MotoZINE ZN5 review

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shady_inc

Pee into the Wind...
*www.imgx.org/pthumbs/small/12774/img2.jpg
Hi Guys.!
I got my Motozine ZN5 handset a few days back and here I am attempting a review of the same.

Features:
  • 2.4" 240*320 262k TFT display
  • 5 megapixel Kodak Camera with 4x digital zoom and Xenon flash
  • Wi-Fi
  • 350 MB internal memory / expandable to 4 GB
  • 3.5mm audio jack
  • The usual like Bluetooth, EDGE,FM Radio etc. is present.The phone doesn't have 3G though.

Standard Package:
It includes -
  • The handset
  • A wired Headset
  • A TV-Out Cable
  • USB Data Cable
  • A 2 GB MicroSD Card
  • A CD-ROM containing Motorola Phone Tools and Kodak EasyShare software.
    [Both are for Windows only though.]
  • Usual stuff like battery, battery door, charger, quick start guide, manual etc.

Looks and Feel:
The handset looks great to say the least.The protruding camera in the back may not be to everyone's liking.The keypad has some extra keys which serve as shortcuts for sharing, deleting, switching modes between camera and image preview.The keypad may feel cramped to people with bigger fingers and is not really suitable for typing long texts.

Display:
The display is gorgeous.Images look crisp and clear in fullscreen mode.Visibilty in sunlight is great too.It's a fingerprint magnet though.Mine's just a few days old and has fingerprint smudges all over the screen already.A display guard is a must for this phone.

User interface:
The handset runs on the LJ [Linux Java] platform.The UI is pretty newbie-friendly.I,
only used to Nokia S60 platform before, had no trouble navigating the handset's interface.The UI is a bit slow in certain cases, but nothing really to worry about.

Camera:
Considering that this handset's primary focus is the 5-Megapixel camera, I find the image quality pretty good.What really sucks is the 4x digital zoom and the crappy 176x144 videos.Even my Dad's Nokia 6233 can do 640x480 videos.What was Motorola thinking here.? The max. resolution for images is pretty high at 2560x1920.They look good even on larger PC displays.The Xenon flash is really useful for taking pictures in dark environments, but throws way too much light on objects up close.Panorama mode lets you take a wider image by combining three images into one.

Music:
The music player interface is pretty basic, offering no options like tag editing and custom equalizers [has some nice presets though.] but the audio quality is awesome.! I listened all sorts of stuff like Metallica, Elvis Presley [:D], Sepultura, Avril Lavigne, Nelly Furtado and it played everything beautifully.I am still to buy a custom headset for this one, but the ones provided are good enough.

Connectivity:
The phone's voice clarity in between calls is great.You hear the other person loud and clear even in noisy areas.I guess this is Motorola's CrystalTalk technology at work here.Bluetooth transfers from Nokia phones and my PC were pretty fast.[1 Mb in about 15 secs].Haven't had the time to test Wi-Fi yet [Where the hell can I find Wi-Fi hotspots in Mumbai anyway.?].

Games and Customizations:
The handset comes bundled with MobieKlub[a collection of some small cricket games], Tetris and Sudoku.There ain't a lot of apps and games available for this handset yet since it debuted only recently, but you can expect a lot more ZN5 stuff once it gets old enough.And there's always the Java apps you can install on it.I have a Telnet client running on my handset, allowing me to log in to my handset as root and run linux commands there.! :D

Finally...
I find the ZN5 to be an excellent all round device.It has a great camera, excellent audio quality, great looks and an attractive price.You also get 100 free prints from Kodak with this device.What I hate about this device is the crappy camera zoom, crappier video recording ability and lack of available themes and mods [though this will change with time..].Then consider the price too.While ZN5 costs around 16,000 Rs., it's competitor the Nokia N82 comes at >19,000 Rs.while offering almost similiar features.I am loving this thing.!
 

ico

Super Moderator
Staff member
Hah, I was waiting for this. :D You're pretty fast. We talked about the review yesterday and you posted it today. :D

Great review BTW. :)

QCIF video recording is really bad. Atleast they could have given QVGA (240*320). Also one more thing I don't understand is why have Motorola left out 3G? A ~15K fone deserves to have 3G. The digital camera zoom is crappy on every camera mobile. Having the functionality of optical zoom is difficult for the companies.

You forgot to mention about the processor. AFAIK It has got a 500Mhz and it will not lag for sure. Sound quality had to be awesome like the Motorola E8.

Waiting for the camera comparison of ZN5 and your brother's N82. :)
 
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shady_inc

shady_inc

Pee into the Wind...
Thanks.!
One more odd thing I noticed was that the review at smape says that phone supports shooting pictures in RAW and binned RAW format, but I can't find that option in my camera settings.
BTW, the dedicated IPU that the phone has makes camera operations really snappy.Transition time between images in preview mode is non-existent.
 
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