Manufacturer Motorola Related Dimensions 96.9 x 47.6 x 18.6 mm | Availability by country December 2008 Form factor Swivel | |
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Compatible networks 2G only, GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 | ||
Motorola Aura (styled AURA) is a series of luxury mobile phones from Motorola, and is part of the 4LTR line, announced in October 2008 and made available by December. Though it was going to be a series, only one phone was released, known as Aura R1. However, three further special editions of the Aura R1 were released through 2009: Aura Diamoniqe Edition, Aura Celestial Edition and Aura Diamond Edition. Aura is a luxury device with US$2000 price tag. It is made from premium materials such as stainless steel and sapphire and comes inside a wooden box.
Contents
The phone featured a unique high-resolution circular display with 300dpi and an adapted circular user interfaced based on Motorola's MotoMagx operating system. One of the main selling points of the device apart from its screen was its swivel-like opening mechanism. This was thanks to its Swiss-made gears composed of Rockwell 50-55 hardened steel and 130 precision ball bearings. Its custom-engineered rotating mechanism is composed of more than 200 high-precision individual parts, and the gears are protected against harsh conditions with the same coatings used in high-performance racing engines.
R1
The R1 was announced in October 2008, and put in production in December 2008. The launch price was approximately €1,420 (UK£1,200, over US$2000) due to its premium materials and packaging. The phone featured GSM technology, 2GB of internal memory and an optimised user interface for its circular display, which was a 1.55" screen with a high resolution of 300dpi.
Two Aura special editions were announced at Mobile World Congress 2009: Diamoniqe Edition and Gold Edition. Both of these were styled by luxury designer Alexander Amosu. The Diamoniqe Edition was adorned with 90 diamonds around the circular display whereas the Gold Edition featured a 24-carat gold-plated housing. Both editions received a limited release due to its exclusivity.
Due to the 40th anniversary of the moon landing in which Motorola had collaborated with the equipment that enabled the Apollo 11 astronauts to communicate with Earth, Motorola released a special edition in July, 2009 to celebrate that accomplishment. It comes with exclusive pre-loaded pictures, audio and video content, given by NASA. The handset comes with a laser made inscription and 9 post stamps to commemorate the mission. The first unit produced was gifted to Neil Armstrong.
October, 2009 saw the release of Aura Diamond Edition, a device upgrade with 18 carat gold plating and 34 diamonds around its screen and navigation buttons. Due to the more premium materials, it had a US$5,730 price tag at launch. Both the Diamond and Celestial editions were showcased at Mobile World Congress 2010.