Motorola ROKR EM30 User Reviews

Motorola ROKR EM30 is the best mid-range music phone available in the market today. EM30 in fact, is a simplified version of mighty ROKR E8 with almost no differences between the two other than a few costly features taken out from the former. The luring combination of a relatively low price and the expensive materials and design which were inherited from the E8 model, an unmatched audio quality, touch buttons serving as player controls – here are the principal points that lured me to buy this handset.

The E8 model remains a rather expensive offer, that’s a fashion phone which will never be subject to serious price reduction. The design of EM30 can be basically described as a copy of the original E8 design, the materials, measurements and weight are the same and at the same time preserving the fashion statement. The handset has a very unusual shape – the thickness and length are quite normal, but the width is a bit too large. I don’t try to say the phone feels clumsy, but the 2 inch screen looks utterly disproportional, though this brings about no actual problems. The screen uses a landscape orientation, so the keyboard area is very spacious.

The assembly quality is truly exceptional. All the parts sit tight, there’s no slightest play between the details. The handset feels like a monolith. The casing frame and the side edges are painted silver. The surface coating sports a very high quality. The back panel uses metal as well, though treated with a soft-touch coating, which is very practical – the scratches and worn spots are kept away.

EM30 sports a 2 inch 320x240 TFT, 262K colors screen, made by Sharp Corporation, Japan. The screen is supported with a mirror backing and the quality is amazingly high, it's the best of its class, the colors are maximally natural and vivid, brightness level is high.

The gadget comes with an only polyphonic speaker, but it has a really high quality and volume. It’s perfectly audible in any environment. EM30 features a Morphing keypad, and the dedicated player controls are placed between the rows of numerical buttons and are only rendered active in the corresponding mode.

The EM30 model runs on powerful Freescale MXC275-30 platform, having a 532 MHz ARM11 processor & a 208 MHz StarCore SC140e Digital Sound Processor(DSP). The interface is based off Linux Java 7.1 and can indeed be named one of the best interface solutions currently available on the market.

It's not much of a secret that every music phone manufacturer does everything to outreach the competitors in the quality of audio. Now one has to know the difference between sound quality & volume. The ICEpower audio chips commonly found in Samsung mobile phones boosts sound volume which has no effect on the quality. Thus Samsung phones are evidently one of the loudest in the market and have a clear advantage over its opposition.

Both Motorola & Nokia tends to put more emphasis in the idea that quality should prevail over volume. The utilization of dedicated DSPs in Nokia & Motorola offers an unmatched quality of sound since DSP puts into action sophisticated algorithms & advanced audio codec’s to improve the audio signal rather than making the sound louder. The DSP separates unwanted noise from the signal, and only then is passed to the amplifier.

When i bought this phone, being a phone critic compared it to three other music phones of the same price bracket.

1) Sony Ericsson W302->3.5 mm audio out/DSP: -/-
This phone has no advantages over EM30 at all – the materials, assembly, ergonomics, software platform, screen and audio quality are apparently inferior to what you get with an EM30. The only plus of W302 is the size, the model is a really miniature piece. But that’s not going to save W302 from an utter failure in the competition with EM30.

2) Nokia 5220 XpressMusic-> 3.5 mm audio out/DSP +/+ : This phone happens to be a stronger adversary. The choice between these EM30 & 5220 appears to be a hard one, the advantages of Motorola don’t look that impressive in this pit fight: a slightly better screen, the Linux-Java software platform, support for 4 GSM frequency band and a generally higher quality of communication including a better and louder speaker sound, but the battery life in player mode is shorter. As for the sound quality in particular, I really liked the very natural sound.

3) Samsung Beat M3510->3.5 mm audio out/DSP: +/+
The sound quality doesn’t look as great if compared to the competitor model by Nokia but maximum sound volume is high. The basses sound too muddy, intermixed with quantities of noise. The distortion rate is stably low, though.

Of late, Motorola have been through a time of trouble, but it didn’t stand in their way of tailoring really good products. Among the handful of worth mentioning handsets, EM30 is probably the most eye-catching, combining a powerful fashion impact and a high sound quality, all of this coming at an affordable price. At times, it lacks some sound volume, losing in this aspect to Nokia and even Samsung. The high quality of sound is provided by the hi-end hardware & DSP and a selection of advanced audio codec’s. The Spatial Audio technology polishes the resulting signal to a state of perfection. If you are satisfied with the not too impressive sound volume, but the best SOUND QUALITY go for EM30.

REVIEW OF SOUND QUALITY OF MOTOROLA ROKR EM30 AND COMPARISON WITH MOTOROLA MOTOZINE ZN5Motorola ROKR EM30: Talking about the audio quality of ROKR EM30 it is possible to argue for a long time, in attempts to establish the path Motorola has followed, but in the end the result nevertheless remains the same. I am dealing with one of the best solutions for pure listening pleasure, with a clean sound devoid of any colorings, embellishment or ornamentation in the sound, which most of my friends after listening called a ringing and muffled audio track. And really, in comparison with the sound of Samsung i450 and other competitive solutions from Nokia and many other players, this product demonstrates a seemingly complete lack of low frequencies (Bass) and thus beginning from the middle to higher frequencies. Therein lies the error of those who makes such a ruling. In fact, when I hear an audio track, the ROKR EM30 simply discards the low frequency (Bass) side of the audio frequency spectrum, and I am forced to listen to various songs on the EM30 like that. And you know what’s most interesting? Now I can easily hear many of the previously obscure details in the compositions of a complicated music composition, and if desired, with a quality headset, can clearly set apart all the instruments used in the music composition, thus I am able to focus not only on the primary instrument, which is audible, but also on the fact that what instrument I want to hear. This calls for a detailed elaboration of the DAC and amplifier found in EM30. Most modern audio signals are stored in digital form (for example MP3s and CDs) and in order to be heard through speakers they must be converted into an analog signal. They normally take the digital output like MP3 and convert the signal into a line-level output that can then be fed into a pre-amplifier stage. The DAC used in ROKR EM30 is definitely of very high quality.About the amplifier, the power output is equal or less than 15 mW per channel which is rather weak. That is the reason why the peak volume is less than comparable solutions of Nokia & Samsung. The higher frequencies (Treble) are reproduced with an incredible detailing. The maximum sound volume of ROKR EM30 has not moved far from the Samsung i450. After a week of listen to music, I have not found any convincing argument to justify the lack of saturated low frequencies (Bass) in ROKR EM30. However, it is doubly interesting situation with the results of the RMAA 5.5 sound quality tests which is exemplary to say the least as I found out in reviews of different mobile phone websites. As I looked in the RMAA test graphs as published by different websites, the sound characteristic needs no explanation, because we face one of the best decisions at the personal audio market, in connection to linear reproduction of the pure, clean sound devoid of any perceptible bass. ROKR EM30 is not ashamed to compare itself with players from Creative ZEN Micro Photo, Sony HD5, Cowon D2 or even Apple iPod.Now about those basses. Their numbers are small only because of the power output of the amplifier, which is equal or less than 15 mW per channel. This, as you know, is only sufficient for In Ear form factor headphones. It was in the weak amplifier lies the main disadvantage of ROKR EM30.Motorola MotoZine ZN5 : In the review of ROKR EM30, I devoted considerable time and attention to the audio quality of Motorola phones on the LJ platform. Whereas ROKR EM30 was running on LJ7.1 software platform MotoZine ZN5 runs on LJ6.3 which is a older version.Again looking at the RMMA tests published in different websites, I found the MotoZine ZN5 sound quality to be slightly less than that of ROKR EM30.When Motorola made the ROKR EM30 the goal was in adjusting the frequency response to achieve a smooth response curve – one that is devoid of abrupt peaks and valleys. Note that the curve doesn't have to be ruler flat, but the transitions between peaks and dips should be gradual and flowing. Thus the ROKR EM30 excelled in RMAA tests with great results. But what’s good on paper (RMMA tests) does not always translate to good sound to most people thus becoming a subjective matter. "Flat" curves often sound bad because the response characteristics of our ears are far from flat, and most listeners like to boost bass or treble. Knocking our mobile's response into shape usually involves tweaking its equalizer. In MotoZine ZN5 we have pronounced low frequencies (Bass) which we were dearly missing in ROKR EM30 and the level of detailing in sound seemed a little less compared to ROKR EM30. The volume is slightly higher than EM30, the difference at around 10% and at the same time the return to the usual 7 step volume control instead of 20 step of ROKR EM30. Interestingly in the end, though the ROKR EM30 won over MotoZine ZN5 in RMMA test, most of my friends choose the MotoZine ZN5 over ROKR EM30 to listen to music. MotoZine ZN5 won the ultimate subjective test with the ornamentation named BASS.

Well this is an awesome handset when it comes to music, just a bit sloppy in the sections of camera and keypad.Has Linux OS, well that's awesome too as you can enjoy it's total benefits.The only bad points are camera and Keypad, rest the phone's best.

Simply superb phone - Look & Feel, features(Camera, Music and voice quality). Affordable price