Motorola AURA review

Bucking the credit crunching trend, Motorola's latest high-end handset is clearly aimed at those who value style above content.

Costing over a grand you'd expect it to have some hi-tech smarts on board, but beneath its admittedly stylish casing, which Motorola seems to have based on classic watch design, this is actually a very basic handset, with just a 2-megapixel camera, and no 3G or Wi-Fi, no document readers or push email - no memory expansion even.

And yet, the Motorola AURA isn't just a pretty face. You could argue that its defiant lack of the latest features means it's also unlikely to date quite as quickly as all those me-too handsets that you feel you need to replace six months down the line. The AURA has an air of permanence that is rarely encountered in the mobile phone world.

There are other high-price, low-tech handsets of course. The Vertu springs to mind, or Nokia's 8800, but in terms of luxury style, the AURA tops both of those, mainly due to its unique circular screen. That's not a circular surround with a square picture in the middle, you understand, but a proper, all the way to the edges circular screen. And it does indeed look gorgeous.

It has a 40mm diameter, with 480x480 pixels, 16 million colours and 300dpi. It's viewed through a elliptical lens, so details at the edges look slightly more distant and not quite to scale, a bit like looking through a camera obscura, which is strangely compelling. That lens is apparently made of grade 1, 62-carat sapphire crystal, which Motorola claims to be one of the most scratch-resistant materials available.

The other justification for the sky-high cost is the casing; stainless steel with a hand-engraved design motif which apparently takes almost two weeks to sculpt, etch and polish. All the materials are apparently top-notch, including hardened steel gears (for the swivel opening mechanism) and nickel-chrome plated screws. Detail around the sides is kept to a minimum, with just a volume rocker, mini USB socket and twin clip buttons for the back panel to break the smooth flow. It certainly looks and feels like a classy handset.

The swivel action to access the keypad is, as promised, very smooth. A gentle push with the thumb sets the internal cogs a-whirring and it flicks round to the left and into the six o'clock position. You can even see part of the swivel mechanism through a window on the back panel, which adds to that classy watch effect.

The keypad is of the flush aluminium type familiar from the RAZR series which looks good but isn't particularly easy to use. There's a circular D-pad just below the screen but it's only four-way sensitive, and you can't press it to access functions. For that you'll need the OK button next to it, which takes a bit of getting used to, and there's also a back button, call start and stop and two soft keys.

With the attention to detail and fine workmanship that Motorola claims to have put into the AURA, you'd have thought they could have included a better camera. We weren't expecting a high-powered snapper, but two megapixels seems a bit puny even on midrange handsets these days, let alone a supposedly thoroughbred beast like this.

The lack of flash limits your options, as does the absence of autofocus but the one thing the camera has in its favour is that circular screen. With the camera on (and you needn't be in too much of a rush about it – there's no dedicated shutter button so you'll have to dig into the menu for it) the circular screen becomes a viewfinder, and it looks stare-over-somebody's-shoulder marvellous.

It has a 4x zoom, offers up to 1600x1200 resolution and yes, the pics are rectangular, though if you choose one as a wallpaper, it's resized to fit the round screen. You can crop, resize and rotate your pics, plus there's a multi shot option offering four, six or eight pics. Video is particularly poor however, offering just 176x144 resolution.

The music player is a basic one, though it will play most of the main formats: AAC, AAC+, enhanced AAC+, MIDI, MP3, WAV and WMA. The sound is surprisingly good through Motorola's rather chunky headphones, which is just as well, since without a 3.5mm jack plug you're probably stuck with them. There's 2GB of memory on board, which isn't bad, but there's no memory card option to top it up.

With no 3G connection you're stuck with WAP for web access, which will translate for most people as 'don't bother with web access'.

For extras, there's a calculator, an alarm clock, voice recorder and a few basic games (sudoku, backgammon, slot machine – that sort of thing), though with Java on board you can download others if you feel the need.

The Motorola AURA is a very basic handset beneath the bling, but Motorola knows an important truth – if you make a device desirable enough, people will buy it, regardless of price or additional extras. Do Patek Philippe chronographs measure your heart rate, connect to the internet or play music? No, they tell the time. The Motorola AURA is a phone, it makes calls, and not a lot else. But it does it with an impressive amount of style.