Digital Trends

Motorola MOTORIZR Z3 May 10th, 2007 | by Stewart Wolpin

Use and Testing

As a phone, the Z3 is above average. Voice volume on T-Mobile's network is loud, with only minor network warble at both ends. Ringtone volume is about average (which means the Z3 could be louder), and the vibrate function is adequate.

However, while the Z3's multimedia capabilities are impressive, the user interfaces are not as well thought out as they should have been.

For instance, taking pictures with the otherwise above average 2MP camera, which has an 8x zoom and a video light, is relatively pain-free. The shutter is right under your right index finger when you hold the phone horizontally, and the LCD screen provides a bright viewfinder image, even in the sun. But once you take a picture, you have to go into the "Options" menu under the left soft key to save the captured image, instead of "save" (or "delete") being offered as an immediate soft key option. And the "Options" list is presented on-screen in portrait mode, even though you're likely to be holding the phone in landscape to snap pictures.

There's no flash, but there's a bright video light. The difference is that a flash illuminates only when the picture is snapped. A video light, which usually provides more light than a plain flash, is continual. Most cell cams with video lights instead of a flash offer "always on" and "on for this shot only" options. But the Z3's light is always on, which means you have to manually turn it off through the options menu after you're done shooting.

Picture quality (both indoors and out) is above average in sharpness and color accuracy, but lacks deep blacks or contrast, which is about average for cell cams. There's a perfect nanosecond delay between pushing the shutter button and the image being captured, just enough time to steady the phone to ensure a clean shot. The video light does illuminate objects up to a couple of feet away, but if you're too close to your subject, you'll over-saturate the image.

Adjacent to the navigation array is a direct Web access key, which we're glad of. There is no Web icon among the primary on-screen menu choices; you have to open the T-Zones folder from the main menu (which oddly opens a "My Album" folder) and choose one of the six options, none of which are labeled "Web." So, use the direct access button.

The Z3 is both GPRS and EDGE capable, but the T-Mobile website makes no mention of the accessibility of the latter high-speed network. We couldn't tell if our test model was receiving EDGE, but considering the slow response time, it probably wasn't. Predictably, Web access using GPRS was herky-jerky. It didn't help that the screen would only stay lit for 20 seconds, which meant it often went out before a page was filled. It did re-light when the page appeared, thankfully.

Z3's music player also suffers from some annoying hiccups. The first problem was finding it. Yes, it's activated by the left spine action button, but we only tripped over this accidentally. Before happening upon this button, we had to drill through the main menu's "Fun & Apps" folder to the "Games & Apps" folder to find the music player.

Once activated, the player takes around 15 seconds to boot up and pull all the tunes on your microSD card into position (this time may be shorter if you have fewer files on the card; we loaded almost a full 1GB of music). When you pick a song to start playing, soft key controls matched to the navigation array appear on screen. But once you move around the music application (i.e. create a playlist), these soft key controls disappear. With no dedicated music transport keys, you have to go through the options menu to pause a track. Unlike other music phones, the Z3's navigation array does not default to music controls.

You also have to change the default "slide down/end task" setting to "slide down/continue task." Otherwise, the music stops when you slide the screen down, requiring you to go back to the music player's main screen to resume your tunes.

While you can create playlists and play music in true random sequence, there are no EQ settings. Plus, the player freezes out all other functions. If you want to use the camera or run any other applications, you have to turn off the player. Other musical cells like T-Mobile’s Nokia XpressMusic 5300 let you roam around features and functions while the music continues to play.

Thankfully, if a call comes in while you're grooving, the phone asks if you want to answer or ignore. After a call, you are asked if you want to resume grooving.

Any of your tracks can be applied as a ringtone as long as your microSD card with all your songs is inserted. Not only does this nice touch save you a couple of dollars on downloaded ringtones, it also saves you from the poorly-designed ringtone download application. We downloaded the "anie's Got a Gun ringtone, but once it was downloaded, we did not receive a prompt to apply it as a ringtone, nor could we locate the download.

Taken by themselves, each of these easy-to-anticipate multimedia miffs can be tolerated. But grouped together, you get the feeling that the designers simply didn't care enough to do a bit more beta testing, which would have smoothed everything out.

The Z3’s talk time of 3.3 hours is shorter than what we've come to expect these days (time that will be cut shorter by music play); standby time of 9.4 days is adequate.