| Motorola RIZR Z3 Expert Reviews |
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Motorola RIZR Z3 -- by Joni Blecher Follow me on Twitter--September 17th 2007 |
| Full Review |
| When it comes to slider cell phones, the Motorola Rizr is a good-looking option. It has all the expected features: Bluetooth, a 2-megapixel camera, and of course, a built-in music player – all in a compact, durable package. It also has a superbright light on the back of the cell phone, which can easily double as a flashlight in a dark room. Despite its great package, it has a few flaws, namely hit-or-miss call quality. But if that’s not an issue for you, this pocket-friendly world phone is worth a look. |
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| Call Quality |
Calls and speakerphone: We found calls came through loud and clear on the Motorola Rizr. We rarely needed to use the side volume keys to adjust the sound, and callers never knew we were talking on a cell phone. Unfortunately, calls would intermittently drop off in the middle of a conversation – even if we were standing in one spot the entire time. This didn’t happen a lot, but enough to mention. Using the speakerphone didn’t degrade call quality, and there was only a slight echo. 
Audio Quality: Playback of songs is decent through the cell phone’s speakers and included headphones. We were impressed that songs didn’t sound tinny, as is sometimes the case with music phones. We should note that there were some quality issues when the bass was set too high for a particular song. Unfortunately, the Motorola Rizr lacks a headset jack, so you’ll need to rely on the included headphones or buy Bluetooth stereo headphones. |
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| Ease of Use |
Menu/Phone Book: At first glance, the Motorola Rizr seems like it should be one of those cell phones that you can pick up and intuitively know how to use. For the most part, you can figure out how to perform a lot of basic tasks relatively easily, such as making a call, logging onto your IM service, or snapping a picture. However, there were some things we wanted to do but couldn’t. For example, there’s a Shortcut menu on the home screen, but you can’t personalize it. That said, you can change the features assigned to the navigation keys. We particularly like how easy it is to use the phone book. You can store 1,000 contacts in the Rizr’s memory, and each can take five phone numbers, two e-mail addresses, a picture, and a dedicated ringer. Plus, you can store an additional 250 contacts on the SIM card; however, you won’t be able to give them a dedicated ringer. We should mention that if you get the unlocked version of this cell phone, sending text messages is a bit sluggish.
Camera/Video: The Motorola Rizr sports a 2-megapixel camera and video-recording capabilities. The cell phone also sports a light that sits next to the lens. It’s more effective than most flashes we’ve seen on camera phones to date. This light is so bright that it can easily pull double duty as a flashlight to help illuminate your way through a dark room. Picture quality is acceptable, and colors are bright, but not necessarily true to life. And while some details, such as lettering, were picked up, other details, such as fabric mesh, weren’t. Video quality isn’t much better, but you can still see what’s happening on the screen. Additionally, if you want to store a lot of photos and music, you’ll need to get an optional TransFlash storage card since the cell phone has only about 20MB of internal storage, which is enough for around 4 songs and a few pictures.
Music: Like the Motorola Razr V3m, the Rizr has a MP3 player that you can use to play back MP3 files and Apple AAC files – sorry, no WMA (Windows music file format) files. As noted, the audio quality is pretty good through the cell phone speakers. Though you can't adjust audio-centric controls such as bass and treble on this cell phone, you can create playlists on the fly. Unfortunately, finding the music player isn’t the easiest thing in the world.
Getting music onto the cell phone is fairly easy, especially if you have a mini-USB-to-USB cable. With it, you can connect the Rizr to your computer, then drag and drop songs from your computer onto the phone. You can also purchase a MiniSD TransFlash storage card to store tunes from your PC, then slip it into the TransFlash card slot located on the side of the Motorola cell phone. You should probably consider getting one of these cards anyway since the Rizr has only 24MB of internal memory, so you’ll be able to store just 3 or 4 songs on the cell phone itself.
Connectivity/Bluetooth: We were able to pair the Motorola cell phone with a Motorola H700 Bluetooth headset and a Motorola H682 Bluetooth headset. We should note using the Bluetooth feature decreases battery life, but call quality is pretty good when using a Bluetooth headset. |
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| Design |
Look and Feel: There’s no denying the Rizr is a good-looking cell phone. It has a slightly rubberized casing (think: Motorola Pebl), which keeps it from being too slippery and, conversely, easy to grip. We like talking on the cell phone, as it’s comfortable to hold, but it’s a little too thin to cradle comfortably between your ear and shoulder. This is a slider phone that snaps firmly into place when it closes; we’re happy to report that it stays shut whether floating around a purse or snuggled in a pant pocket. Occasionally, the cell phone will slide slightly open when slipped into a pocket, but it adjusts to close once snugly in the pocket. Also, we should note that you can slide the phone open to answer calls or just unlock it to answer when it's closed.
The display is bright, crisp, and viewable in most lighting situations. Our only quibble with the cell phone’s design is the display attracts a lot of grease and fingerprints quickly. You might find yourself using your pants or the edge of your shirt to make the screen shiny again.
Keypad: Similar to the Razr and the Krzr, the Motorola Rizr sports a flat keypad. While we like how easily the cell phone slides shut because of its flat keys, we admit the brightly backlit keys are a bit slippery. In fact, we occasionally found ourselves typing the wrong letter or number during texting because our fingers slid around the keypad too much. Additionally, we often hit the dedicated Web key accidentally, which was a bit of a nuisance. We would have liked to be able to customize the shortcut buttons, as is the case with other Motorola cell phones. Unfortunately, that’s not possible here. |
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| Battery Life |
| In the battery life department, the Motorola Rizr is acceptable, but far from stellar. We found that we could last almost two days before needing to recharge when using the Motorola Rizr regularly to make calls and send/receive text messages. If you barely use the cell phone to make/receive calls and send/receive messages, you can wait about four days before needing to recharge, while heavier cell phone users will likely need to charge the Motorola Rizr every other day. Additionally, we did find the battery drained extremely quickly when we used Bluetooth. But if you have a mini-USB-to-USB cable, you can always charge the cell phone by connecting it to a computer. Nice! |
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Motorola RIZR Z3 Expert Rating
