The Motorola ZN5 is a great phone and camera.
(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET Networks)Ever since the Motorola announced the ZN5 last June, we've been waiting with bated breath to get our hands on the fancy camera phone.
Monday, it finally lands at T-Mobile. Designed in partnership Kodak (yes, that Kodak), the ZN5 is hardly the first camera phone we've seen, but it certainly stands at the top of the list. Camera options are top-notch, the photo quality is excellent, and the integrated Wi-Fi makes getting photos off the phone a breeze. Of course, it is a phone too, and on that front it succeeds by offering good call quality.
Other features were generous, and it's all wrapped up in a sleek and sturdy design. At times, the phone could be a little pokey, but the ZN5 is an appealing device that successfully blends "camera" and "phone."
Read on for our full Motorola ZN5 review and video and peruse a gallery of glamour shots in our ZN5 slideshow.
Moto's handset division has a tiny presence at CTIA Fall 2008 but that didn't stop the Motorola ZN5 from lurking at the company's table at a press event. Ever since the ZN5 was announced in June and then cleared the FCC the next month, we've been waiting with bated breath to get our hands on the fancy camera phone. We still don't have a review model, so we relished our opportunity Wednesday night to give it a short shakedown.
Check out our Motorola ZN5 slide show.
On the outside it's a beautiful device with a sleek profile and an understated style. I liked the dark gray color scheme that's nicely offset with a couple touches of purple. The handset feels great in the hand--both sturdy and comfortable without being exclusively hefty (5.65 inches by 1.98 inches by 0.47 inch; 4.02 ounces). The gorgeous display takes up almost half of the phone's front face. Graphics and colors were sharp and it has the same simple but easy-to-use interface that we saw on the Motorola Rokr E8.
I particularly liked the circular toggle on the navigation array, which has a nice tactile feel that compensates for its relatively small size. I had no issues navigating through menus or controlling different functions. The remaining controls are flush but their spacious arrangement makes them user-friendly.
The keypad buttons are also flush but they feature the same tiny silver bumps that we saw on the Rokr E8. That gives them a bit of a tactile feel for dialing and texting quickly. Also, the bright backlighting should help in dim situations.
The Motorola ZN5 is a conversation piece.
(Credit: Nicole Lee/CNET Networks)On the side of the ZN5 are a volume rocker, a 3.5mm headset jack, a micro USB port, and a camera shutter key. Turn it over and you'll find the bright flash and the sliding camera lens cover. Opening the cover starts the camera automatically.
Remember that the ZN5 is all about photography. Moto got help from Kodak to produce the 5-megapixel shooter, from the design of the camera itself to a seamless integration with Kodak's EasyShare Software and the online Kodak Gallery. You can find details on the camera here, but it's worth noting that it offers many of the same features you'd find on a standalone shooter.
We gave the camera a quick spin and were especially impressed with the panorama mode. After you take the first shot for your panorama, the phone will vibrate until you move it to the correct position for the next shot. Once you're there, the camera will snap the next image automatically. There's no reason for you to try to struggle with lining up a tree in the backgrounds. It's a nifty feature that bodes well for the camera as a whole.
Moto is promising that we'll get a review unit in the next few weeks and we're counting the days until then. North American availability is still under wraps but we couldn't help but notice that the ZN5 that we played with was running on a T-Mobile SIM card? Coincidence? We think not.
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(Credit:
Crave UK)
Motorola fans rejoice! All both of you! Not only has Moto been making new phones (that don't resemble the Razr), but it's actually started to make some decent handsets again. We liked the Rokr E8 a lot last month and now Motorola's launching a new camera phone in partnership with Kodak, called the ZN5, which we got to fondle last week.
The Motorola ZN5 feels and looks very cool. From the moment we picked it up we immediately noticed that it wasn't a Razr, which is a good place to start for a company that's been flogging a dead horse for years. Boasting a 5-megapixel camera and Kodak technology, Motorola reckons that this is possibly the best camera phone ever made. Click here to see more.
(Source: Crave UK)
It's all the goods from the Crave blog. Brian Tong is joined by guest host Ariel Nunez, who brings a musical flavor to this week's show. They talk about an iPod boom box straight out of the '80s, the super hot Tenori-On musical sequencer, Motorola's ZN5 cell phone that is focusing on photos, and more juice for your iPhone. Plus, Brian hates on robots.
For a long time we've been begging Motorola to come up with something new, and now it appears the company has done just that. On Monday, Moto joined with Kodak in Beijing to announce a new line of camera phones called the Motorola Zine series. The first model, the ZN5, is no Razr, Krzr, or Rizr refresh; rather, it's a different approach (at least for Motorola) to the camera phone concept.
Take your best shot with the ZN5
(Credit: Motorola)The ZN5 is not unique for the type of camera it offers, we've seen other 5-megapixel handsets before, but for everything else that goes with it. Integrated Wi-Fi will let you upload photos to the Kodak Gallery online service (formerly Ofoto) without having to transfer the images to a computer first. Moto promises the upload will require the press of just one button. The ZN5 also will come with Kodak's EasyShare software and the MotoTools software. Both will let you transfer photos to a PC for printing or processing. And if that isn't enough ways to get photos off your phone, the ZN5 also supports removable memory cards and Bluetooth file transfers.
The camera promises a full slate of editing features that you'd find a on a standalone shooter. These include a Xenon flash (According to Moto, it will be very bright), white balance and brightness settings, color tones, noise reduction, a panorama mode, a multi-shot mode, an auto-focus and a 4x digital zoom. You'll also find a sliding lens cover that when opened will switch the phone to camera mode automatically. And like many camera phones, the shutter and zoom controls will be on the top of the phone when you're taking photos in landscape mode. The idea here is to mimic the ergonomics of a real camera.
The ZN5 has a sliding lens cover
(Credit: Motorola)Moto was cagey on what kind of lens the ZN5 will have. A company representative only said that "he" (Carl Zeiss anyone?) is a well-known manufacturer. The representative also was a tad defensive when we inquired about the ZN5's pixel count. He replied that "it's not about megapixels." That may be true, but we don't think it needs to be said. And in any case, the accompanying photos show that's it's a 5.0-megapixel shooter. According to Moto, they've printed 16 inch by 20 inch photos to satisfying results. We'll save our assessment until we do our own testing.
Of course, the ZN5 is a phone too. It offers quad-band GSM and EDGE support, Moto's CrystalTalk technology, an FM radio, messaging, full Bluetooth, a speakerphone, a Moto music player, and personal organizer applications. The integrated 350MB of memory is healthy, but the ZN5 can accommodate microSD cards up to 4GB.
On the whole, the ZN5 sounds quite promising and we can't wait to see one in the flesh. Moto has yet to announce pricing or North American availability. Per the Beijing announcement, China will be the first market to get the phone. We'll be interested to see how the ZN5 stands up to Sony Ericsson CyberShot models like the K850i. The CyberShot handsets have a reliable record of integrating phone and camera features into one device, which is something the ZN5 is going for. In that regards, Moto is not the first company to take such an approach to the camera phone. Yet we admit that we're intrigued by the Kodak partnership, which is something we haven't seen before. According to Kodak, it had input into the entire ZN5 user experience, from the phone's camera to the related processing software. We'll give you a full report on the ZN5 one we get a model in our eager hands.
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