Rumors and photos of the phone that will supposedly become Google’s Nexus Two are floating around. Android fans will remember that Google vice president of engineering Andy Rubin said that the next Nexus phone will be aimed at enterprise users and have a keyboard. This is where the Motorola Shadow comes in.
Remember, Motorola co-CEO Sanjay Jha was present at Google’s Nexus One unveiling. While people were fixated on the HTC-made phone, having another hardware vendor at the event showed that Google.com/phone is part or a larger endeavor. I always saw Jha’s presence as Motorola standing in the on-deck circle.
As for the phone itself, the Motorola Shadow borrows a lot of the Motorola Droid’s design, but with a drastically different color scheme. Instead of the Droid’s black, Darth Vader appearance, the Shadow features a screen with black boarders and a slide-out keyboard in white. While the phone looks great in photos, the neat freak in me is worried about a white keyboard. On the plus side, the Shadow has a slot for a wrist strap, which would allow me to use my vast assortment of anime and videogame straps I purchased in Japan.
On the software side, thing don’t add up (yet). If the Nexus Two is being aimed at enterprise users then Android would need security tweaks for Microsoft Exchange support. For secure corporate email, RIM’s BlackBerry is the undisputed champion of the market. The stock Android OS doesn’t handle Exchange in a way that would make IT administrators happy. Perhaps Motorola has been working on custom tweaks for this purpose.
While I was tempted by the Nexus One, typing tweets and Facebook updates on my (sim-less) iPhone reminded me of how much I loathe virtual keyboards. I’ve posted full blog posts and lengthy emails on my BlackBerry. I can’t picture doing the same on the Nexus One. Whether or not the Motorola Shadow becomes the Nexus Two, I’m highly interested in the phone…if it matches it predecessor’s OLED screen and Snapdragon processor.
How about you ladies and gents? Any thoughts on the Motorola Shadow? Do you think the design is too flashy for an enterprise phone?
That would be interesting. I need to do research and see what regs say about an open source platform being used for company email. I know at the bank where I used to work, before TARP, it was an FDIC violation to use open source. Interesting though. Maybe if the exchange client is an app you pay for.
I'm kind of past the needing a keyboard phase. Initially with my iphone I thought the virtual keyboard would never feel right, but now it feels fine. In fact a friend of mine who has the droid never uses his keyboard. He always uses the virtual.
If I had a critique/request for this though: Put that damn directional pad on the other side so emulators are useful. Thanks.
A wrist strap on phone? That's what I need is something that expensive dangling from my wrist so I can knock it into stuff.
I cannot stand virtual keyboards. They just cannot keep up with my texting. There is always lag in the virtual keyboards, and every time I reconsider getting an iPhone all I have to do is mess with the keyboard for a second.
This phone seems a bit too "stylish" for enterprise use. But I wouldn't mind having it. Come on AT&T hurry up and let Android in.