The Motorola A1000 is the long-awaited update of the Motorola A925. Announced by Motorola in February 2004 and released in the UK in October 2005, the A1000 is a 3G smartphone, designed for business users needing to access email, websites, documents and contacts on the move.The first thing that you notice about the A1000 is how much smaller it is than the A925. It’s 25% shorter, 20% thinner, and slightly narrower. Far more convenient for keeping in a suit pocket. The weight has also been slashed dramatically – by over 50g! Apart from the size, there are other cosmetic and minor changes to the external design of the phone.With such a heavy focus on touchscreen navigation, the design of the stylus becomes very important. Unlike the usual cylindrical designs, the A1000 version is flat and extendable. This makes it a little awkward to grip at first, but the ability to vary the stylus’ length is quite cool.The power switch on the side also functions as an iPod-esque lock button, giving more weight to the rumour that Apple design is quietly taking over the world.

The A1000 is focused on taking care of business, with the main drawcards being 3′s “Business Messaging” feature and the ability to view e-mail attachments in high resolution with the Picsel Viewer application.There are two cameras: a 640 x 480 pixel lens above the screen and a 1.2 megapixel version on the back of the phone.The A1000 is compatible with an alphabet soup of multimedia file names, including MIDI, MP3, AMR, WAV, AU, WMA, 3GA, MMA, MP4 and 3GP.While you may think that’s a load of old marketing tosh, a quick glance at the enormous screen on this phone ought to make you think again. It measures 39.9mm wide by 61.4mm tall, which is 73.2mm or 2.9 inches on the diagonal, and that is simply huge for a mobile phone.The device supports Quad band 900/1800/1900/WCDMA 2100 and has both Bluetooth and GPRS. The claimed talk time of 225 minutes with 200 hours of stand-by is fair enough, and the 24MB of internal memory can be expanded thanks to the Mini SD slot.Once you grasp how big the screen is you won’t be surprised to learn that the A1000 measures 113 x 58 x 20mm and weighs in at a hefty 162g, which is very similar to the Sony Ericsson P900. However the 3 Motorola A1000 feels very big and heavy when you hold it in your hand. This is probably due in part to the styling, which is neat yet uninspired, and seems to hope that a combination of dark grey and silver with a bit of a curved bevel on the bottom edge will help you to ignore the sheer size of this phone.