ROKR Z6 is Motorola's newest music phone. Released a few months before, the model is turning hot day-by-day. After tedious research on various music phones available in the market for over three months, I finally ended up buying this one. So, here is a review stating the features of this phone.
Looks: Except, the too thin and broad Moto SLVR, all other recent Motorola phones are endowed with smashing good looks and the ROKR is no exception. The slider phone looks sleek with a black glimmer in front and anti-scratch, soft plastic finish in the behind. The shiny exterior is also scratch proof. Like other Motorola models, a click on the keys switches the phone alive with colours, radium green for call button, bright red for the call end button and sparkling deep sea blue from behind the other keys inside the slider. The volume controls, camera controls and USB charging port are all pushed to the sides. Compared to the red colored toy-like Nokia music edition, plastic black of Sony Ericsson W810i and boring Titanium Gold of W700i, this black beauty wins hands out in the looks department.
Technical Aspects: ROKR Z6 is Linux/Java powered multimedia phone with 64 MB internal memory and external memory extendable up to 2GB. Some called it a smart phone as it includes a few cool features. Here is a brief look at this various technical aspects.
i) Multimedia here includes music player, voice recorder, video player, video recorder and a 2 Mega pixel camera. The camera includes flash for usage at low lighting conditions. Auto save picture functionality is not present. However, The Multi shot option which allows setting the number of shots to be taken continuously makes up for this. When the slider is closed, the layout gets changed from portrait to landscape. Zooming is possible. A picture viewer can be used to run the saved pictures as slide shows. Videos captures using Video camera, appear blurred when viewed in the camera itself. They should be ok when downloaded. Audio recorder enables creation of custom voice notes. Options to pause and resume are also available.
ii) Music: Media Player 11 is used to manage songs. When connected to a PC with Media Player 11, the device will be recognized automatically. If the PC doesn't have Media Player 11, the songs can be directly dragged and dropped in to the memory card in the device. All features of Windows Media Players like sorting by album, artist, genre etc are included. Songs can be played in shuffle, repeat modes. There is no graphic equalizer. The players accepts Real player format. Since rm formats occupies much less space than MP3 more songs can be stored conveniently. Like other music phones, Air plane mode ensures that the phone can be safely used as a music player while traveling on air plane. Specs say that the air plane mode plays for 10hrs.Music ID feature(if supported by service provider) enables classification of recorder songs. Stereo Bluetooth is supported via MOTOROKR S9 head set accessory that comes free with a promotional offer.
iii) Office tools include, calendar, alarm clock(multiple alarms can be set), world clock(with times from a list of cities), calculator(with easy-to-use GUI), file manager, task list, dialing services(if supported by service provider), MOTOSYNC, Email(to get those POP3 enabled mails into your phone inbox), notepad and a download manager.
iv) File manager lists the music files, pictures, videos, videos notes(audio files created by voice recorder), downloaded applications, my documents(has bookmarked stuff) and a folder called Open Source which has GNU Lubc open source software package license.
File manager also helps to browse through the stored stuff in Memory card.
v) Gaming applications includes Tetris of which I have no idea about. The other is Sudoko which is something I am addicted to. The game is java powered. There are options to choose the difficulty level. I was particularly; happy that the game is auto saved i.e. unless, you specifically want to start a new one, the old one can be resumed.
vi) Web access is provided by an Opera 8 HTML browser. Basic browser options to set profiles, to set display options and to manage cookie / cache are available. The displays options include options to change font size, options to enable or disable pop-ups, scroll bar, javascript, images, sounds and plug ins. Options are available to accept / reject cookies. Downloaded files can be stored in either phone or the removable memory.
vii) Connectivity to external devices: The phone acts as high speed USB when connected to a PC. The contact list, SMS, MMS, media player files and Emails can be synched up or transferred across the PC. Along with the USB cable for charging and data transfer, a plug based USB charger is also included. A single port in the right side, that can be used to connect head set acts as the USB charging/data transfer port. So, it’s not possible to use the head set while charging the phone. This is the only disadvantage. When blue tooth is enabled, the device can be any connected to any other blue tooth enabled device like a phone, PDA, PC and printer. Blue tooth should be switched off when unused, to conserve battery power.
vi) Other interesting features:
a) A cool feature is the topic based Help. The Help contains an extensive list of topics covering all function of the device. Even option to search for a topic is included.
b) Close Slider action can be set to end calls or other applications like music player or game.
c) Talking phone feature can read out caller id, menu contact list, digits used, email and message. d) Voice command can activate/ deactivate Talking phone feature.
e) Predictive text helps you type messages at great speed. Prediction is not like the usual word prediction that comes with dictionary mode. Simple sentence used in a previous message like say'Reached safe' gets prompted for auto completion.
f) There are scopes to update the phone's software, if any new versions are released.
Comparisons: The only clear advantage of using Nokia phones is the battery life. ROKR's battery power dries up quick, if Bluetooth is switched on. Otherwise, charging needs to be done once in two or three days. The Nokia model which provides some competition is 6230i which has better music quality and higher volume range. But Nokia models provide very little internal memory. SanDisk 1 GB micro SD external memory will cost you another Rs. 2350/-. In comparison with Sony Ericsson W Series, ROKR's sound quality in loud speaker mode is better. You get a ROKR with 1 GB memory while you pay Rs. 3000/- extra for W810i with 512 MB. And even the W810i looked a little bit plastic compared to a ROKR Z6. Even Samsung D840 which has fantastic picture quality doesn't include great internal memory or free external memory. Hence I consider ROKR a good buy.
Conclusion: ROKR Z6 provides music along with several other multimedia features. Since the phone's OS is Linux, the chances of getting worms and viruses through MMS and SMS are said to be practically nil. And with its unique sync up capabilities, the ROKR is pretty much a smart phone. The feature lists of is no less than the music editions of Nokia and Sony Ericsson, but for a cheaper price, better memory capacity, smaller size and unbeatable looks. This ROKR is sure rocking.
