« Cursed Force Majeur Clause!!! | Main | Mobile Startup/Mobile Research in the Seattle PI today »
September 16, 2005
Motorola ROKR
There have been a lot of postings in various blogs and sites in the last week about the new Motorola ROKR iTunes phone. Most of them bad. We purchased this phone last week and I had a chance to play around with it before it went to the researchers to get profiled. I am going to have to break with the pack and say that I don't think this phone is that bad. Sure it isn't the iPhone from Apple that everyone has been speculating about, but as far as Motorola phones go, it's a pretty nice device. It's a mid-range phone, and I'm sure the $249 price tag will drop, just as the RAZR's did. (Although I am not a big fan of the name. Enough with the lame pseudo-acronym 4 letter names!)
The iTunes functionality worked like a charm. I plugged it into my Mac, dragged some songs into the little phone icon, and they transfered. Worked the first time without any hassle, just like I expect anything on my Mac to. Sure it only holds 100 songs (or 512k), but this is the first phone that supports iTunes. I'm sure the next one will be more. And l look at it as getting an apple shuffle bundled in with a nice mid-range Motorola phone. The size is nice and I think the phone is pretty cool looking. Frankly II would take one of these over the RAZR any day. I think this phone is getting a bad rap in the face of a LOT of speculation for a long time about an apple iPhone. This isn't it; but a cool phone that works with iTunes nicely. The sound is good, they give you an adapter so you can use REAL headphones with it, it handles incoming phone call handoff nicely, and it has a nice form factor.
The only downside to this phone is the USB 1 cable and associated SLOW transfer speed. I might not have noticed if I wasn't used to transfering tons of data to my iPod at lightning fast speeds via Firewire. Also, I haven't used it enough to say what the battery life is with the iTunes playing. However I am sure it is pretty good since it uses flash RAM instead of a drive.
I've got to wonder how many of the pundits out there who have bad mouthed this phone, have actually laid hands on one.
Posted by David Adams at September 16, 2005 12:03 AM
Comments
Is it me, or do Motorola phones have some awful user interfaces? I have a C650, and it seems like there are 6 ways to do everything, and none of them work right. The contact management is a nightmare. And adjusting the volume while using voicemail is a waste of time, because the number keys make it jump all over the place. Why can't I have it ring and vibrate at the same time? And what the hell is up with putting a mini-USB port on the bottom of the phone, and then requiring me to buy software to do anything with it. LAME.
I preferred the interface on my Sony Ericsson T600, even though the rest of the phone was crap.
I think my next phone will be a Nokia, I've always loved the ones I've had in the past.
PS: Picked up a Dual G4 tower a couple weeks ago, so I'm "switching".
Posted by: James Hillyerd at September 16, 2005 10:37 AM
Completely agreed. This is only ROKR E1. Notice the one. Meaning the FIRST. Think about what ROKR E8 will be like...
Posted by: Robocellkid at September 16, 2005 03:17 PM
I havent got this phone it looks good and i like the fact that it has iTunes but after reading the comment im not sure if i should bye one befor having a look at one.
Posted by: Mitchi at February 13, 2006 03:53 AM