Motorola
V80

The Motorola V80, also known as the V80 Communicator, featured a swivel design that was inspired by the Motorola V70. The rotating mechanism had an "auto open" capability. It was created in-house by Motorola’s head of handset design, Iulius Lucaci. The phone has clever “contextual” lighting elements that Lucaci described as creating “brand gravity” as the phone was “recognisable at night without seeing the Motorola logo.” Lucaci designed a chrome ring detail on the device that could be illuminated from underneath. The V80 was designed to address the rapidly growing demand for camera phones in the European market. The swivel on the V80 had two positions: 180 degrees and 90 degrees. At 90 degrees it allowed users to easily take landscape photographs and the display automatically rotated to match the orientation of the picture – something that was relatively novel at the time. This was reflected in the advertising for the device which Motorola promoted with the strapline: “90° to shoot, 180° to talk, 360° thinking”. (see adverts below). Additionally, photos could be cropped, scaled and resized on the phone and captions could be added. The phone had a 4k colour display, speakerphone and instant messaging software. It also supported Java games including multiplayer titles that make it possible to play with other Motorola phone users via Bluetooth. There was also support for MP3 and MIDI ringtones. Motorola also offered software that allowed owners to mix their phone ringtones. It also had support for 24-voice polyphonic ringtones.