Core77

Motorola is the latest U.S. company to fall victim to the peculiarly American habit of design retro-itis, with which Detroit's Big Three are intimately familiar. The philosophy is basically "What we're doing now sucks, but what we once did was good, so let's go back to the old stuff." Witness Plymouth's PT Cruiser, Ford's "new" Mustang, Chevy's SSR truck, etc.

With that thinking apparently in mind, Motorola--who's really good at making a phone that's hot for six months, then fades, like a Hollywood blockbuster, until you can barely remember what the fuss was about--is resurrecting their Star-Tac line of mobile phones, a must-have back in the '90s.

Hit or miss? We can't yet be sure, as the phones are currently available only in Korea. Motorola phones typically pair an interesting form factor with an incredibly crappy user interface. It's almost as if their design department, talented though they may be, has no contact whatsoever with engineering.

Has anyone reading this in Asia gotten their hands on one of these yet? If so, please sound off!

[Images via iTechNews.]