Motorola is readying a slim, Linux-based PDA phone, according to several sources around the web. The E690, a tri-band GSM phone with QVGA touchscreen and 2 megapixel camera, will reportedly ship to China Mobile customers at an unspecified time.

So far, Motorola does not appear to have submitted the E690 to the FCC for approval for possible U.S. distribution.

The E690's 2 megapixel camera reportedly is capable of capturing 1600 x 1200 images. The device also has a music/video player supporting an unusually wide range of formats, including MP3, WMA, RealAudio, MIDI, WAV, AAC, and AMR music files, and RealVideo, MPEG-4, and H.263 video files, sources say.

Other features are said to include:

• Tri-band GSM/GPRS on 900/1800/1900 bands
• 262K color QVGA (320×240) TFT LCD
• SD/MMC slot
• USB1.1 port
• Dual 3D stereo speakers
• Voice dialing
• WAP 2.0 and full Web browsing
• Bluetooth
• IrDA
• Office file viewers
• MP3 ringtones
• SMS/EMS/MMS messages
• Email client
• Handwriting recognition
• Games
• Java MIDP 2.0
• USSD, IMPS, SyncML

Availability

The E690 does not yet appear to be available. However, product photos on several Internet sites suggest that it will be available through China Mobile.

Additional details can be found at HandCellphone, while a Chinese discussion forum has lots of photos of the new Linux-based Motorola device.

 
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