Motorola A760 Gallery

Motorola A760 Motorola's A760 is one of the first Linux based phones on the market. The dualband GSM 900/1800 not only looks much like a Motorola Accompli 388c in form, but the user interface also greatly resembles the A388c's. And while this isn't a real review, I have spent a bit of time playing with both the A760 and the A388c, so I can offer some opinions on them. But as the A760 doesn't function on any of the North American bands, I can't say how it rates in terms of signal quality.

As I just said, the A760 has the same basic physical design as the A388c. The new large window on the folder is a welcome improvement over the old design, as it allows more information to be passed on while still fully protecting the main touch-screen display, and there is the addition of a camera on the rear, but otherwise the devices are quite similar.

The big interest in this device is driven by its OS, of course. As a Linux device, I somehow expected the UI to be....different. But in reality it is 95% like the UI on the A388c, which is kind of a disappointment. The A388c's UI is ok, I suppose, but I have always found it to be a bit too rigid and too heavily based on tabs. The A760 does have a bit better font support, or at least better choice of system fonts used in the device. The A388c is cursed with fonts that are for most situations too large. The A760 is a bit better in that department.

The changes to the UI, on the other hand, do not strike me as an improvement. The changes in the use of the virtual softkeys seems odd to me. Not unlike the minor changes you notice when running Linux on the desktop when you are used to Windows. But maybe a bit more counterintuitive than merely different. In any event, I don't really like the UI. I didn't love it on the A388c, and I like it less on the A760.

In terms of performance, the A760 is a bit faster than the A388c. I honestly don't know if they are using the same processor and Linux is the reason for the improvement, or if the A760 just has more processing speed in general, but the A760 didn't suffer from the huge pauses I've always experienced with the A388c. Even with all that being said, though, I still don't think of the A760's UI as being particularly snappy. I'd prefer the P900 or a Series 60 Nokia in terms of response, I think.

I mentioned the camera briefly earlier. I was not very impressed with it when it came to shooting video clips. It seemed adequate for stills, but the video quality was the worst that I have seen recently. The frame rate seemed excessively low, making everything quite choppy. The experience was not helped by a ruddy looking display, either. White areas in the menus and such just never appeared "clean". Everything always had a color cast to it that detracted from the experience.

One other feature worth noting in the A760 is the Bluetooth system. Naturally I could not test it properly since I was not able to place calls with the device, I did manage to try out a few things and get some impressions. First up, the device seemed to play well with other non-headset devices in general. I was able to find and pair with other PDAs and my laptop and such without a problem. I could send images back and forth, too.

I do worry about headset support, though. No matter what I did, I couldn't get the A760 to pair correctly with my HBH-60. It would pair, supposedly, but as soon as I tried to activate the headset so as to be able to initiate a call, the A760 would ask for the PIN code again. Every time.

So overall I was not impressed with the A760. Of course it didn't get a proper chance to show it's stuff, as this wasn't a full, proper review, but my initial impressions certainly were not very positive.

You'll find a number of photos of the A760 and its UI/Display on the following pages.

 

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