Motorola MotoRIZR Z8 mobile phone - First Look review

Can Moto become king of video on the go?

17 May 2007 17:32 GMT / By Stuart Miles

The next generation of mobile phones is all about music isn't it? Wrong, that was last years message and perhaps realising that they've missed the boat against the likes of Sony Ericsson's Walkman range and the yet to be launched iPhone, Motorola's latest handset, the Moto Z8 boasts video as its main feature.

So what's it like? Pocket-lint was invited to a dark press conference in London Bridge to find out.

Well first impressions are good - the design, which is like no mobile phone we've ever seen before is incredibly tactile to touch and covered in the same material as the company's RIZR handset uses on its back.

At first glance it looks like metal, but then when you touch it, it has a rubbery feel helping it grip to surfaces so it doesn’t slide around. Motorola call it soft touch rubber, which doesn't sound as exciting as it should be.

But what's even more interesting from a design point of view is that the phone breaks in two to angle around your face. Moto are calling it a Kick slider design. It's hard to describe, however check out the pictures to the right of this copy to get a better understanding.

Coming in a black and fetching lime green, the phone also sports a largish display, which you view those videos on. We would have liked it to be bigger (wouldn't we all), but it was ample for watching short programs as long as you opt for the full screen mode which rotates the image so you watch it landscape rather than profile.

Where the screen wins out however, is that it supports 16 million rather than just the average 262k colours and has a frame rate of 30fps rather than the average 24. Motorola claims this makes the picture quality top notch and in our brief viewing - we watched a clip from Disney's Cars and Jeremy Clarkson's latest video - the quality was very impressive.

We weren't able to test out battery claims, but Moto say you'll be able to get a dubious 5 hours of watching time, plenty enough to watch the "included in the box on a microSD card" film Bourne Indentity, Sky News via its mobile TV offering and of course the latest episode of the Pocket-lint gadget show Megawhat.tv.

Also out of the box you'll get a set of Bluetooth-enabled headphones, SSX3 snowboarding game from EA and Sky's Anytime application so you can tell your Sky+ box to record stuff when you're away from home.

With so much going for this phone, it seems strange to leave it till this late in this First Look to mention that Motorola has also included HSDPA connectivity, Stereo Bluetooth, 2 megapixel camera, a microSD slot for expanding those multimedia functions all running a new Symbian OS interface that means its not dogged by problems and issues from the past.

Verdict

So first impressions are good. Our only concern is that the screen isn't big enough to get the most out of video, however it's probably why Motorola can claim the decent battery life.

Combine this with the included Alice Band behind the ear style headphones and it looks like the company might have a decent offering on its hands. Forget the RAZR2, it’s the MOTO Z8 you'll be wanting.