Motorola rolls out its own touch-screen phone
By Erna Mahyuni
Hot on the heels of Nokia’s ‘Tube,’ is Motorola’s own touchscreen phone. Called the Krave ZN4, the phone differs from the iPhone and Nokia 5800 by coming in a clamshell form factor.
Currently available in the U.S. from Verizon Wireless, the Krave ZN4 got a mention on The Tech Herald. There already is a flashy multimedia showcase on Motorola’s site with the tagline ‘Experience Krave ZN4’. It is rather heavy on the bandwidth so don’t expect the site to load all that quickly.
What sets this phone apart is the dual presence of touch, with touch functionality on the exterior clear flip and on the internal display screen.
Why has the phone remained prety much below the radar? It’s likely due to the extensive customization done to the phone to support Verizon-branded mobile services such as V CAST Mobile TV and V CAST Video. Other Verizon-branded services include V CAST Music with Rhapsody, VZ Navigator and Visual Voice Mail.
It seems Motorola is emphasizing the multimedia aspect of the phone with its vice president of Motorola Mobile Devices, Ken Hallman, waxing lyrical thus, “Motorola Krave is uncompromising. It delivers high-quality multimedia experiences while remaining true to the way consumers expect a phone to work and feel.” Also thrown in was everyone’s favorite overused buzz word – intuitive. Not to mention, ‘never seen before’. Trust me, Mr.Hallman, if we really hadn’t seen it, it’d be all over TechMeme by now.
More interesting to mobile phone enthusiasts would be the actual specs sheet on this one. How big is the screen? A nice but fairly standard by now 2.8-inch screen, a touch-control 2.0 mega pixel camera, Bluetooth stereo support, 3.5mm headset jack, support for up to 8GB of additional memory and that fun feature to have – the accelerometer.
The phone goes for USD $149.99 after a mail-in rebate worth $50 and signing up for a two-year contract. Shades of AT&T, anyone? What should worry Motorola is how little advance buzz the phone’s won, swallowed up instead by Apple’s iPhone dominance and the amusing media hoopla around the Nokia’s Music Xpress 5800. But in the case of the latter, hype isn’t always the best thing to have, setting up unrealistic expectations. Maybe Motorola will surprise us.
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