Digital Trends

Motorola MOTOZINE ZN5 November 10th, 2008 | by Stewart Wolpin

Can a phone serve as a workable PMP?

T-Mobile has yet to offer a real video service, and Motorola is not hyping any video playback capabilities other than the option to view whatever videos you shoot yourself. That said, the ZN5 can screen MPEG-4, H.263 and Real Video files that you load into the phone for occasional screenings.

As for audio options, Motorola, learning a lesson from its aborted association with Apple and its own ROKR music phones, has equipped the ZN5 with a music player that's not exactly iPod-quality, but proves above-average and gets you where you need to go. On the downside, for instance, there are no external music-specific control keys, and no single external button that gets you straight to the player unless you create a shortcut to the Multimedia menu. Still, when you finally manage to drill down to the player, you simply hit "Shuffle Songs" to start random play. And, for that matter, can conveniently choose tracks from recently played options or your choice of All Songs, Playlists, Artists, Albums, Genres and Composers.

Music starts almost instantly when you choose a track. Displayed on-screen is all the usual song info, album art and a progress bar, with transport controls keyed to the circular navigation array. But the controls are a bit counter-intuitive. For example: Instead of the center Select key acting as the pause/play key, it instead pulls up full-screen album art. You have to press "up" on the circular array to pause/play and press "down" to stop the music altogether – a strange design choice.

That said, music will pleasingly continue to play as you switch to other applications. During picture taking, for instance, tunes keep bumping along until you hit the shutter release – you hear the click, then the music returns. Similarly, when shooting a video, the music cuts out for as long as you're filming, then returns when you hit "stop." On a negative note though, because there are no external music keys, you will have to cycle back to the music player from other applications.

In terms of additional options, in the setup menu, you have access to an equalizer, auto-repeat, spatial audio settings (off, 1-7) and bass boost. Unfortunately, the FM radio doesn't get great reception except in close proximity to powerful local stations, and headphones have to be attached since their cable acts as an antenna. 

Sound Quality

Motorola has recently upped audio caliber with its Crystal Talk technology, which elevates conversation quality substantially over previous models. As a result, the ZN5 offers robust sound with plenty of volume, with only the usual amount of cell warble as one walks and talks. And while it won’t come through in stereo, sound produced from the slit rear-mounted speaker is also loud and clear with near clock radio-like room-filling resonance. 

Phone Functionality

Although there are no clearly-delineated dialpad keys, numbers with their pimple indicators are widely-spaced enough to make dialing virtually mistake-free. However, navigation keys are small and tightly packed. We tried inputting contacts several times, but never got through. Each time we hit the Back key with our thumb, we somehow kept accidentally hitting the circular navigation array and backed out of the Contacts application entirely – doh! T-Mobile connections in Manhattan and surrounding environs were largely solid during testing, though; we experienced only one dropped call after several days of chatting.

Non-verbal communications were surprisingly robust as well. You get pre-configured settings for AIM, ICQ, Yahoo! Messenger and Windows Live Messenger instant messaging. For email, you’re provided preconfigured settings (meaning all that’s needed is your username and password) for services including AIM Mail, AOL, Yahoo! Mail and Gmail – more or less standard for phones with POP3/IMAP email functionality. But the ZN5 also goes further by including support for Comcast, Compuserve, Earthlink, HotPOP, Juno, Mac (dot Mac, now dot Me), NetZero, SBC Yahoo! and Verizon… but not Hotmail, curiously.

You can additionally choose to keep your email running in the background in push-mode, and set the phone to alert you when new email has come in. Suffice it to say that all of these options are highly unusual in a phone so inexpensive. 

Video

Shockingly, the video we shot with the ZN5 model that we tested was all out of focus. The subject appeared clear in the viewfinder until we hit the shutter release. Afterwards, when the video started recording, the picture went all fuzzy. We emphasize that these results are from a test model, however, because such performance can't be typical of retail units (or so one would pray). In fact, to be fair, we spoke to a fellow reviewer, who reported no problem with video recording whatsoever.