Motorola Rokr E8 review

Motorola Rokr E8 Review

Reviewed by: Nate Lanxon

Reviewed on: 30 June 2008

Performance
Using the E8 takes some getting used to, particularly if you're joining the Motorola scene after using a Nokia or Sony Ericsson handset. After about a week of adjustment, it becomes pretty simple.

There's a noticeable amount of lag when navigating menus -- split-second delays between item selections and menu scrolling makes lightening-fast browsing somewhat difficult. The touch-sensitive scroll 'wheel' does make long lists easy to browse, happily.

Texting with the pressure-sensitive keypad is actually much more fluid than we initially expected. Predictive typing modes are hit and miss in terms of the accuracy of their predictions, but on the whole, it's a pretty enjoyable experience -- not what you'd assume considering the handset's lack of physical buttons. Motorola has done an excellent job at harnessing the haptic technology it's used.

As a music player, we found the E8 to be superb in terms of audio quality. Through our reference headphones and using uncompressed CD-quality WAV files, the E8 offered a full-bodied, powerful sound when playing Dream Theater's 6:00.

With the Freemasons' remix of Shakira and Beyoncé's pop duet Beautiful Liar, we again heard excellent audio performance -- good bass, a strong mid-range and although a little harsh at higher volumes, an acceptable and bright treble.

Good too was call quality, although it's not the single loudest earpiece we've come across. It wouldn't go down as the most ideal phone to use if you're perpetually working with drills and jet engines.

Conclusion
There's no doubt in our mind that this is a great handset and a smashing music phone. It'll take a while to get used to it and its laggy navigation makes it annoying at times.

But its great sound quality, 3.5mm headphone socket and decent file format support absolutely make it a cut above the rest. As of right now, it's one of our favourite music phones, even though it's not quite a solid replacement for a dedicated MP3 player.

Edited by Shannon Doubleday