Motorola Rokr E8 review

Average user rating

8.3

excellent

Average user rating from 4 users

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Motorola Rokr E8 user reviews

August 1, 2008

Posted by: skcmedia

"Entirely delightful"

What I like:

The look and robust feel.

What I don't like:

They have removed the ability to set personal text alerts.

Review:

This is a surprisingly good new model from Motorola. Having had some bad luck with their Razr V8, I decided to test my previous decision to ditch the brand with one more chance. I am pleasantly surprised. It has a completely new menu system with three options for viewing it. It has a good clear screen which, unusually yet practically, is like a wide screen TV. So whilst people complain about its size, I recall viewing most clips and pictures with my old phone in the horizontal position!

The touch sensitive keyboard is a delight to use and the little buzz beneath your fingers as you tap is pleasantly reassuring. Its real selling point is the unique way in which the key pad transforms itself to serve the differing functions such as music player and camera. In bright sunlight it is even clearer to view the key pad so I am really impressed with that. The only down side is that I have not discovered if this can be turned off as when using the phone in a quiet environment can the squelching noise the buzz creates be annoying.

Texting is pretty good but Motorola have a long way to go before they achieve the agile ability of nokia. The predictive language tends to lean to mid-atlantic English but its ability to recall sentence structure is really useful if you wish to repeat a part of a text to another person. The texting screen is totally white with black font so it very clear even in sunlight.

The call sound quality is excellent, one of Motorola's all time strengths.

The music player is a delight and the unique scrolling system will effectively reach the desired area you wish to be in swiftly. For precision, there is a up down left right toggle button in the middle. The music player quality is excellent. those of you wishing to blast your brains out look elsewhere. For whilst the sound quality is brilliant, the volume could be a tad louder but perfectly suffice for most people.

The camera offers perfectly acceptable quality snaps. Its 2mp camera is far superior to the nokia equivalent. The video camera offers similar high standard and everyday users should be more than happy with the results. When you first use the video function you would be forgiven for thinking you have taken a photo as the video camera omits a shutter click as you begin and finish video capture. A red flashing beacon tells the subject you are recording.

Ring tones are the usual expected from Motorola, with the now improved plus of enabling the user to here a ring tone play when it is highlighted. Unlike the Razr V8 which required users to select and play it to hear only to then have to go back to apply it. Most annoying.

Sadly there is only one theme available which is predominantly black and white with icons having their own colour. I find this surprising but users can apply other wallpapers to the home screen.

When the phone is asleep it looks like a black tar and is stylish and elegant in appearance. The camera and volume buttons are on the right and double up as the ring alert selector. The On off switch is surprisingly a seperate switch at the left which with an upward movement doubles up as a key pad lock. Clock watchers please note, there is no clock displayed when the phone is asleep.

Lastly, the infamous battery. I have only had the phone 5 days but I have to say, following on from an overnight charge last night, having made one call and about ten text messages, a selection of calendar entries and one reminder note, the battery is still showing full. Oh, I have listened to 30 minutes music and 60 minutes of radio. So I would say it is doing pretty well thus far. A nokia battery it is not and I do not imagine it will get much better but I am well impressed after the Razr V8 experience.

To summarise, drop the anti motorola stance, it isn't the second largest manufacturer in the world for nothing. This handset shows motorola has engaged with its users and made some necessary changes only at the expense of some minor o