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Motorola has tossed the MPx Pocket PC Phone into the dustbin of history, scrapping the pioneering smartphone before it ever had a real chance to make it in the marketplace.

Unveiled to great acclaim at the 3GSM World Congress in February 2004, first delayed the following August, and approved by the Federal Communications Commission for U.S. consumption a few months later, the MPx was beleaguered with difficulties from the start.

That’s why it comes as no great shock that the smartphone’s problems have finally caught up with the device, causing Motorola to bite he bullet and finally cancel it.

The Pocket PC Phone’s unique dual-hinge design is what made the Pocket PC Phone so special. With it, you could open the mobile handset both vertically (see bottom image) and horizontally (see top image). Other features included a QWERTY thumb-keyboard plus Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless networking.

Motorola held off releasing the smartphone for months because of purported keyboard and Wi-Fi integration problems. It delayed the MPx so long, in fact, it appeared the smartphone would never make it to market.

Yet, early this year the device seemed to gain a second life when the electronics company at long last began shipping the MPx in limited quantities in Asia—Malaysia and several smaller countries.

There were rumors last week that Motorola cancelled orders for the MPx with its manufacturer partners, however. Then Digitimes reported that Motorola had decided not to launch the MPx outside of its initial Asian markets after all; for all practical purposes killing off the Pocket PC Phone, and giving credence to the previous chitchat.

PhoneScoop asserts a Motorola spokesperson confirmed these reports and rumors of the MPx's demise with them this week. Notwithstanding the smartphone's cancellation, the representative said the vendor was still dedicated to the Windows Mobile platform and mobile professionals. He avowed the company would unveil new devices for this market later in the year.

MPx
The tri-band GSM/GRPS MPx was similar in design to Motorola rival Nokia's new Symbian-based 9500 and 9300 Communicators, in that you could open and use the Pocket PC Phone horizontally like a mini laptop with its QWERTY thumb-keyboard.

Of course, you could also open the MPx vertically, something the Nokia devices definitely aren’t' capable of doing. As we said earlier, this feature was what set the MPx apart from other smartphones and Pocket PC Phones, in particular.

Like other mobile handsets that integrate an 802.11b radio, you would have been able to use Wi-Fi to leverage wireless access points to get on the Internet and corporate intranet, send and receive e-mail, and possibly leverage voice over IP technology to make phone calls.

The MPx had a 2.8-inch, 16-bit (65,536) color and 320 x 240 pixel resolution display—standard for a Pocket PC. The outside of the top half of the clamshell featured a second, smaller display for time, date, and phone info as well as audio control.

Unlike Windows Mobile Smartphones, such as Motorola's own MPx220 (also rumored to be on the chopping block), Pocket PC Phones like the MPx are capable of running all Pocket PC applications. That’s much more than devices built on Microsoft’s Smartphone platform.


MPx Opening vertically

Additional MPx features included a Secure Digital slot for memory expansion and a 1.3-megapixel digital camera with a flash. As a Windows Mobile device, it would have shipped with mini versions of Word, Excel and Outlook as well as Windows Media Player. The smartphone only had 32 MB of RAM, a meager amount by today's Pocket PC standards.

MPx reportedly would have sold for $900 in the United States.