There is absolutely no doubt that Motorola has failed in the music field, the Walkman Series and XpressMusic and NSeries Music Edition are our favourites. But Motorola didn’t stop trying, and even won four awards for this phone.

The ROKR E8 has 2GB of internal memory and a microSD slot for further memory. A bad choice, the phone isn’t released yet, and its competitors have 8GB and 16GB in the make.

There is a 2” display with QVGA resolution, and a 2 megapixel camera with video recording.

The battery life shouldn’t be bad, as it’s 970mAh and it’s tweaked for music performance.

On the connectivity side, the ROKR E8 is rather poor. There should have been 3G for music download (legal of course), there is no WiFi, but there is Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP.

“ROKR E8 is a no compromises device – it’s both an MP3 player that makes great phone calls and a mobile phone with tremendous audio capabilities. With our unique ModeShift technology, we’re dispelling the myth that mobile phones with music features are inferior to stand-alone audio devices,” stated Stu Reed, president, Motorola Mobile Devices. “Rounding out our ROKR portfolio, our new music accessories provide consumers with a number of ways to enjoy their music.”

The most striking feature of the phone is the touch sensitive keypad. The keypad turns from music orientated to numeric at a touch of a button, but what I don’t like is the word touch sensitive, I really hope this isn’t another LG Chocolate keypad. There is also a navi-wheel, which I am always a fan of and find it necessary in any phone that has a built-in MP3 player. A 3.5mm jack is available to plug-in headphones or speakers. Stereo FM radio is incorporated but there is no RDS.