Apple and Motorola's announcement Wednesday of the ROKR E1 offered little in the way of surprise. For months, photos of the phone have circulated through the Web's popular Mac and gadget Web sites. More recently, it emerged Cingular would be the only U.S. carrier, and it was also speculated that there would be a song cap on the phone (there is, at 100, not at 25 as BusinessWeek Online recently reported).

Now that it's arrived, how does the ROKR stack up against the competition? We looked at similarly priced phones at Cingular and found only two that are really comparable: Motorola's RAZR v3 and Sony Ericsson's S710a. We omitted Blackberry, Treo, and SmartPhone offerings since those each target a different segment of the market than the ROKR E1 does.

Looking at the numbers below, it's easy to spot where each phone shines. If music on your phone is a must, then the ROKR E1 is your choice. If size is your most important concern, go with the RAZR v3. If you find yourself using your phone's camera more than your own digital camera, that's the S710's strongest point.

There's also that all-important concern for many buyers: the phone's design. Here, the ROKR E1 disappoints, resembling phones from years past. Both the RAZR and S710a offer unique and attractive design touches. The S710a also gets the nod for offering an MP3 player (the RAZR does not) although the phone is only capable of accepting MemoryStick Duo cards up to 128MB in size (about 30 songs or so).

If you already own or plan to own an iPod shuffle, iPod mini, or iPod nano, the ROKR E1 doesn't offer much in the way of a compelling phone. Having waited myself a few months to purchase a new phone on account of seeing what Apple and Motorola would bring to the table, I'll be ordering an S710a today, knowing that future Apple/Motorola phones will likely be more attractive, especially if Apple unleashes VP of product design Jonathan Ive on a model.