 "Motorola Rokr Z6")
The new Moto Rokr Z6 is the latest addition to the Motorola family, and is said to have “the next generation user interface and Linux operating system.” The Z6 is one of the few Motorola phones in the market to feature its new Linux OS. Clearly with the kind of features the phone has, it is one of the most competitively priced products to have hit Indian shores.
Design
The phone has a plush polished black look on the front and soft padded black on the back. This baby is jet black, and for added effect you have to watch the keys light up in dark. The keypad is designed with transcendental electric blue lights zigzagging across the keys and the black helps in accentuating the effect. The Z6 is a slider phone, that comes with a ridge for ease in pushing it out, and although it’s a little bit strenuous on the thumb, this probably speaks for the sturdiness of the product.
At 105x45x16.2mm, and 105g, it’s a bit on the heavy side, but bulky? Certainly not! The screen is a 2-inch TFT display (320 x 240) that shows up to 262k colors. Below the screen you will find the options button and the main menu button on either side of the front panel. The dedicated Music button and the back key is in between, and at the bottom of the panel you will find the answer and cancel buttons. In the middle, shaped like a circular jog dial is the four-way D-pad. What i like about the phone is that it manages to accommodate useful buttons on the front panel without causing any surface tension. With key placements like this, you are bound to hit the wrong button, but i faced no such problems. The button placed in the center of the D-way can also be used to access the main menu, and works as an Ok/Select button.
When slid out, the phone displays the number pad placed in a cavity that is very typical of many Motorola phone designs. As usual the Star, Zero and Hash keys were a pain to get to due to the depression.
On the left side of the phone you will find the volume keys and an open customizable key. You can also use the volume key to change your ringing type.
The voice dialing button and the camera buttons are housed on the right just above the miniUSB slot. And although the phone doesn’t have a hot swap slot for memory cards, you need not take the battery out. The MicroSD card slot is placed right beside the battery, and the SIM slot right beneath it. The miniUSB slot also doubles as the earphone jack and the battery charging slot.
I don’t like this. Also, one of the toughest things to do with the phone is remove the SIM. There is no lever or spring action to bring the SIM card out. You will need to keep tugging at the tiny protrusion of the SIM card. Bad, I say!! On the back you will find the camera and flash.
__PAGEBREAK__Features/Performance
The Z6 is not only a good-looker, but also runs quite smoothly. While testing I experienced no network problems. It works on a proprietary Linux OS that compliments the undisclosed enhanced chipset. The phone sure is fast, in fact, there is little to complain about in this aspect. Above all, however, I like its ability to simplify things. All the main menu items are self-explanatory, and given the responsive keys and fast interface, there is nothing I can bitch about.
The new Linux OS also incorporates Java, which may not give you all the capabilities of J2SE, but has limited Java-commands that require less memory to function. The Z6 has a 64 MB on-board memory, which can be scaled up to 2 GB.
For corporate employees, this phone includes a lot of useful paraphernalia. In Office tools, you will find much of everything to your liking. The MotoSync feature for instance, can be enabled to configure your office mails through the Exchange ActiveSync or SyncML client. Also any single POP3 email account can be configured for regular access. Apart from this you can make notes and create task lists as well.
There are a lot of options available to tweak your contact details. You can manage your contacts by editing categories, owner’s information and also synchronize it with the phonebook.
__PAGEBREAK__Camera/Music
The music player that comes with the Z6 is a decent one. What I don’t understand is the sense in not including any presets. The player only includes stereo widening effects like Spatial Width control, Bass boost etc. This makes me feel quite handicapped. The interface, however, makes it easy to select ringtones directly from the player itself. So every time you like a song from your playlist, you can directly select it as your ringtone. The player supports Windows WMAv10 plus Janus DRM, MP3, AAC, AAC+, AAC+ enhanced, AMR NB, WAV and XMF.
As far as videos are concerned, you can play MPEG 4, 3GPP and h.263 formats. Although the viewing experience can be marred by the small size of the screen, you still have the option to view it full screen. While playing 3GP files, however, I noticed that the player doesn’t play high bitrate files. You will need to scale it down to the right size before you can view it in the Z6.
The camera provided with the Z6 is a 2 Megapixel one with 8x digital zoom. Like most mid-range phone cameras this one is absolutely difficult to work with during low light conditions. Although the color composition is decent, there is very little room for detailing. The camera does offer a lot of settings like review time, shutter tone, resolution settings. However, it offers few scene modes.
__PAGEBREAK__
Battery/Conclusion
The Z6 uses one 780 mAH battery that takes a little over an hour to charge and lasts about 2 hours at a stretch. With regular usage the battery lasted about 1 1/2 days. With music or video viewing the battery consumption is much more.
As a phone the Moto ROKR Z6 is a good one. For the price of Rs. 11,750 you get 1 GB memory along with the phone. The phone is stylish, is easy on the eye and has an easy interface. There isn’t much you can complain about the phone, at least I couldn’t. For this price the phone quite a good deal.
Specs
| Moto Rokr Z6
| Network |
| Physical |
| Display |
| Memory |
| Camera |
| Connectivity |
| Battery |
| Street Price |
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