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Motorola approved for Symbian phone

Handset maker Motorola receives approval from the Federal Communications Commission for its first Symbian phone.

Richard Shim Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Richard Shim
writes about gadgets big and small.
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Richard Shim
Despite being one of the companies that helped establish Symbian as a private company in 1998, Motorola has dragged its feet in developing phones using the Symbian operating system--but that may be changing.

Motorola received a grant Wednesday from the Federal Communications Commission to sell what is referred to in filings as the A920 multimedia communicator. The device comes with gaming features, a built-in camera, cell phone, music player, Web browser, video player, picture viewer, e-mail and an organizer. The A920 has a touch screen and uses handwriting recognition software for inputting data. With the camera and phone capabilities the device can support video conferencing.

A Motorola representative said the company is not publicly commenting on the device.

The device can connect to a PC to synchronize information, such as contacts and e-mails, and to download new applications.

Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola and Psion established Symbian as a private independent company in June 1998. The company competes with Microsoft and Palm in the market for smart phone operating systems.

The device operates in the 1900MHz band but also contains 900MHz and 1800MHz functions that are not operational in the United States. It also contains a 2.4GHz Bluetooth transmitter, according to the filing.

Handheld enthusiast Web site, infoSync world first reported on the FCC grant.