I'm pretty sure the people at Nokia are scratching their heads about all the verbiage surrounding Motorola's new Z8 slider with its "Kick Slide" - after all, wasn't their 1996 Nokia 8110 similarly curved to cater to the typical swooping jawline? Ancestry aside, the Z8 is a pretty nice step up from the run of the mill V3-rebranding the company has been pumping out lately, with headline features including HSDPA and - a first for Motorola - using the Symbian OS.

With one fell swoop, then, Motorola should silence a whole lot of their critics who bemoan the (admittedly dire) OS previous phones have been saddled with. The 2.2-inch QVGA screen and A2DP stereo Bluetooth support should ice that metaphorical kidney too.

The Z8 comes with 90MB of internal memory, boosted by a microSD slot, and is a mere 0.6-inches thick.  A typical 2-megapixel camera and 5hr talk-time are par for the course. Should be available first-half of 2007; look for it in the hands of fashionistas, hookers and pontiffs.

Features:

• Unique ergonomic slider design
• Up to approximately five hours 3G talk time, up to approximately 16 days standby time
• 3.6Mbps HSDPA providing mobile broadband
• 2 megapixel camera with 8x zoom and lumi LED light, video record and playback capabilities
• Approximately 90 MB free internal user memory4, optional expandable to 4GB with microSD
• Messaging: SMS, EMS, MMS 1.2
• Integrated media player
• Redesigned user interface with one-click access to phone functions
• A2DP AVRCP Bluetooth stereo profiles