I note the mobile professional bit. It's alarming/annoying how many companies think any mobile device beyond a toy must be just for the "Enterprise" &lt;all genuflect> market.
It's boll*x. The vaunted Enterprise are in tech adoption followers, not leaders , and have the imagination of fungi.

Other than that, the ridiculous 32Mb looks like some idiot deciding it was just a phone and saying to him/herself "Who needs more than 32M for a phone?"

[Jon Westfall]

... It's working fine for me.... :mrgreen:

[powder2000]

I think the xda mini as well as other successes quickly put the mpx to rest. It was a great idea, lets see if they can learn from their mistakes, possibley a razor version with more ram and quicker implementation.

[ricksfiona]

At least Moto had the good sense to bin it before it fell into Consumers hands. Unlike HP with the 6xxx series. :D

I agree. Better to admit a wrong and move on rather than do so and try to fake it. I give Motorola credit for this...

[jutae]

... It's working fine for me.... :mrgreen:

I love my mpx220 too :mrgreen:

[Jerry Raia]

I think they learned from the MPx220. Don't make junky products.

[felixdd]

I think they learned from the MPx220. Don't make junky products.

Oh...the MPx200 was much worse ;)

[Jerry Raia]

I think they learned from the MPx220. Don't make junky products.

Oh...the MPx200 was much worse ;)

Hmmmm, in that case they didn't learn from the Mpx200, therefore, they haven't learned anything or they wouldn't even have conceived of something so stupid as a device like this with 32mb of RAM.

[MitchellO]

"Who needs more than 32M for a phone?"

I am wanting more on my mini and it has 64Mb RAM!! I am thinking of doing the rom mod to give me 28Mb Rom space. Even just the rom space would beat the 32mb (what of that was accessible? after giving some for system memory?) of the mpx.

[daS]

... they haven't learned anything or they wouldn't even have conceived of something so stupid as a device like this with 32mb of RAM.
While I think that Moto made a wise choice in dropping the MPx. In fairness to them, the 32MB fiasco was not all their fault:

Microsoft has been talking about having the architecture of the Pocket PC change to use only flash for [i]all[i/] file and program storage and use a small amount of RAM for "system" memory only. It would appear that Moto designed the MPx hardware based on this Microsoft plan. The trouble is that no current version of Windows Mobile supports this new memory model. Sadly, it's my understanding that the MPx didn't have room for standard memory chips, but instead had the 32M of RAM embedded with some other hardware - making it impractical for them to add more memory late in the design cycle.

While I'm sad to see it fail, I'm glad Motorola didn't release it with problems. On the other hand, I loved the form factor and hope that they come out with an updated design with more memory and a thinner body when closed.

[DaleReeck]

I'll save Motorola some market research dollars. Put more memory in. There, I just saved them a boatload of money.

Actually, if the device actually had 32MB, it still could have been usable. But remaining usable memory out of the box was only 11MB - the rest being taken by the OS and the system. 11MB is completely useless. You couldn't load more than 10 or so web pages consecutively without needing a soft reset.

[Jerry Raia]

I can't believe those fish heads at Moto didn't just put the extra memory in anyway!!!! Regardless of what MS was saying. Bigger is better!! What fools they are. :roll:

[arnage2]

First the mpx100, now this.
moto is canceling some great devices. what a shame

[MitchellO]

I'm sure PPC Techs would have loved Moto to release this device with so little ram. they would have made a killing!!

[bnycastro]

I was waiting for so long for this device, there was a time I even dreamt I had one, but now I am happy with my i-mate JAM and sleepless nights without the MPx are but a distant memory. I think Moto took too much time and was not ready to get into the PPC-PE market... maybe next time they will be better prepared.

I also hope Moto is not turned-off by this so much that they turn away from the OS. I see a lot of potential for Moto and WindowsMobile maybe all they need is a few people from this community to become their advisers for their next generation of winmobile products... :wink:

[MitchellO]

It would be quite smart of these companies to monitor these forums. That way they could produce devices that they know people want, or at least get ideas for them.

[QYV]

Microsoft has been talking about having the architecture of the Pocket PC change to use only flash for [i]all[i/] file and program storage and use a small amount of RAM for "system" memory only. It would appear that Moto designed the MPx hardware based on this Microsoft plan.

This sounds a little unlikely - what's the ROM size of the MPx? Unless it has at least 64 MB usable storage, I don't buy that story...

[bnycastro]

Microsoft has been talking about having the architecture of the Pocket PC change to use only flash for [i]all[i/] file and program storage and use a small amount of RAM for "system" memory only. It would appear that Moto designed the MPx hardware based on this Microsoft plan.

This sounds a little unlikely - what's the ROM size of the MPx? Unless it has at least 64 MB usable storage, I don't buy that story...So this setup would be like what is on the desktop correct? I don't think Magneto (WM2005) will be doing this yet. Maybe they will integrate PocketPC Phone Ed and Smarthphone, work out the kinks, then move on to this new memory handling type (well I think this is the best move so they don't have to do alot of developing for 2 OSes) but I'm just guessing here.

[felixdd]

Microsoft has been talking about having the architecture of the Pocket PC change to use only flash for [i]all[i/] file and program storage and use a small amount of RAM for "system" memory only. It would appear that Moto designed the MPx hardware based on this Microsoft plan.

This sounds a little unlikely - what's the ROM size of the MPx? Unless it has at least 64 MB usable storage, I don't buy that story...So this setup would be like what is on the desktop correct? I don't think Magneto (WM2005) will be doing this yet. Maybe they will integrate PocketPC Phone Ed and Smarthphone, work out the kinks, then move on to this new memory handling type (well I think this is the best move so they don't have to do alot of developing for 2 OSes) but I'm just guessing here.

No...magneto is the one that's doing it. No idea on how magneto will be on the PE side of things.

[bnycastro]

Just to clarify this memory model (RAM for running ROM for storing) will be used by MAGNETO??? Will this memory model protect your data from total power loss (like on a desktop)? If so this would be a fantastic step forward for the OS... I read at bh that p1's tungsten e2 has nvfs which protects data even after total power loss. If winmobile can catch up to this then it will be a win win win situation for almost all handheld users. the only screens of magneto i've seen looked like phone edition screens (shots with dial pad etc) so I've no doubt that magneto will have a phone ed version. Out of curiosity I want to know what are the upsides and downsides of this memory model, anyone? Will everyone be forced to follow this or will manufacturers have a say and use the existing model with the new OS (is this possible)? So what then would be the minimum requirements for this new OS? I used to think 64Mb RAM/ROM was the norm as most devices come out like this. but now we have 64/128 32/64 128/128 128/96 configurations which would be optimal for Magneto, for it to run smoothly or is it too early to tell?

[HTK]

If I see a mpx selling cheap on ebay I'll be glad to buy it and use it.

[dim_spazov]

According to DigiTimes Motorola also canceled the MPx230, a smartphone the company didn't even get to anounce officially.


Although it was overlooked on many sites Chi Mei, the company that created MPx200 and MPx220, presented it on 3GSM 2005 at Cannes.

Chi Mei, of course, presented it with another name: UTC-100. But for sure it is MPx 230, as you can see on the fotos.

Let's just hope someone else decides to sell this beauty.



You can check out six photos os MPx 230 over here.
http://www.portalppc.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=1986

[Jerry Raia]

We should also hope somebody other than Chi Mei makes it too.

[daS]

I'm sure PPC Techs would have loved Moto to release this device with so little ram. they would have made a killing!!
Unfortunately, Leonard at PPCT indicated that they would not be able to upgrade the MPx memory because, as I noted, the device did not seem to have a separate RAM chip, but instead must have integrated the memory into some other chip(s).

[Paragon]

Somehow I'm having a hard time giving Moto credit for cancelling this thing. For over a year they flogged the MPX to carriers around the world and never found a single solid customer outside of Malaysia to actually place an order for them. I'm sure the carriers saw this as an expensive device that would have been a huge burden on their support staff and decided to stay away. So I think after a year they finally decided to quit trying...what else are you going to do when nobody wants it?

I think if they can now take the RAZR form and stuff similar components to the Blue Angel inside they should have a pretty good shot at it.

Good luck Moto! Remeber, Ford once produced the Edsel, and later did the Mustang. ;)

Dave

[daS]

Just to clarify this memory model (RAM for running ROM for storing) will be used by MAGNETO??? Will this memory model protect your data from total power loss (like on a desktop)? If so this would be a fantastic step forward for the OS...
While I can't comment on what may or may not be in Magneto, I can say that the new memory model is precisely for the reason you stated: protecting your data.

As for total RAM in this model, I think that 64M will end up to be the "sweet spot". Remember that on the current Pocket PC, any programs you install in RAM take twice their size to run: The storage space and then the space in "system RAM" while running. (In reality, the space requirements can be less than actually double since many large programs swap various threads in and out of memory, but with temporary data storage added in, double the size is a reasonable estimate.) If the programs and their data files are stored in flash, with only the executing code and temp data in RAM, the RAM requirements would be far less.

There are issues with this design: Speed is the main one. Flash is still much slower than RAM, but many programs written for the Pocket PC assume that RAM is used for data and program storage. Such programs use files like they are in main memory. Such programs will be dramatically slower when using flash. Therefore, it might take some time for third-party applications to fully support the new memory model.

In any case, it's obvious that the MPx design was too far ahead of both the available hardware and the current version of the OS. I hope to see a future version of a Pocket PC Phone with the same clamshell rotating screen concept (but in a thinner package.) 8)

[Paragon]

In any case, it's obvious that the MPx design was too far ahead of both the available hardware and the current version of the OS.

David, I have always admired your positive outlook on things, after all, look what you have done for Bluetooth. ;) BUT I have to say I think you are the only person on the planet who has classified the MPX is that manner. I've heard it called many things in the past few months, but NEVER ahead of its time :)

[daS]

David, I have always admired your positive outlook on things...
:lol: Great timing Dave! I just came out of a meeting where I was accused of always being the "nay-sayer". :wink:

BUT I have to say I think you are the only person on the planet who has classified the MPX is that manner. I've heard it called many things in the past few months, but NEVER ahead of its time :)
What I meant about the MPx being ahead of its time is that Moto used a memory model that is not supported by the current version of the OS and they used a mechanical design that was very innovative, but the electronics available to support it was not up to the task.

I would still LOVE to see an MPx-like device, only thinner and with better performance. I hope that Moto doesn't throw out the innovative mechanical concept with the poor impliementation.

[Pdaholic]

What I meant about the MPx being ahead of its time is that Moto used a memory model that is not supported by the current version of the OS and they used a mechanical design that was very innovative, but the electronics available to support it was not up to the task.


I completely agree! Our biggest complaints are the lack of memory and the weak processor, two issues which we originally didn't know about and were still drooling over the device. It was the first clamshell PPC (I think), and was definitely the first PDA with a hinge (good or bad that it was).

[Paragon]

What I meant about the MPx being ahead of its time is that Moto used a memory model that is not supported by the current version of the OS and they used a mechanical design that was very innovative, but the electronics available to support it was not up to the task.

I would still LOVE to see an MPx-like device, only thinner and with better performance. I hope that Moto doesn't throw out the innovative mechanical concept with the poor impliementation.

I agree, David. The MPX was the first of its kind in many ways. Moto could have easily overcome any shortcoming in current OS, or hardware by simply adding a bit of memory to get them over the hump with this device....but chose not to.......&lt;shrugs>

Dave

[MitchellO]

I'm sure PPC Techs would have loved Moto to release this device with so little ram. they would have made a killing!!
Unfortunately, Leonard at PPCT indicated that they would not be able to upgrade the MPx memory because, as I noted, the device did not seem to have a separate RAM chip, but instead must have integrated the memory into some other chip(s).

Bummer! I'm sure it would have been popular if it could have been done.

I liked the design of the MPx, except for the RAM and the keyboard. They put that weird, curvy "design" in there. It would have been so much better if it was just straight!

[beq]

Will they now come up with a new PPC Phone Edition redesign that incorporates RAZR stylings? :)

[bnycastro]

You can check out six photos os MPx 230 over here.
http://www.portalppc.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=1986 Did you notice that this clamshell unit has a smartphone keypad set up (soft, home and back keys) but the screen shows PPC PE (start menu, new menu etc). Pretty weird! maybe this is just a dummy model?
Will they now come up with a new PPC Phone Edition redesign that incorporates RAZR stylings? This would be a good idea since the RAZR line seems pretty solid. But they should get their act together first. I think a Windows Mobile based mobile (PPC PE or SP) will require more resources from Moto... the MPx220 seems like a nice product but got a lot of bugs... so far even the ROM update was pulled from the Moto website. This kind of support won't cut it.
While I can't comment on what may or may not be in Magneto, I can say that the new memory model is precisely for the reason you stated: protecting your data.Thanks for your explanation. :)

[allenalb]

I think they learned from the MPx220. Don't make junky products.

Oh...the MPx200 was much worse ;)

hallelujah and amen, brother!

[bspeed]

I have an opportunity to pick this device up, but I heard it does not have the 850 GSM band. Can anyone confirm this?
If so, since I have Cingular I guess I am out of luck!

Thanks for your help!

Bob

[inteller]

I think they learned from the MPx220. Don't make junky products.

Oh...the MPx200 was much worse ;)

Hmmmm, in that case they didn't learn from the Mpx200, therefore, they haven't learned anything or they wouldn't even have conceived of something so stupid as a device like this with 32mb of RAM.


its funny how a device suddently becomes junky when something better comes out....even though it was the sh t when it originally released.

[ivancingular]

I work at a Cingular store in Redmond, WA, with 90% of my business being from Microsoft employees... so I see a lot of windows mobile devices both pre- and post- release

I have absolutely ZERO confidence that Motorola is capable of building a good Windows Mobile device...

I've had customers literally throw their MPX200 and 220's at me... I'm glad the MPX has been s**tcanned... It would've left an even larger dent in my forehead than either of its predecessors