MOTOKRZR K1m

Call Quality

Calls and speakerphone: We found calls to be loud and clear on the Motorola Krzr. We rarely needed to use the side volume keys to adjust the sound. Using the speakerphone didn’t degrade call quality and there was only a slight echo. While you don’t need to wait to place a call in order to use the speakerphone feature, you need to manually turn it off at the end of a call. Also, the speakerphone button isn’t immediately obvious.

Audio Quality: Playback of songs is decent through the cell phone’s speakers. If you want to listen to songs using a headset, there’s a miniUSB cable with a jack. You can buy an optional cell phone headset or wireless headset. Unfortunately, since it’s not a 2.5mm jack, you can’t plug in a traditional stereo headset that you would use with a portable music player.

Ease of Use

Menu/Phonebook: This is one of the more straightforward menu interfaces you’ll find on a cell phone. We particularly like how easy it is to use the phonebook. You can store 1,000 contacts in the phonebook, each with five phone numbers, two e-mail addresses, picture, and a message ringer – sorry, no slots for address info. But if you want to find your phone number you’ll need to dig through the menu system. You also might notice a new icon on the screen. It’s essentially a diamond with a cross in it, which indicates that you can make e911 calls, even if you don’t have service. This is one of the first implementations we’ve seen on a cell phone of this mandatory feature.

Camera/Video: The Motorola Krzr sports a 1.3-megapixel camera and the ability to record short videos. Picture quality is acceptable, but far from fabulous (images are a tad blurry) – especially considering it has a 1.3-megapixel lens. Video quality isn’t much better, but you can still see what’s happening on the screen. Additionally, if you really want to store a lot of photos and music you’ll need to get an optional TransFlash storage card since the cell phone only has about 18MB of internal storage, which fills up quickly.

Music: Like the Motorola Razr V3m, the Krzr has a MP3 player that you can use to playback WMA (Windows music file format) and MP3 files (Sorry, no Apple AAC files). As noted, the audio quality is pretty good through the cell phone speakers. Though this cell phone lacks the ability to adjust audio-centric controls such as bass and treble, you can create playlists and there is a Shuffle option. We particularly like that once the MP3 player is in use (Note: You need to turn the music on from the cell phone’s Music and Tones menu first) you can use the buttons on the face of the Krzr to control the features.

However, unless you’re downloading music from Verizon’s VCast service getting music onto the cell phone is an entirely different story. You can’t transfer music from a PC to the Krzr cell phone using Bluetooth. However, if you purchase an optional cable and software you’ll be able to transfer WMA (Windows music file format) and MP3 files to the cell phone using Windows Media Player. You can also use the USB cable in the kit to use the computer to charge the Krzr. You can also purchase a MiniSD TransFlash storage card and store tunes from your PC on that and then slip it into the TransFlash card slot located beneath the battery cover on the back of the Motorola cell phone.

Connectivity/Bluetooth: We were able to pair the Motorola cell phone with a Motorola H500 Bluetooth headset. We should note using the Bluetooth feature decreases battery life. Call quality isn’t as stellar as when you’re not using a headset, but it is quite acceptable. We should note that while you still can’t use Bluetooth to transfer songs from a computer to the cell phone and vice versa, you can transfer pictures.

Design

Look and Feel: When we first heard about the Krzr, we wondered how Motorola will improve an already slick cell phone. Well, they did a few good things actually. For starters, the back of the cell phone is slightly rubberized (think: the Pebl). Plus, the front of the cell phone, which has a gun metal coloring shares a slight resemblance to Nokia’s high-end (they cost $1,000 and up) Vertu line of cell phones. Additionally, there are touch-sensitive play/pause, fast forward and rewind buttons on the exterior, similar to the LG Chocolate. Thankfully, the buttons aren’t nearly as sensitive. Our favorite element is its actual size. It’s about the same width as the Motorola Pebl and about half as thin. It’s a tad longer, making it about the same length as the original Razr.

The display is bright but not nearly crisp as, say, the screen on the Samsung A990. Our only quibble with the cell phone’s design is the front of the cell phone attracts a lot of grease and fingerprints quickly. But we can live with that flaw – the Krzr’s that attractive.

Keypad: The trademark flat keypad found on the Razr, is here as well. For some reason, it’s still super cool. With its blue backlit numbers and lines, it looks like something out of the movie, Tron. While you might think it would be hard to dial on a flat keypad, we found it pretty easy to do. However, we should note that those with larger hands should probably stick with the Motorola Razr. The Krzr is a perfect fit for people with smaller hands. Additionally, we did find occasionally that we accidentally hit the wrong button when using the round 4-way nav-key.

Battery Life

In the battery life department, the Motorola Krzr had decent performance. We found that we could last three days before needing to recharge when using the Motorola Krzr regularly to make calls and send/receive text messages. Users who barely use the cell phone to make/receive calls and send/receive messages can wait about six days before needing to recharge. While heavier cell phone users will likely need to charge the Motorola Krzr every other day. Additionally, we did find the battery drained extremely quickly when we used Bluetooth. But if you have a MiniUSB-to-USB cable you can always charge the cell phone by connecting it to a computer.