Despite Motorola’s management issues and fiscal concerns, they certainly keep churning out quality phones.
The Motorola ROKR E8 is a good one. A quick look at the ROKR E8 and you can see it has a specific music focus. It uses a virtual keypad that works in conjunction with Motorola’s proprietary ModeShift technology, which is an interesting and effective method for delivering the options the user wants, when they want them. Add an iPod-type scroll wheel and this thoughtful phone makes it easy to access and play your music.
The first thing you’ll notice when looking at the phone is that instead of a traditional keypad, you instead have three rows of raised dots. This is their ModeShift technology. If you press a music key that will result in the morphing into a music mode. The numeric keys change into play/pause, skip, forward/backward, etc. Again, clever, functional and different.
The virtual keypad can display a traditional alphanumeric mode, a music mode, and camera mode. The ROKR E8 also used a navigation wheel, but instead of being a full circle, it is a horse-shoe shape. The speed of the navigation wheel is customizable.
Rounding out the fascia is a D-pad and 2 inch 240 x 320 pixel display, able to produce 262K colors.
This phone is truly fun and functional, and overall quite minimalist in design. Motorola’s ModeShift technology works well and is a great way to maximize the effectiveness of a fixed piece of real estate. And surprisingly, the phone is easy to use for texts, too.
Talk time is about 360 minutes and the call quality is good. The E8 also comes with Bluetooth 2.0 and a USB cable for fast music uploads, email retrieval, FM radio, SongID and 2GB of onboard memory.
While the camera is not nearly as powerful as the music applications, the E8 has moved into an interesting direction that may well attract an audience.
Fun stuff. Different and functional. If you want to merge your MP3 player with your phone, finally!, the E8 is a worthy candidate.
What the Critics Are Saying...
- Russell Jefferies, MobileBurnThe Motorola ROKR E8 is a fantastic music phone, with an innovative keypad to enhance simplicity and usability. It's also very striking in its design, with a very stylish front panel and unusual wedge shape at either end. It makes a great music player, with its 3.5mm and Bluetooth A2DP headphone con...
Prices (Where to Buy)
Common Questions
We've got you covered! Download a free PDF copy of the Motorola ROKR E8 user manual here.
Motorola backs up the ROKR E8 with a 1 Year parts & labour warranty.
If your ROKR E8 has problems and is still within its warranty period, you could contact Motorola support or the retailer you purchased the phone from. You'll find Motorola's contact information here. If your phone is off warranty and needs repair for a physical problem such as a broken screen or bad battery, you should visit an authorized service centre or a local phone repair shop. You can also connect with others in The Informr Community Forum to find and share answers to questions.
Resources
Manuals / User Guides
- Motorola ROKR E8 Manual (PDF)
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