Motorola ZINE ZN5
Phone Scoop Review
Nov 9, 2008 by Eric M. Zeman
Here is Phone Scoop's full review of the ZN5, including video tour, images and plenty of opinions. Were Kodak and Motorola able to keep things in focus, or did they bungle the shot? read review ›
User Reviews
Average Ratings
Awesome phone!!! T-Mobiles BEST!
I must say... I bought this phone maybe a week after it came out and got to say.... It's prob the best phone I have ever bought and i've had everything from G1 to Sidekick 08, LX, iPhone, and everything you can think of... I'm a bit of a phone addict.
I find this to be a phone I don't want to get rid of though. Not right now atleast. It's just too good of a phone.
Pro's:
-Great large screen 2.4" - Bright and Crisp
-Quick internet browser that loads full websites based off same technology as iPhone and G1 (based off webkit) Full websites
-WIFI works for web browser and uploading photos to great Kodak Gallery (works nicely)
-Camera (5.0MP Kodak based with awesome features and great xenon flash. Camera does exceedingly great in dark or sunny conditions, More camera like than phone like) Camera beats some actual digital cameras on tracking times and I have tested against Canon 10MP and the cammera was much quicker on the Moto Zine then the actual Camera and some shots did better!
-I recommend getting it... Too many other pro's to list
-Talking phone mode reads texts to you and more
Just too many pro's to the phone...
Cons:
-Can get sluggish sometimes but very rarely to me
No other cons at all... NO 3G but with Wifi I care less... Not a con for me!
I recommend getting this phone hands down one of the best T-Mobile phones i've ever owned. In fact one of the greatest phones i've ever owned unlocked or T-Mobile based. Get this phone it is the best of the best! The new linux OS based off Montavista linux OS is just spectacular... Very quick and wonderful!
good phone,excellnt camera
i have had this phone for more than 3 months,and this phone is great,the resolution of the camera is excellent,but is still a phone,but i can take excellent pictures and when i print them out they are really nice.this phone is slow sometimes,but that is no a problem at all ..the only thing that i dot not like is predictive way to write a msg,beside that,the phone is wonderful
worst phone ive ever owned
With the exception of the camera, which is amazing for being a phone camera, at 5.0 megapixels with flash and adjustments. This is the flat out worst phone I have ever had the displeasure of owning. I thought it would have been an upgrade from my Z9 when I made the switch to T-mobile, boy was I wrong. When i got the phone the first day i realized how much trouble i was in. Starting with the fact that the keypad lock is an actual sliding button the side of the phone, so i would have to insert the phone in my case upside down so that i didnt unlock the keys when putting it in the newly tight fitting case. Then over the course of several months, and coming up on a year soon in july, i realized this phone had a much LARGER problem. Whenever i would try to write a text message the phone would pause, or freeze up, randomly for about 20 seconds each time. At first it was a minor quirk but now after months of using the phone, it has been driving me insane. To the point where i almost threw the phone out of my car window today. Not only does it freeze up consistently when writing text messages, it freezes up on telephone calls, answering and ending the calls. When the phone rings, and i press answer, the phone now pauses and refuses to answer the call after hitting the answer button, then the ring tone goes into an infinite loop for a solid 2 seconds, before finally answering the call. Upon ending the call, it will freeze up again, and show that I am still in the conversation after having hit the end button repeatedly.
I have contacted motorola and tmobile about this SEVERAL times already, motorola refuses to acknowledge the problem despite consistent reports across the web regarding the issue, they have issued no software updates, and tmobile says that it is not covered under insurance or warranty because the phone works perfectly fine. They tell me i just need to clear my text messages. All 20 of them that are stored in the phone.
Great camera. Pretty nice phone too.
Great phone! Reception is sometimes not-so-good, but I'm thinking that's a T-Mobile thing. Hopefully that means I'm also getting less radiation pounded into my brain when talking on the phone. Gotta love the camera. I've used it as my main camera on vacations and have even printed the photos as 8x10s and they looked great!
Pros:
Radio works perfectly
Bluetooth works great
Camera surpassed my expectations
Phone conversations are clear
MP3 player with headphone jack is nice,
but doesn't replace a good iPod
MyFaves is supported
Battery life is very good, so long as
you turn off T-Mobiles "auto-syncing"
when you first setup the phone. If
not done when you first setup the
phone, re-installing the firmware will
give you a second chance to turn off
the auto-syncing.
Camera has Macro option for close-up
shots, which works well.
Camera has neat panorama mode that
automatically shoots and stitches
3 separate 5.0Mp photos together
in one huge photo.
Cons:
Video recorder is pretty lame. I had
better videos recorded with my old
1.2 megapixel camera phone.
T-Mobile's, in my opinion, has the worst
coverage.
Speaker has a screen covering it, which
must be cleaned regularly! If it's
not clean, I will sometimes not hear
the phone ringing from my pocket.
Camera's flash is too bright.
Great concept, but just ok
Pros:
* Awesome camera, great picture quality... although limited camera features, specifically zoom, but this is a phone not a camera...
* Nice clear big screen.
* Size. Although the phone is slightly tall, in comparison to others, it is slender and fits in the pocket well.
* Wi-Fi
* Removable media-card, so far known support up to 8GB.
* Decent battery life.
Cons:
* Horrible lag from navigating the phone; from just navigating the menu, to scrolling through the contacts, to just coming out of the screen saver.... The amount of lag this phone has is unacceptable... Just shows that it was a good idea, but uses unpolished software/firmware. Keep looking for an update that may help/fix this, have seen nothing as of yet.
* Crippled Wi-Fi access; you can download applications to this phone, but unless they come from the carrier the features are locked!!! Unacceptable...
When I first was looking for a new phone, I wanted something with good battery life, camera and decent features. This phone is pretty much all that. There are a few hiccups with this phone, that if I were to know how severe they were, I would not have purchased it. There is a lot of potential for this phone, just needs a little more refinement. I knocked 1 point for each cons, because of the severity of them.
Okay for a good camera phone
Okay I have had this phone for about 2 months now. It is a pretty decent phone if you are looking for a camera phone. It has a few times just froze on me. Or sometimes it will just reset itself if I have to turn it off due to it freezing on me. It has a pretty good music player i love the fact that I can use the connector and plug it into my tv and listen to my music and watch videos through the tv..
PROS:
*5 megapixel camera w/flash
*big screen
*wi-fi
*plugs into tv or stereo to play music
CONS
*freezes
*resets by itself or by turning it off
*sometimes refreshing media takes forever
Killer phone
I'm a bit of a phone whore,but i stopped on this one,at least for now.
pros:
1.Fast OS!after owning the laggy ROKR e8,this is quite a blessing.
2.Camera is phenomenal,but thats a given for a kodak hybrid.
3.comfortable design.everything from the sounds applied to the button press to the almost neon looking true-color display,this phone feels good,and looks stylish.
4.the wifi browser is fast.
Cons:
It has the classic "oops i sent that text too early" button affinity,which sucks for us fat fingered folk.i hate it when they put a "back" button next to a "Send" key.
Nice
Pros:
CAMERA!, quality of photos when downloaded to computer, ease of use, size, feel, brand
Cons:
Deleted half my phonebook randomly, some weid key functions, laggy at times, the color of the phone itself is awkward
Easy to use, though it did delete my phonebook (letters A-G) on first use. Good thing I had synced them right before I used it! The camera is awesome and efficient. Pictures looked way better than anything else I've used. I'd kill for this cam on a blackberry! The ops system was laggy at times and I hated the color, but fine otherwise.
A worthy phone/camera
I've had this phone for over three months and found it to be quite adequate. I have only two major gripes with this phone, which aren't dealbreakers in my opinion. They'll be discussed below.
The phone is pretty solid and has a reassuring weighty feel to it. The bottom is coated in a rubber like material that keeps it from falling out of your pocket when sitting, but also makes it tough to take out when driving. There is a slider on the side of the phone which locks the keys, but I find myself rarely using it due to the design of the keys. As for the keypad, this phone is NOT for people with large fingers. I'm a heavy texter with long nimble fingers, and it still took me a few weeks to get used to it and develop any speed. They're just too packed together. My first real problem with this phone is the menu structure. The layout is infuriatingly poor. I found myself looking through it for way too long to change common settings that should be made easy to change. My second gripe, you can password lock virtually everything on the phone, EXCEPT the pictures. Anyone who happens to pick up the phone can view them. tsk tsk, Moto. I live close to Los Angeles, and I find signal, call quality and volume to be excellent. In my opinion, the phone functions weren't sacrificed too much for the camera at all. As for the camera, it absolutely delivers. Though it's not as good as a standalone camera (Especially when your target is far away in a dark room), there are some pictures where I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the two. I love the full HMTL browser, and the ability to connect to my home WiFi without having a dataplan.
Pros:
*Great call quality and signal
*High volume
*Excellent camera (And flash)
*Solid design
*High resolution screen
Cons:
*Poor menu layout
*Unable to lock photos
*Sluggish software
*Keys close together
I didn't cover all the points I wanted to in this review (Space limitations) so questions will be answered in the forum.
Zine ZN5 is a winner!!
Having read a number of reviews for the zn5, I was ready for a few hitches when I received it 1 month ago.
I am glad to report that what I expected in slow reacting commands are relatively few and while not perfect, not a deal breaker here.
The phone is my #1 concern and this guy does it primary task better than any phone I have ever used(we have 7 cell phones)!!! Wonderful reception, even in our local "black holes", excellent clarity of calls both ways, and enough "techie" items to even keep my daughter in check.
Texting is no problem at all, easy to find my way around the keyboard.
The camera is really nice, fits in perfectly as a "hey look at that" picture taker, and I use it for my work almost evcery day without disappointment.
Pros - Great call reception.
Call clarity.
Ease of use.
Display is great.
Camera is excellent.
MP3 player is awesome.
Battery lasts me over 2 days!! Excellent!!
Perfect sized for me.
Wi-Fi works great, and fast too.
Cons - Wish controls for MP3 were more convenient.
