Motorola ZN5 Review

The Motorola ZN5 marks Motorola’s rather late entry in the blooming 5 MP camera phone segment. Motorola seems to have woken up a bit too late to the needs of the consumers. At a time when Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson have already created a stronghold in the 5 MP camera phone segment and are now aiming at the 8 MP segment, it remains to be seen if the ZN5 will be able to make a mark on the market. It sports a superb 5 MP camera powered by Kodak technology. It is powered by Linux and has lots of features. It does have its shortcomings like the absence of 3G and GPS etc, but whatever it does have, it does it pretty good. In this review, we check out the Motorola ZN5 and see whether it stands up to the heavyweights like Nokia N82, Nokia N95 8GB, Sony Ericsson K850, Sony Ericsson C902 etc.

Motorola ZN5 Specifications:

• Dimensions: 4.6 x 2.0 x 0.5 inches
• Weight: 114 gms
• Display: 2.4 inch TFT, 256K colors, 240 x 320 pixels
• Processor: Freescale 500 MHz CPU
• Operating System: Linux
• Internal Memory: 256MB
• Memory Expansion: MicroSD Card
• Camera: 5 MP, 2560 x 1920 pixels with Autofocus, Xenon flash, Video recording at 15 FPS
• Connectivity: GPRS class 12, EDGE class 12, Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, USB v2.0
• Battery: Li-Ion 950 mAh BX50, 580 hrs standby time, 9 hrs talktime

Other Features:
Java MIDP 2.0, MP3/WMA/eAAC+ player, CrystalTalk Technology, 3.5mm standard audio jack, TV Out, FM radio, Organizer, Kodak Perfect Touch, Kodak Gallery

Design and Build Quality:

The Motorola ZN5 sports a simple candybar form factor and a clean design. At dimensions of just 4.6 x 2.0 x 0.5 inches and a weight of just 114 gms, it is very portable and compact. It sports some new design features like the inclusion of a morphing keypad just like in the Moto ROKR E8. It is mostly made of brushed metal and plastic. The partially rubberized body provides a good grip and improves the overall durability. The front face of the phone has the display, navigational pad, keypad and the earpiece. The right side sports a volume control and the phone lock keys. The left side sports a mini USB port with a rubber covering while the back of the phone sports the 5 MP camera protected by a sliding cover and the Xenon flash. The build quality is top notch and has no complaints. The phone could have done better with a more stylish design though.

Display and User Interface:

The Motorola ZN5 sports a 2.4 inch TFT display capable of displaying 256K colors and at a standard resolution of 240 x 320 pixels. The display quality is exceptionally good with superb brightness and contrast. It produces vivid images with vibrant colors. It is a fingerprint magnet though. The user interface is very easy to use and intuitive. The smartphone is powered by Motorola’s favorite - Linux. It means that it supports a wide range of hacks and mods available for easy customization and improving the phone functionality. Each and every feature is available in just 3-4 clicks at a maximum and all the features are sorted properly, even a newbie wouldn’t have any problems navigating through the ZN5 interface for the first time. The morphing keypad highly increases the speed of accessing the features and provides a very cool interface experience, especially after you get used to it. The keypad backlighting is also very good and helps in dark environments.

Camera:

Coming to the main highlight of the Motorola ZN5, it sports a superb 5 MP camera with Kodak technology. The camera is one of the best 5 MP cameras around and closely competes with the Nokia N82 and the Sony Ericsson C902. Motorola launched a 5 MP shooter pretty late, but as the wise say - Better late than never. It is capable of holding its own against both the N82 and the C902. The image quality is amazing and it has accurate color reproduction. The Xenon flash works perfectly well and lends to the quality of the pictures and is absolutely necessary for the low light shots. Of course, it doesn’t compare to normal digicams but it sets a high standard in the cellphone world. The Xenon flash is marginally less powerful than the Nokia N82.

The camera interface is nice and provides some advanced options to tweak your camera. The included Kodak Perfect Touch technology is a blessing for newbie shutterbugs. It is an image enhancement option that works wonderfully well in most cases. One touch and your images are magically transformed to better ones. It optimises the brightness, contrast, exposure, ISO, white balance automatically to give you a better picture.

You also get a Kodak Gallery count as a freebie to which you can upload your pictures and share them online. You need a GPRS or Wi-Fi connection to be able to upload pictures. The feature is very useful and works like a charm.

Multimedia:

The Motorola ZN5 has quite decent multimedia capabilities - the audio quality is very nice and the volume levels decent. The bundled earphones sound quite well and provide a nice overall sonic experience. The player controls all lie on the navigational pad. It also has good video playback capabilities. You can view videos in landscape mode as well. The ZN5 also sports a FM radio with nice reception quality. It supports autoscan which allows you to scan and save stations automatically. It also has Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP which allows you to hear your music wirelessly over a streaming Bluetooth connection on a Bluetooth stereo headset.

Other Features:

It comes with a lot of additional features like web browsing, email clients etc. You can surf the internet on the mobile version of the Webkit browser which is built in, and is one of the best mobile browers around. It also supports chat messenger accounts for services like AIM, ICQ, Windows Live, and Yahoo Messenger. You can also setup email accounts for all popular services.
The call quality is superb with superior noise cancellation by Motorola’s patented Crystal Talk technology. The call reception quality is nice, which coupled with the noise reduction provides for superb call experience. The phone is powered by a Li-Ion 950 mAh BX50 battery which is rated at 580 hrs standby time. It provides about 9 hrs of talktime which is quite nice. It should last for about 2 days with moderate usage. The Wi-Fi reception is quite good.

Pros:

• Superb 5 MP camera with Xenon flash
• Kodak Perfect Touch

Cons:

• No 3G

Final Words:

The Motorola ZN5 is a very nice phone which holds its own against other 5 MP heavyweights like the Nokia N82 and Sony Ericsson C902. It is fast, durable and sturdy and definitely a good buy.

Our Rating: 3.5 / 5.