14 DAY TRIAL // Sholes is the Android handset Motorola is expected to release on the market on the airwaves of Verizon, and it seems that it will turn into a great device when available, though the other Motorola Android phone, Morrison, doesn't look like a bad choice either. Aimed at the high-end Android smartphone segment, the Motorola Sholes reportedly boasts a 600 MHz ARM Cortex A8 + processor, while running under the Eclair flavor of Android.
The Texas Instruments OMAP3430 chip is great, we have to agree, as it comes with a PowerVR SGX 530 GPU, making the Sholes fitted for serious gaming. According to Android And Me, this would be the most likely purpose for the device. At the same time, the combination between it and the Eclair iteration of Google's operating system could also prove a fortunate one, and we might even see the first handset launched with the already expected Android 2.0 (which is not Donut, as Google explained before).
The specs of the upcoming handset also show a 3.7-inch touch-sensitive display that boasts an 854 x 480 pixel resolution and provides support for 16 million colors, as well as a 5.0 megapixel photo snapper with auto focus and video recording capabilities, GPS navigation, media player with support for AMR-NB/WB, MP3, PCM / WAV, AAC, AAC +, eAAC +, WMA audio files and MPEG-4, H.263, H.264, WMV video files, and a microSD / microSDHC memory card slot.
A Li-ion 1400 mAh battery is also present in the package, along with USB 2.0, a 3.5mm audio jack, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR, and Wi-Fi connectivity, not to mention the 512MB of ROM and 256MB of RAM the Motorola Sholes is expected to include. Even so, it seems that the OMAP3430 is still the main selling point of the handset, as it has been optimized for the ARMv7 architecture of the chip and uses the NEON instruction set for the architecture.
The next-generation 3D graphics and game physics should work great on the handset apparently, due to the ARM NEON technology. And while Sholes is set to make Verizon's subscribers quite happy this way, the rest will not be left aside either. Android And Me says that a W-CDMA(UMTS) version of the phone is also under development, and it should come to AT&T and other carriers around the globe. As for the Verizon-bound Sholes, it is expected to sport a price tag of $199 on a contract when becoming available for purchase, before the end of November, 2009.