The Motorola ROKR E8 aka MOTOROKR is Motorola’s latest attempt at a good music phone. Personally, I’m sick of having to carry around a cellphone and an MP3 player. I refuse to join the the masses and get an iPhone, which we all know does it all. So I was hoping the MOTOROKR E8 would finally give me the best of both worlds. At first glance it was certainly different looking but let’s see if its looks translated into a decent music phone.

What’s in the Box:
Inside the box: The MOTOROKR E8, battery & charger, micro usb cable, stereo headset, 1GB MicroSD card, carrying pouch, CD, and user guides. I like the extra touch of a MicroSD card, it saves you from having to run out and get one right away.

Construction:
Let me get this off my chest first, there are no keys on this phone! If you are looking for physical keys that you can see and feel, use another phone. When the screen goes dark you see no keys and only bumps that resemble braille. When the display is visible it is crisp and clear and is capable of displaying up to 262,000 different colors. The touch panel that is supposed to resemble a keypad does give you haptic feedback when you press a key and it may be cool to look at, but functionality was a different story. In order to see the screen lit again, you need to press hard on the keypad and the display screen will come to life. There is also a scroll wheel of sorts smack in the middle of all this touch panel madness which is called the “FastScroll Navigation Wheel.” A nice iPodish touch. The MOTOROKR E8 also uses a the new “Modeshift” technology which will light up keys associated with the task at hand but more on that later.

DSC_0065.JPG

◄ Back

Next ►

Picture 8 of 12

The keys consist of (when visible), your regular numeric pad, the green send/red end keys, return, and dedicated music key ( which looks like a music note). The overall design of the phone is nice, it isn’t too heavy but the high gloss finish on the front of the phone makes it near impossible for you not to get fingerprints on this thing.This led to alot of rubbing on my pants and eventually I resorted to carrying a microfiber cloth with me.

The power button is on the right-hand side of the phone and resembles a power button found on most MP3 players. Slide down to power on and then slide up to put the phone on hold. The very top of the MOTOROKR E8 may look like someone hit it on the noggin but it actually is where you insert a pair of headphones. The left side of the phone has dedicated buttons for the camera and volume control keys. The underside of the phone has a rubbery feel and look. The back also consists of the lens of the camera and were you would slide off the battery cover to insert the sim card, battery and a MicroSD card for extra memory for your tunes.

Menu System:
The main selling point of the MOTOROKR E8 is the music. Can it work as a decent phone and still be a good music player? Well…. yes and no.First off the menu system was just awful. Using the fast scroll navigation wheel you can scroll through various menu options which should be simple enough but the at times it went to fast, whizzing by the option I wanted. I was finally able to slow down my crazy scrolling by just using the d-pad and clicked a menu option but then it lagged to complete the action. Another downside is that with the E8 I feel like I’m playing an X-Box 360 game that requires button mashing. I have to keep hitting the same keys over and over again for anything to work or if I hit the wrong key I get kicked back out to the My faves screen. Other times it had a mind of its own and would make its own selections that I didn’t even tap. BEYOND FRUSTRATING! Another disappointment is that I like when my phone vibrates and rings at the same time. Instead there was ring only, vibrate only, silent, and vibrate then ring options.

I scrolled my way over to the “Fun & Apps” menu option and selected FM Radio, plugged in my BOSE headphones and OMG! I was actually enjoying something about this phone. The sound was amazing and so was the reception. The radio quality was top notch and so was the sound. The downside is that others around you can’t enjoy the radio too. It will only work if you plug in headphones not on speaker. I tried several stations and actually found a few that I didn’t even know existed and they sounded awesome. I then scrolled my way over to the “Multimedia” menu option and listened to some tunes that I had synced to the MOTOROKR E8 via Windows Media Player, which was easy enough. I plugged the phone in via USB and windows picked it up right away and began to sync the selected tunes I wanted to hear on the MOTOROKR.

Those with a Mac will have to manually drag and drop on to the MicroSD card to get music on to the phone as it doesn’t support iTunes. Again the music was flawless in quality and as I discussed earlier the only keys lit up on the keypad were those that would be used during this time. The Modeshift technology makes its presence known at this point by turning the dedicated music key and return key into forward and reverse keys, the 2 key into a play/pause key, and then lower on the numeric keypad the shuffle and repeat mode buttons become lit up. The other multimedia functions are typical of all phones these days. Ringtones, alarm clock, calculator, bluetooth connectivity, calendar, voice activated dialing, theme customizations which includes only one called “Onyx”, phonebook, etc.

Call Quailty:
The call quality is superb since the Motorola ROKR E8 features the famed Crystal Talk technology. Calls were clear and crisp and I heard my mother nagging me louder than ever. Those on the other end heard me just as good too, even commenting how I sounded like I was in the same room.

Camera:
Obviously the camera was just an after-thought on what is meant to be simply a music phone. The 2 megapixel camera didn’t take the best photos and was very grainy at times. If you were outside in super sunny conditions the camera did an OK job otherwise photos seemed to have a lot of noise in them. Reviewing photos was easy with dedicated playback button on what was once the numeric keypad. There’s that Modeshift technology working again… on the whole it’s not meant to be a camera phone, for quick and easy shots it’s good enough but for those looking for something a little more sophisticated with better quality you won’t find it here.

Pricing:
The suggested retail price of the Motorola ROKR E8 is $349.99. With a 2 Year contract from T-Mobile though you can get an instant $200 rebate and $50 mail-in rebate. So in the end it only costs you $99.99. I wonder why they are practically giving this phone away?…..hmmmm

Conclusion:
The MOTOROKR E8 has the sound quality and shiny features which should have made it a rockstar among other music phones. However it’s wonky menu system and invisible keypad despite the new-fangled Modeshift technology wasn’t enough to rock my world. Instead it was more of a karaoke singer rather than a guitar hero. I guess I’m back to lugging around my cellphone and MP3 player.

The Good: Terrific sound quality for music and calls. Crisp and clear display. Stylish and trendy design. Modeshift technology is a nice touch.

The Bad: Unique keypad may seem like a grand idea but in the end is a bit gimmicky. Terrible menu system along with lag times.