Motorola had a dire time in 2007, being overtaken by Samsung and dropping to the world’s third biggest mobile manufacturer, and losing money as well as market-share. Consequently the majority of rumours surrounding the company involve who’s going to take over its ailing mobile phone division as much as what new phones it’s going to be releasing for 2008.

The rumours include everyone from Ericsson to Dell, all of whom are sniffing around the once great mobile manufacturer, convinced that they can do better (which, to be fair, they probably could).

Motorola’s mobile phones for 2008

Of more interest to us, though, are the mobile phones that Motorola will be releasing in 2008. Here, there are some juicy rumours doing the rounds, but these may be more like wishful thinking from Motorola fanboys (or at least their PR department!) than reality.

Top of the lot must be the Motorola ZiNE, a new line of Motorola handsets with some top-end features. The most impressive of the new ZiNE line-up will be a camera phone that Motorola is allegedly working on with Kodak.

Aware that they’ve really dropped the ball in the camera phone stakes, with all other manufacturers having released a 5 megapixel camera phone in 2007, while Motorola can only muster a 3 megapixel variant, the company is rumoured to be working on a whopping 8 megapixel camera phone, with Kodak providing the necessary camera goodies to make it actually take good pictures.

In addition to the huge megapixellage, the new camera phone is also rumoured to offer a large touchscreen, WiFi and GPS.

How much of this is speculation and how much is based on reality, only time will tell. BoyGenius reports that the rumours are false, and he’s been right in the past. Worse, he even suggests that a 5 megapixel phone being worked on with Kodak is still only in development phase, and hasn’t even been given a name yet.

Personally, I’m not holding my breath, as Motorola have consistently underwhelmed in previous years. However, the technology isn’t beyond Motorola’s labs, as they’re preparing to release the A1600 phone in China, which features a 3.2 megapixel camera, Wi-Fi and GPS. They certainly need to develop a phone with something like these features if they’re not to slip further behind the competition in 2008.

We should know more come the CTIA show in April, where Motorola traditionally shows off its new hardware.

[Source: IntoMobile ]