At M3 Music Summit in Miami Beach, Motorola introduced three new handsets and new wireless content created by MTV exclusively for Motorola. According to Motorola, the new sets were designed to maximize the mobile music experience for music lovers and artists worldwide. Motorola E398 is one of them. This phone is also targeted at youth.

Design

Motorola E398 has a cool design, the edges are slightly rounded and a plastic with rubberized touch is used. The buttons and their position is very user friendly. Furthermore, the joystick helps a lot in navigation.

Screen

The screen of Motorola E398 supports 16 bit color in 176x220 pixels and the curved protection mirror increases the screen area. The colors are bright and can be compared with sony ericsson k700i. The size and weight can be said slightly bigger i.e. 108x46x21 mm and 110 grams, but it is highly compromisable for a phone of such class.

3D sound

Motorola E398 becomes the first phone with stereo speakers. This feature was demonstrated long time ago by Korean manufacturers, but this is the only model where this function is already developed and will be released on market first. Presence of stereo speakers doubles the loudness of ringtones specially mp3 tones. It can give you a true music experience. But, some people think that this feature is nothing but fun.

Memory card technology

There is a new TransFlash card slot for storage. TransFlash (also called T-Flash), is a new format developed by Sandisk and Motorola that is about 25% the size of a normal SD card, and is intended specifically for mobile phones. In a normal package, the phone comes with a 64 MB T-Flash card which is well enough to use the phone as a digital camera and an mp3 player. Cards of upto 1 GB are also expected to come in the market. The data transfer speed to this type of cards is relatively high. But you have to switch the phone off in order to replace the card.

Camera

Camera of Motorola E398 is located on the back; it is a common VGA camera. But this time, the phone received flash (yellow window on the back). The flash will help in bad lighting conditions. Flash ensures a darkened room or dance floor need never get between you and your subject.

Synchronization options

Motorola E398 comes up with Bluetooth which is necessary for such a phone. In a standard package, you will also get a USB data cable and a CD of drivers and related softwares. Hence, synchronization is not a problem.

Conclusion

The phone comes under high class youth. The price is expected to be around 300-350 dollars. According to price, the phone has many competitors. Sonyericsson k700 is one of them. K700 gets advantage by having built in radio and presence of IrDa, while Motorola E398 also has its own unique set of features that can't be ignored. This model is expected to be a sales hit in the market.