Posted by Mia in 
Motorola, once a pioneer in the market of mobile telephony, is now in the shadow of other, less famous, but more on the ball manufacturers of portable electronics. But watching from afar the growth of the segment of the so-called camera phones (phones with powerful photo capacities) is clearly not to the liking of the company. A little late, Motorola announced a really interesting solution – Motozine ZN5. How the company managed to accumulate the previous experience and what was the outcome?
Design
A key element in the perception of a mobile phone is certainly its appearance. Whatever its technical characteristics are, if the design causes dislike, it would be extremely difficult to make friends with such a device. The segment camera-phones do not boast of particularly elegant exterior, but still have something to please the eye.
Motorola makes no secret that Motozine ZN5 is the response of the company to the already produced solutions from Sony Ericsson and Nokia. On their background the ZN5 looks quite organic, and to some extent, even fresh. The point is that when you first look at the novelty, it seems that this is normal, so to speak, business unit.
The appearance of Motozine ZN5 is standard for mobile handset from Motorola. The only currently available graphite color organically fits to the spirit of the ZN5 – strict, but with taste.
By the way, the weight of the phone is 114 grams, the size equals to 18h50, 5h16 mm, while the latter figure – includes the thickness of the module chamber, for the rest of the perimeter of this figure is 12 mm. In fact, for a serious camera-phone, these characteristics are at a very high level. The closest competitors cannot boast of such forms.
With regard to the subjective experience of work with the ZN5, phone could be called attractive. It has no outstanding or memorable elements (well, except the purple buttons activating the camera on the right end). Due to this fact, the audience, capable of being interested in such a product from Motorola, is very wide.
The competitors added zest to their camera-phones in the form of loud names of the photo-industry. We know that such a simple marketing move perfectly valid for the ordinary consumer. In the case of Sony Ericsson it is the prefix CyberShot from the world of digital cameras of Sony, and Nokia has added the logo Carl Zeiss, as one of the leaders in producing high quality optics. Motorola has entered into an alliance with the company Kodak. And even if today the world-renowned manufacturer of photo technology is, in a sense, on the sidelines (as Motorola is, when it comes to mobile phones), it is clear that a company, which has a history of 120 years, will not produce anything bad.
In Motozine ZN5 everything is subject to the photo abilities of the phone. Motorola is trying by all means to show what an excellent option Motozine is for capturing and working with photograph. In a sense, it will have to be tolerated, for example, on the tactile level – after all the block of the camera is fairly massive and causes inconvenience.
The main body is made of high quality plastic, and the rear lid is made of metal. By the way, it has a rather unsteady attachment to the body and there may be unpleasant consequences, even if dropped from a small height, i.e. it will simply bounce off. However, the lower end is covered with rubber; so that if the attack befalls on that part … do not worry, nothing may happen. The apparatus is assembled (even our engineering sample) fine, no backlashes, scripts, and other problems with the case.
The MicroUSB connector is located on the left end and at the same time it is a connector for the charger. At the other end of the same left end is located a universal 3.5 mm jack for connecting the headset.
The right end is equipped in a standard way – the start key and key of the work with the camera (horizontal direction) and two volume keys.
Display
When it comes to the camera, the question of the quality of the display is at the forefront. Many phones from Motorola wgich we have tested had good screens, but on the background of the competitors they looked rather pale. In the case of the ZN5 things are much better, the model is equipped with a display that was performed on TFT-technology, has a diagonal of 2.4 inches (resolution of 240 x 320) and displays up to 260 thousand colors.
The screen showed a good result in operation – good color rendition, brightness and viewing angles allow to work comfortably in almost any conditions. All, without exception, users will appreciate the availability of a very large font in the menu (by the way, the display shows up to eight lines of text plus the three office ones).
Unfortunately, the ZN5 is not a smart-phone and we cannot fully enjoy the capabilities of the screen (e.g., movies), but it is not useless to say again that for the set functions of the phone the display is sufficient.
Keyboard
The main part is made of a polymer film. In other words, the mechanical keys are closed with the film, with the result that an effect of single array is achieved. This looks really interesting, and the work, despite the innovation, is rather middling.
Only the circular navigation button is allocated on the general background. It has a 4-position activation of features with the function of the confirmation in the center. Soft keys are located between the navigation key and the traditional “tubes”. Critically small space is left for them. No, it is not that false abrasions occur all the time, but such a positive trick causes a series of inconveniences. Under the soft keys are two additional buttons. The first is to access the gallery, the second – to delete characters.
The digital keyboard is of a standard size. Keys are at a decent distance from each other – to dial a telephone number or type an SMS is easy.
However, it is desirable to press the keys at the right angles, but it does not cause additional inconvenience, you have only to get used to it.
In the camera mode the digital keys have additional abilities (they are marked on the shell). For example, you can quickly send a photo to an online gallery, remove or, on the contrary, save the resulting image.
Menu and Functions
First it is desirable to note that in our test the engineering model was activated, in which many of the functions worked as they should.
The model is built on a platform of LJ (the closest relative of Motorola ROKR E8). On the fine-tuning of this interface the company has spent a long time, but, honestly speaking, the result is not cheering. The menu is quite difficult to master even for the over-experienced journalists (a fact generally accepted by the press), not to speak of ordinary consumers.
And many of the complexities and conditionalities could have been completely avoided, but Motorola always had a distinguished vision of the ergonomics of the phones (remember the red “tube” on the left side, only recently moved to its rightful place).
The phone has basic functions, without which a mobile phone is not taken seriously. This includes: Bluetooth (A2DP profile), a powerful web browser, FM-radio and a media player. The interesting additions include the availability of Wi-Fi, TV-output (the cable is included).
As you can see, the phone is sufficiently stuffed with all necessary facilities. Unfortunately, the ZN5 is not a smart-phone, and its functions of expansion are severely limited.
The presence of the graffiti Kodak in the ZN5 – is not just a decoy for a trustful buyer. The developments of that company are used in their entirety. By the way, the Kodak gallery allows you to quickly send photos via e-mail or post them in the Internet. The feature Kodak Perfect Touch is also available from the gallery; it allows to significantly improving the display of the captured material. Well, and the function Kodak Easy share Software will allow you to print photos directly from your phone, bypassing the computer. And this is without speaking about the camera and its capabilities.
Summarizing the functional outcome it may be noted that the ZN5 has all necessary facilities. The overall result was somewhat spoilt by the difficulty in dealing with individual elements of the menu. But as is it usually the case – the process of familiarization takes time.
Camera
Open the cover, in a second the camera is activated, and already in three or four seconds, it takes the white balance. By the way, the machine is rarely wrong, that allows for good shots without preparation.
The interface is like that of the model ROKR E8 – a line of information above, translucent windows of menu, produced by pressing the left key content.
It is easy to deal with the settings, but they are not many either. An interesting fact – the camera can save images in the uncompressed RAW format, which is obviously cool, but in a phone it is meaningless. Typically, this format is used by professional photographers, working with serious cameras.
Now let’s talk about recording abilities. The unit is equipped with a Xenon (pulse) flash and an autofocus lamp light, which is quite powerful. Autofocus is slow in the dark (the lamp helps to focus), but at the same time does not make mistakes.
The focus could not be called quick with good lighting either, but it might be the problem of our test sample. The camera has a “red” eye reduction, when half a second before the main flash blinks the lighting of the autofocus.
How such a system works, is known from compact cameras, so it only should be noted that in the ZN5 it more or less copes with its task.
A macro-mode is supported; in our sample, however, it did not work well, so close-up photographs of flowers and other such pretty things failed. The camera can record videos in the ridiculous resolution of 144h176, so the opportunity is not worth to be considered even as fun. The panoramic shooting mode (gluing of three frames) is implemented in a normal way – with the help of the framework, the camera tells when to make the next frame for gluing.
Outcome
Against the background of the other camera-phones, Motozine ZN5 is not only lost, but is highlighted with a number of fundamentally interesting features. It is just enough to remember the 350 MB internal memory (even up to 4 GB on the cards microSD, and a 512 MB card in the kit), the excellent camera from Kodak, and it is clear that Motorola has come to the market fairly prepared.
The pre-installed Li-Ion battery of the capacity of 950 mAh, according to the manufacturer, provides up to 350 minutes of talking time and up to 350 hours in standby mode. In the reality of Moscow networks, the ZN5 worked 3 days (until 30 minutes of conversation and an hour of use of other functions), which is an outstanding result.
For people who need a relatively small, modern telephone and who are not afraid of the “menu from Motorola”, the model ZN5 will be a great solution.
