Motorola ZN5 Camera Phone

Permalink: Motorola ZN5 Camera Phone by Franz Bicar

Motorola fans can finally relax. Motorola has finally made a very decent handset again - and as an added bonus, it does not resemble the Razr in any way. Motorola is launching a new camera phone in partnership with Kodak, named as the ZN5. The Motorola ZN5 feels and looks very cool. It has a 5-megapixel camera and Kodak technology, and could be the phone to win the 5-megapixel camera phone contest.

This article is basically just a preview of the ZN5. It hasn’t (as far as I know) been released as of the moment and there is still no finalized version for the ZN5. Some features won’t work properly at the moment, but those that do, really do impress.

As mentioned, Motorola focused on this phone’s camera. They included a 5-megapixel camera with Xenon flash - which is already present in phones like the Sony Ericsson K850i, Nokia N82, Nokia 6220 Classic. However, by including bits of revisions and innovations, they took the NZ5 a step further from its other competitors.

First let’s take a look at the ZN5’s design. The ZN5 will come in only one flavor ? dark-grey, which is, as for me, stylish and tasteful. The phone is covered by a thick plastic layer that surely picks up fingerprints and smudge, but never gets overly greasy. Topping the display is a large slot of the earpiece that collects a lot of dust, but somehow it manages to hide it from everyone’s eyes.

Below the screen is the keypad’s flat and even surface that looks like the keypad you’ll find on the Motorola E8. The entire rear side is made of metal, whereas the bottom end is decked out in rubber. The camera module that protrudes from the surroundings is perched at the top.

The handset measures 118×50.5×16 mm (114 grams). As most camera phones these days, the ZN5 is a bit on the bulky and heavy side. Indeed, one can say that the ZN5 is a sturdy phone overall.

Other physical features for the NZ5 include a lanyard eyelet along with the 3.5 mm headset jack nestled on the left-hand side of the phone. Further down is the microUSB socket that accepts the bundled headset, data cable and charger. The right-hand spine of the ZN5 houses the volume rocker, hold switch and camera shortcut.

The phone uses a 2.4-inch TFT display capable of 240×320 pixel resolution and 262 K colors. The display can accommodate up to 8 text and 3 service lines written in a large and very readable font size.

After all that, let’s take a look at the phone’s main feature, its camera. As mentioned, the ZN5 won’t give us something new, but instead, it improved existing designs and gave it a flavor of its own. It’s size, lens placement, controls layout and lens has a lot in common with existing phones like Nokia’s and Sony Ericsson’s handsets. The first thing that the manufacturers improved is the phone’s positioning. The ZN5 looks to appeal to those who want to have great image quality wherever they go, but don’t want to drag a digital compact along. One example is the placement of the lens and the flash. They changed the positions so that it’s very hard to cover the lens or flash with fingers, plus you’ll never experience the red-eye effect with it and the flash no longer affects the way portraits look.

The ZN5 also has a very sophisticated camera application that kicks in once the lens cover is opened. Interface speed is what they have been working on in this device ? even when shooting with the top resolution settings you won’t notice any sluggishness about the ZN5’s camera interface; plus it takes no time at all to save your pictures, so you are ready to shoot again moments after.

Aside from its camera, the ZN5 also features a built-in music player. The ZN5 houses a generic LJ player that is the same as that in the Motorola ROKR E8. It packs in a couple of equalizers that do affect the way it sounds and speakers that are pretty loud for a phone this size. The player can be minimized; when the radio is on you’ll need to use a headset as an antenna.

While the ZN5 is not positioned as a music-centric handset, it ships with a pretty decent player, FM-radio, and 3.5mm headset jack. But more importantly, its sound quality is nearly unrivalled these days, being on a par with the ROKR E8 and some dedicated music player. In other words, the average user will be more than content with what the ZN5 brings to the table, plus it’s quite loud and has very few settings to worry about.

Source:
http://crave.cnet.com
http://www.gsmarena.com
http://www.engadgetmobile.com