Hands on: Motorola ROKR E8
February 23, 2008 by Jayvee Fernandez
Filed under Cell phone, Motorola
I was able to handle the Motorola ROKR E8, Motorola’s third iteration of the ROKR series. The design and feature highlights include a glass surface with a “virtual” keypad, the new Song ID feature, and the patented FastScroll navigation.
The ROKR brand is being positioned as a “MP3 player first – phone second” device. Motorola is really pushing the ROKR brand as you can see from the new stylized logo and exclusive concerts throughout the year (an invite-only Fergie concert in South East Asia middle of this year).
On to the phone. The ROKR E8 implements the ModeShift technology that blacks out and highlights user interface buttons depending on what mode the ROKR is in. From the photos above, you can see how the E8 shifts from phone mode to MP3 player mode to camera mode. Only pertinent buttons will become active and highlighted by the backlight below the glass surface. It takes a while getting used to the “keypad” as there is no tactile feedback from each key. To narrate the experience of pushing a button … you basically get a depression of the entire phone whenever part of the keypad is pushed. It isn’t alarming – it just takes time to get used to.
Another new thing we need to get used to is the 3/4 scroll wheel which Motorola calls FastScroll. When the iPod was introduced, Jobs wanted a way for users to be able to quickly scroll through their 5GB playlist. The best way to do this from a UI perspective was to make the selection screen a wheel so that people don’t get tired of holding the up or down button. Motorola has pseudo-implemented the same technology on the phone. I’m sure there is a way to change the sensitivity settings of the FastScroll navigation. It felt awkward at first – although you can always use the D-Pad for more precise selection.
What characterizes the ROKR brand is the inclusion of a 3.5mm jack and high quality earphones as compared to the W230 series which only has a 2.5mm jack.
Bottomline
Pegged to cost around USD $300.00 (unconfirmed price indicates that it will be around PHP 15,000.00 to P17,000.00), the E8 is definitely an affordable and elegant choice of an MP3 player + phone. Motorola has bundled a great set of earphones for the ROKR (I still use my bundled earphones from the old ROKR E2 on my iPod — that’s how good they are). This phone is a great buy.
Fast Features:
3.5mm stereo jack
2.0MP camera with 8x digital zoom
2GB internal memory with support for microSD up to 4GB
“Talking phone” that reads out messages when you can’t look at the screen
The 3.5 mm jack is a definite plus factor. Internal memory of 2gb is okay. Now if this unit drops its price to below 10,000 pesos, sales will soar. Sony Ericsson’s waterloo is their insistence on refusing to use a 3.5 mm jack and hardheadedness in forcing buyers to get their very expensive M2 cards.