Roland Tanglao's Weblog

The Wall Street Journal also thinks the Motorola RAZR line (which includes the KRZR K1) is behind in technology.

My free advice to Motorola: it's not just the package, it's also the software and most importantly the entire experience which consists of the hardware, software and the packaging. Learn from Apple and Nokia or you are doomed. People are not going to be content with a beautiful phone with yesterday's software which allows you take decent photo and videos but has no easy way to share them.

FROM How Motorola Fell A Giant Step Behind - WSJ.com:

QUOTE

A year ago, Motorola Inc. appeared headed for a third straight year of rich profits under Chief Executive Ed Zander, driven by its hit cellphone the Razr. "A lot of you are always asking what is after the Razr," Mr. Zander said in an April 2006 conference call after another quarter of 30%-plus growth. "I say more Razrs."

But behind the scenes, Motorola was working furiously to get a successor phone to market by the second half of 2006, according to people familiar with the matter. When it failed to do so, profit margins on handsets narrowed and the company swung to a loss. Key executives left. And as the stock slid, activist investor Carl Icahn built up a position and began campaigning for a board seat to address what he called Motorola's "operational problems."

Motorola's travails illustrate the risks for a company that rides high with a big consumer hit. Amid its success with the Razr, it fell behind on developing a phone with the next generation of technology. Missing a beat is especially hazardous in cellphones, where it can take two to three years to develop a new line.

END QUOTE

The KRZR works great as a modem for the Nokia N800. Glad I finally found something the KRZR is good for :-). (For me personally, the KRZR K1 just doesn't work since the KRZR I have from Rogers is both closed and locked so there is no easy way to get videos and photos onto online services like flickr unless you enjoy the USB and Bluetooth chain of pain which I don't. Bluetooth and USB cut it for those who take one photo a day. I unfortunately take much more than that!)

I've set my trial KRZR K1 to get SMSes from twitter which means that I get 75 SMSes per day. After 50 SMSes have been received, the KRZR runs out of memory and stops receiving text messages. This is not very helpful and a bug. In my opinion it should store the SMSes on the memory card which has plenty of room left. Anybody out there know how to make the KRZR store SMSes on the memory card?

The KRZR K1 shortcuts just keep on coming :-) Close the flip. Then, hold the up or down volume key & then hit the camera key to change ring style from Loud to vibrate to silent to the many other ring styles.

I am sure this is not news to the Moto fanatics out there but it's news to me! Nifty feature but not really useful to me. Because I'd prefer a 1 key shortcut to toggle between general and pager. I don't really care about silent and the other ring style combinations!

Just like Nokia N series phones, you can hold down the "#" key when on the home screen to toggle the ring from silent to normal and vice versa. Useful feature for when you are in a meeting or a place where a cellphone ring would be obnoxious. I still think it should be toggling between normal and pager and not silent but maybe that's just me!

I think the photos are as good as the ones on the Nokia N70 (except of course there is no flash) which is two year old technology. What do you think?

KRZR K1:

Nokia N70

Apples to Oranges comparison to be sure! I have 2000 other N70 photos for you to compare if you don't like the one above :-) !

The KRZR K1 video is decent CIF quality but it's two year old techology. The Nokia N70 videos were just as good quality back in 2005.

Check it out and judge for yourself:

KRZR K1 video of the Skyte (blip.tv bug, I rotated the original but the flash video below is not rotated: original KRZR K1 Skyte 3GP Video with correct orientation)

Click To Play

Compare and contrast with Richard's Nokia N70 video of the Skyte

Courtesy of the Hill and Knowlton (Hill and Knowlton Blog) Motorola Bloggers Relation Program, I picked up my free trial Motorola KRZR K1 phone (complete with new phone number and unfortunately locked to Rogers) yesterday. Bottom line so far: for the power multi-media creator user, Nokia's phones are much better and I would pay my own money for a Nokia N95 or N93 or my mythical N999, I wouldn't pay my own money for the KRZR.

Cool

1. Came in an awesome aluminum briefcase
2. Great form factor and light weight
3. USB Charging
4. Text Auto Complete even with ITAP turned off
5. Camera has a nice mirror for self portraits

NOT COOL:

1. Cheesy Operating System (ugly to me but YMMV)
2. Adapter for normal headphones must be unplugged to answer a call!
3. no flash for camera - Nokia flash is not great but better than nothing. Sony Ericsson flashes are much better!
4. the web browser doesn't allow you to change the home page (Rogers bug not Motorola bug?)
5. the web browser is primitive and bad - sorry to be harsh, but compared to Nokia's Web kit browser or Opera, this browser is a toy: it doesn't support upload of attachments to mobile gmail, no way to enter a URL to surf to (you have to create a bookmark), many, many problems
6. ShoZu doesn't work on this phone (Rogers bug?). A phone without ShoZu is like a phone without sunshine :-) !
7. No WiFi - I wouldn't pay my own money for a phone without WiFi
8. No obvious way to upload your photos or videos without going through USB or Bluetooth "chain of pain" - I prefer ShoZu but there's no support to upload photos to flickr and photos and video to Vox which the built in Nokia gallery app on all recent N series phones does
9. Voice Recognition doesn't work for all commands (e,g, I can't turn off Bluetooth with a voice command)

After taking over 1200 photos and 50 videos with the Nokia N70 camera phone review unit (courtesy of the N70 Nokia Blogger Relations program, thanks Andy!) since I received it on January 20, 2006, it's time for an N70 review.

Ignorance is bliss. If I hadn't recently tried out Robert Scales' new Sony Ericsson K750 or Harry's Nokia N90 (the guy who told me where to buy my grey market Nokia 7610), I would be 100% content with the N70.

BOTTOM LINE:

The Nokia N70 Cameraphone is a fantastic cameraphone as well as a fantastic cellphone. Except for the lack of a macro mode, the 2 Megapixel stills are great and there's lots of great toys like in camera digital cross processing. And the video mode is great! Good-bye postage stamp videos! What would I buy with my own money? Hard to say, but if I could afford it, I think it would be either the just released N91 (so I can try WiFi) or the N90 (for the the macro mode). If I didn't have the money, I'd definitely pay for the N70 because it's more than good enough and I can (mostly) live without a good macro mode.

<RANT>

For me, the camera combined with always on mobile internet access is my killer app (i.e. ShoZu is my killer mobile phone app) for a mobile phone and while the camera is fantastic on the N70 (in comparison to the crappy RAZR phone camera or almost any other cameraphone out there except for the forthcoming Sony Ericsson and Nokia 3 Megapixel phones with optical zooms e.g. N93), I pine for the camera of the K750 and N91 with their killer macro modes.

But you won't catch me switching to Sony Ericsson! For all my criticism of Series 60, it's really the only viable mobile platform out there at the moment. Sony is unusable and has no software (compared to Series 60) and no way to develop software easily (Series 60 has python! go Nokia go!) and I hate Sony's proprietary memory stick. Motorola is unusable (but cool looking in the case of the Razr) and also has no software to speak of and no way to develop software easily and don't get me started on Java on mobile phones :-) ! And BlackBerry is a non starter: no camera not to mention no (well OK very little compared to Series 60) software and no way to easily develop software! Sorry but I don't need "always on" email ) and if I did, Profimail, or heck even mobile Gmail would be good enough

</RANT>

LIKES:

• Great still photos (unlike for example the cr*ppy camera on the Razr).
• Great video. High quality and big! Seems to be a little fuzzier than the 6630 when you move the camera but maybe that's just my jittery hands.
• Great phone phone. Excellent voice quality.
• Love the "no need to train" voice dialing mode.
• iSync works great (with hack and now in Mac OS X10.4.6)
• Lots of great apps like ShoZu
• Easy to write your own apps in Python if you are a developer.
• Love the in-camera digital cross processing effects (sepia, black and white, negative)

DISLIKES:

• The joystick is unusable. I like the one on Boris' 6630 much better. I always find myself hitting cursor down, up, left or right when I mean to press the joystick button. Nokia, please get this right consistently on your phones!
• No Macro mode
• Needs a button to save and retrieve user definable camera settings.
• Can't lock the camera cover so the camera always ends up opening when it's in my pocket.