In the first day of CTIA Wireless 2008 (1 – 3 April, Las Vegas), the largest North American mobile carrier, namely AT&T, together with the largest North American handset producer, Motorola, announced the release of Motorola Z9. Therefore, as of today, the phone that first appeared in leaked photos in the Summer of 2007, is finally commercially available, ending the long period in which Moto fans (presumably) craved for it.

One of the nicest features Motorola Z9 has to offer is its built-in GPS. The phone is the first to use AT&T's Navigator service, allowing users to easily find the right path when traveling. The handset is also 3G enabled, coming with HSDPA connectivity for data transfer speeds of up to 3.6 Mbps.

Motorola Z9 weighs 4.9 ounces (139 grams), measures 4.48 x 2.08 x 0.55 inches (114 x 53 x 14 millimeters) and, as many of you already know, comes in a pretty nice slider form factor. Other specs, besides GPS and HSDPA, include a 2.4 inch TFT display with 256K colors and 240 x 320 pixels, a 2 Megapixel camera (although AT&T's website says it's a 1.3 one), Bluetooth 2.0, USB 2.0, Opera 8 browser, AT&T Mobile Music, CrystalTalk technology and microSD card support for up to 8GB of extra memory.

Talking about the newly released Moto Z9, Carlton Hill, vice president of Product Management, Voice Products and Affiliate Marketing for AT&T's wireless unit, said that the handset is "fashion and purpose rolled into one device". "The superior styling and voice calling, with advanced services like GPS and Video Share, will make it another winning product in AT&T's device lineup," added Mr. Hill.

Apparently, the new Moto is available only in burgundy red, but I guess other colors will soon follow (hopefully not magenta among them), as many users don't really like red / brown nuances. For the moment, Motorola Z9 can be bought exclusively via AT&T, for $149.99, only with a two-year contract agreement. Unfortunately for non-AT&T customers, there's no word about the phone's future availability from other US carriers or in other countries.