Motorola Krave ZN4 Review

Interface:

The Krave’s User Interface is optimized for use with the touchscreen and works in similar fashion to the Voyager, Dare, and Glyde, but some changes have been made. When the flip is closed, you have to unlock the display by sliding the lock button located on the right edge of the phone. Once that is done, there are only four choices available: Music, VCast TV, My Pics, and VZ Nav.

While this is nice to be able to access those without having to open up the flip, it does not allow you to customize or replace the icons with other choices. For example, some people cannot access VCast TV since it isn’t offered in their area, but are still forced to have its icon shown as there isn’t a way to have it replaced with something more useful, such as Bluetooth or Messages . This is the fault of the programming, and we sincerely hope that it is addressed in the next firmware update. When opening the flip, the four icons on the top change to Messages, Dialpad, Menu, and Contacts.

When selecting the Menu icon, or just pressing on the center of the screen, it brings up the phone’s main menu and displays it on a 3x4 icon grid. Unlike the Dare, which allows you to change the order of these icons, or drag them directly to the desktop, the Krave’s menu cannot be customized in any way. Furthermore, there are no additional themes to choose from; only allowing the user to select wallpaper, dial font size, and clock format. When selecting a sub-menu, such as Bluetooth, you cannot scroll between the other sub-menus like you can on the Dare. You are forced to go back to the Main Menu list and make your next selection. We found this time-consuming and not user-friendly. It is unfortunate that Motorola’s premier touchscreen device is sterile when it comes to user customization and that the interface is not as user-friendly as the Dare.



Phonebook:

Up to 1000 contacts can be stored, each with their name, mobile 1, home, work, email 1, ringtone, mobile 2, email 2, and picture. Pressing the Contacts icon at the top of the screen will display your stored list in alphabetical order. From there you can scroll through the list vertically, or select the A-Z icon and then the following letter that begins the name of the contact. Selecting the Go To icon will allow you to type in the name and perform a search, but limits the matching results to only the first name. When you receive an incoming call, and that person is stored in your list, the screen will show their Name and Number, as well their Picture ID (if there is one), and will play their specific ringtone (if set). One change we were glad to see was the size of the Caller ID picture, as it utilizes the entire display and shows it as a wallpaper during a call.


Unfortunately, the Krave does not allow you to assign any stored contact to a speed dial location, but instead uses a Favorites list. While having a such list is nice, it is unthinkable that in today’s age of fast communications Motorola took away a feature that most cell phones have had for the past decade. Because of this, it requires 5 menu presses to get to and dial a stored favorite’s number, as opposed to two presses for accessing a speed dial number on the Dare. Once again, this is poor software implementation on Motorola’s behalf as this feature should be standard.

Pressing the Dialpad icon at the top of the home screen does as the name implies and brings up the 12-key numeric keypad. Due to the higher accuracy of the touchscreen, we found that dialing phone numbers on the Krave to be easier and more accurate than with the Voyager, Dare, and Glyde, with almost no misdial errors. When calling a normal area code number, the screen will show icons for accessing messaging, dialpad, recent calls, contacts, mute, speakerphone, and Bluetooth, but when calling your voice mail or a toll free number, it will keep the dial pad active on the screen, so that you can enter in numbers for automated systems.



Organizer:

Finding the Calendar can be challenging for beginners, as it is hidden under the Tools sub-menu. Once accessed, it displays the current month with the day highlighted in red. You can then move from one month to the next, forward or backwards, by moving your finger across the screen, or by entering in a specific month and date in the Go to Date field. Once the desired date is selected, you add a new event with the title, start date and time, end date and time, timezone, recurrence, event tone, vibrate, and reminder. When the phone reaches that saved event, it will display the information on the screen and playback the designated alert tone.


Separate from the calendar are three independent alarms, with each one allowing you to select the start time, on/off, alarm tone, and recurrence. This is an easy way to setup a daily wake-up alarm or notification, if it takes place within 24 hours.

The speaker-independent Voice Command is launched by pressing the designated button on the right side of the device. Once activated, there are 8 choices that you can speak to the phone: call name or number, send message, go to shortcut, check item, contacts name, play playlist, My Verizon, and help. The most useful of these is the “call” command, where you can speak the digits to dial or the name of a person in your contacts list. Even though voice training is not required, it is recommended by using the Adapt Voice program, where you are given names, words, and numbers to speak so that the program will become more accurate. When using the voice commands, we found that it works best in a quiet environment or when used in conjunction with a Bluetooth headset. If attempting to be used in a noisy mall or restaurant, it had problems deciphering which commands you wish to carry out.

The Krave comes with 137.5MB of internal memory, with almost 15MB used out of the box. The remainder can be used for storing application from VCast, ringtones, wallpapers, pictures, and videos. However, most consumers will take advantage of the microSDHC slot for accessing stored MP3 music files, pictures, and videos, as it is the easiest way to get the files from a PC to the phone. The current specifications say that the Krave supports up to 8GB microSDHC cards, but 16GB cards have already been announced and are due on store shelves before the holiday season. It is unclear at this time if the higher capacity cards will work natively with the Krave, or will require the phone to have a firmware update.