Review: Motorola's MotoZine ZN5 a great camera, so-so phone

IDG News Service - Just after the Motorola MotoZine ZN5's global launch in China last week, I got my hands on the handset and took it for a spin around Beijing over the weekend. It's great as a camera, maybe not so much as a mobile communicator.

The sun didn't shine for a moment during the two days, so I had less-than-optimal conditions to test the phone's photographic capabilities, which were developed in cooperation with Eastman Kodak Co. Making images was a key part of Motorola Inc.'s push for the phone, which is designed to facilitate social media.

To have a device that is as much a camera as it is a mobile handset was a bit of a paradigm shift for me. Since 2001, my primary phone has never been anything but a smart phone, so to switch back to a handset without a QWERTY keyboard, either physical or display-generated, meant a shift of gears.

The ZN5 is the first of Motorola's Zine line of devices designed with today's social networker in mind. The phone is shaped like a candy bar and weighs 114 grams. It's 16 millimeters thick at the lens and is 118 mm long by 50.5 mm wide. One of its main features is a 5.0-megapixel camera. The device I received met the China specifications, so it does not have Wi-Fi, as the phone will in most other markets. China Mobile doesn't like its customers using hot spots to access data or make voice-over-IP calls via Wi-Fi, and therefore authorized local editions of most devices don't support it.

As a camera, I loved the ZN5. I liked the mechanics of it: sliding down the cover to expose both the lens and built-in flash, watching the camera functions come on while deactivating the phone capabilities (something Motorola likes to call ModeShift Technology). Turning the phone on its side moves the dedicated shutter button into position at the top right. The switch that controls the volume in handset mode can then be used for the digital zoom, which, although it displays with poor resolution in the phone's window, actually offered excellent results.

I didn't fall in love with the ZN5's text or online capabilities. Thumbing out text messages, even using predictive text, reminded me why I moved to smart phones years ago. Although the phone connected well to China Mobile's GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) 2.5G mobile Internet, having to thumb in my log-in information reduced e-mail to read-only.

Call quality seemed fine but not quite as clear as on other phones I've used. The phone ran for three days before needing a battery recharge, which was about right given the number of photos I took with it.