Motorola KRZR K1m Review

Interface:

As with most other phones sold by Verizon, the KRZR uses the same standardized Verizon User Interface, which is a far cry from the graphically rich Motorola Menus that other carriers allow, such as Alltel and Sprint. The main menu is divided into 5 sub-categories (Get it Now, Messaging, Contacts, Recent Calls, Settings & Tools) and is accessible using the 5 way navigational pad. Going from one menu to another is easy, but the navigational pad only has small rubber arrows for up/down/left/right selections, which provides very little tactile feel on you thumb. There are no menu customizations to speak of, other than a choice of 4 color themes. It is a shame that the new FlashUI menu was not implemented on this phone, which would of allowed for much greater menu customization.

Phonebook:

There is enough room to store up to 500 contacts, each with Name, Mobile #, Home #, Work #, Fax #, and E-Mail address. You can also select a picture and ringtone for each of them. When that person calls, the pictures will be shown and the phone will play the ringtone that was assigned to them. After a contact is saved you can access them alphabetically, or use the Go To field to type in the name and have it bring up the results. You may also use the VoiceCommand feature to call people in your contact list by simply saying their name. The voice recognition software will find the person you have stored and call them automatically, or if the person is not stored, you can speak the digits for it to dial. We had no issues using the VoiceCommand feature except in noisy environments, such as a mall where there are many people talking.

Organizer:

The Calendar is an easy way of keeping track of important dates and times. You can navigate to the day that you want, and then add an event to that day by entering in the Name of the Event, Start and End Time, Recurrence, and Sound to play. Besides the calendar, you can store up to three independent alarms, which is useful as a wake-up alarm.

The KRZR only has 20MB of built-in usable memory. Because of this, we recommend using a MicroSD card for storage of pictures, videos, ringtones, and MP3 music files. Doing so will free the 20Mb of internal memory for use with Get it Now applications, which cannot be stored on the memory card. In order to get to the MicroSD slot on the phone, you have to remove the Battery cover and insert the card into the slot next to the battery. This process is much more difficult than on most other phones where the memory card slot is accessible on the side of the phone.