Second iTunes phone ships from Motorola

The Motorola SLVR L7 is the company's second iTunes mobile phones and it's now available from Cingular for US$199 with a two-year agreement.

The SLVR is a quad-band candy bar shaped mobile phone that inherits the laser etched keypad from Motorola's wildly popular RAZR line of phones. It is also much thinner than first iTunes phone, the Motorola ROKR E1 (also from Cingular), that was announced on 07 September 2005 for US$249.

The Motorola SLVR features a VGA camera, 262K TFT color display, a 512MB MicroSD card, built-in stereo speakers, Bluetooth and an EMU to 3.5mm headset adapter.

The successor to the iTunes phones inherits the 100-song limit that plagued the ROKR, but I suspect that that's part of the deal Motorola did with Apple to protect the iPod from predators. Although it's not yet listed on Apple's list of iSync Compatible Devices early adopters have reported that it works fine.

In addition to the 100-song limit, the SLVR has no EDGE, Dial-up access (DUN) or Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (a.k.a. A2DP or the AV profile) which is designed to transfer a stereo audio stream to a headset or car radio. It's baffling that the SLVR uses USB 1.1 for iTunes music transfer.

The Motorola SLVR L7 is available now for US$249 (w/2 year contract) from Cingular or for around US$300 without a contract.