Hands on: Motorola ROKR E8
I was able to handle the Motorola ROKR E8, Motorola’s third iteration of the ROKR series. The design and feature highlights include a glass surface with a “virtual” keypad, the new Song ID feature, and the patented FastScroll navigation.
The ROKR brand is being positioned as a “MP3 player first - phone second” device. Motorola is really pushing the ROKR brand as you can see from the new stylized logo and exclusive concerts throughout the year (an invite-only Fergie concert in South East Asia middle of this year).
On to the phone. The ROKR E8 implements the ModeShift technology that blacks out and highlights user interface buttons depending on what mode the ROKR is in. From the photos above, you can see how the E8 shifts from phone mode to MP3 player mode to camera mode. Only pertinent buttons will become active and highlighted by the backlight below the glass surface. It takes a while getting used to the “keypad” as there is no tactile feedback from each key. To narrate the experience of pushing a button … you basically get a depression of the entire phone whenever part of the keypad is pushed. It isn’t alarming - it just takes time to get used to.
Another new thing we need to get used to is the 3/4 scroll wheel which Motorola calls FastScroll. When the iPod was introduced, Jobs wanted a way for users to be able to quickly scroll through their 5GB playlist. The best way to do this from a UI perspective was to make the selection screen a wheel so that people don’t get tired of holding the up or down button. Motorola has pseudo-implemented the same technology on the phone. I’m sure there is a way to change the sensitivity settings of the FastScroll navigation. It felt awkward at first - although you can always use the D-Pad for more precise selection.
What characterizes the ROKR brand is the inclusion of a 3.5mm jack and high quality earphones as compared to the W230 series which only has a 2.5mm jack.
Bottomline
Pegged to cost around USD $300.00 (unconfirmed price indicates that it will be around PHP 15,000.00 to P17,000.00), the E8 is definitely an affordable and elegant choice of an MP3 player + phone. Motorola has bundled a great set of earphones for the ROKR (I still use my bundled earphones from the old ROKR E2 on my iPod — that’s how good they are). This phone is a great buy.
Fast Features:
3.5mm stereo jack
2.0MP camera with 8x digital zoom
2GB internal memory with support for microSD up to 4GB
“Talking phone” that reads out messages when you can’t look at the screen
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POSTED IN: Cell phone, Motorola
1 opinion for Hands on: Motorola ROKR E8
A Bugged Life [ philippine technology. the communications industry and geek rants ] » Blog Archive » Motorola’s 2008 mobile phone new lineup
Feb 27, 2008 at 9:12 am
[…] W230 is the world’s cheapest MP3 phone at a mere PHP 2,490.00 without a post-paid plan The ROKR E8 is the next-generation music player phone that comes with new technologies such as Song ID, […]
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