Motorola Krave ZN4 Review

Introduction:

It has been almost one year since Verizon introduced its first touchscreen non-smartphone device, the LG Voyager, followed by the LG Dare and Samsung Glyde months later.  Now Motorola is up to bat with their Krave ZN4.  It features a unique clear plastic flip, which not only contains the integrated earpiece speaker, but can also be used to access a few of the phone’s programs while in closed position. Other features include a standard 2MP camera, HTML Browser, music player, and VCast Mobile TV capabilities.

The Retail Package includes:

• Motorola Krave phone
• 950mAh battery with cover
• MicroUSB wall charger
• User manual

Design:

The Krave is an attractive flip phone, but it doesn’t draw too much attention to itself.  It is constructed out of black plastic throughout, with the flip being transparent, and the back of the device utilizing the same soft-touch coating that’s found on most modern phones.  The flip opens and closes smoothly, with very little resistance and no creaking sounds.  This is due to the well-designed hinge, which has a sturdy quality to it. Overall, the device seems durable and should hold up to normal use.



You can compare the Motorola KRAVE ZN4 with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

Even though the Krave is schematically thicker than the Voyager, Dare, and Glyde, it doesn’t feel that way when holding it and using it during calls.  Also, when placed in your pant’s pocket, it isn’t any more noticeable than the Dare.

The device comes with a single 2.8” TFT display, with a resolution of 240x400 pixels and 65K color support.  However, when the flip is closed, the earpiece blocks the bottom and reduces the display to 2.4” with 240x320 pixels.  In most instances, the phone is used with the flip open, so this isn’t a major issue.  Both the display and flip utilize capacitive touchscreen technology, similar to the iPhone and Glyde.  It is very responsive and does not suffer from the touch-errors that we encountered when using the Glyde.  In fact, we found the capacitive touchscreen on the Krave to be more accurate and easier to use than the pressure touchscreens found on the Voyager and Dare.  There is also an integrated light sensor that measures the surround light levels and will automatically adjust the brightness of the display.

This feature is also found in the Dare, but the Krave allows the user to turn off the automatic settings and manually adjust the backlight brightness between 6 levels.  We found this useful when used indoors, as we could make the screen brighter.  The only downfall is that the display becomes difficult to see while in direct sunlight, regardless of using the automatic or manual setting.  There is also a proximity sensor that will turn it off if the phone is next to your face while you’re on a call.

As can be expected, there are very few buttons on the surface.  Located above the display are the Home and Power/End buttons, with the volume rocker, camera, voice command, and sliding lock button located around the perimeter.  On the left side is the microUSB port and 3.5mm headset jack, and on the right is the microSDHC card slot that supports up to 8GB memory cards.  The 2MP camera and external speaker are located on the back.

Interface:

The Krave’s User Interface is optimized for use with the touchscreen and works in similar fashion to the Voyager, Dare, and Glyde, but some changes have been made. When the flip is closed, you have to unlock the display by sliding the lock button located on the right edge of the phone. Once that is done, there are only four choices available: Music, VCast TV, My Pics, and VZ Nav.

While this is nice to be able to access those without having to open up the flip, it does not allow you to customize or replace the icons with other choices. For example, some people cannot access VCast TV since it isn’t offered in their area, but are still forced to have its icon shown as there isn’t a way to have it replaced with something more useful, such as Bluetooth or Messages . This is the fault of the programming, and we sincerely hope that it is addressed in the next firmware update. When opening the flip, the four icons on the top change to Messages, Dialpad, Menu, and Contacts.

When selecting the Menu icon, or just pressing on the center of the screen, it brings up the phone’s main menu and displays it on a 3x4 icon grid. Unlike the Dare, which allows you to change the order of these icons, or drag them directly to the desktop, the Krave’s menu cannot be customized in any way. Furthermore, there are no additional themes to choose from; only allowing the user to select wallpaper, dial font size, and clock format. When selecting a sub-menu, such as Bluetooth, you cannot scroll between the other sub-menus like you can on the Dare. You are forced to go back to the Main Menu list and make your next selection. We found this time-consuming and not user-friendly. It is unfortunate that Motorola’s premier touchscreen device is sterile when it comes to user customization and that the interface is not as user-friendly as the Dare.



Phonebook:

Up to 1000 contacts can be stored, each with their name, mobile 1,home, work, email 1, ringtone, mobile 2, email 2, and picture. Pressing the Contacts icon at the top of the screen will display yourstored list in alphabetical order. From there you can scroll throughthe list vertically, or select the A-Z icon and then the followingletter that begins the name of the contact. Selecting the Go To iconwill allow you to type in the name and perform a search, but limits thematching results to only the first name. When you receive an incomingcall, and that person is stored in your list, the screen will showtheir Name and Number, as well their Picture ID (if there is one), andwill play their specific ringtone (if set). One change we were glad tosee was the size of the Caller ID picture, as it utilizes the entiredisplay and shows it as a wallpaper during a call.


Unfortunately, the Krave does not allow you to assign any stored contact to a speed dial location, but instead uses a Favorites list. While having a such list is nice, it is unthinkable that in today’s ageof fast communications Motorola took away a feature that most cellphones have had for the past decade. Because of this, it requires 5menu presses to get to and dial a stored favorite’s number, as opposedto two presses for accessing a speed dial number on the Dare. Onceagain, this is poor software implementation on Motorola’s behalf asthis feature should be standard.

Pressingthe Dialpad icon at the top of the home screen does as the name impliesand brings up the 12-key numeric keypad. Due to the higher accuracy ofthe touchscreen, we found that dialing phone numbers on the Krave to beeasier and more accurate than with the Voyager, Dare, and Glyde, withalmost no misdial errors. When calling a normal area code number, thescreen will show icons for accessing messaging, dialpad, recent calls,contacts, mute, speakerphone, and Bluetooth, but when calling yourvoice mail or a toll free number, it will keep the dial pad active onthe screen, so that you can enter in numbers for automated systems.


Organizer:

Findingthe Calendar can be challenging for beginners, as it is hidden underthe Tools sub-menu. Once accessed, it displays the current month withthe day highlighted in red. You can then move from one month to thenext, forward or backwards, by moving your finger across the screen, orby entering in a specific month and date in the Go to Date field. Oncethe desired date is selected, you add a new event with the title, startdate and time, end date and time, timezone, recurrence, event tone,vibrate, and reminder. When the phone reaches that saved event, itwill display the information on the screen and playback the designatedalert tone.


Separate from the calendar are three independentalarms, with each one allowing you to select the start time, on/off,alarm tone, and recurrence. This is an easy way to setup a dailywake-up alarm or notification, if it takes place within 24 hours.

Thespeaker-independent Voice Command is launched by pressing thedesignated button on the right side of the device. Once activated,there are 8 choices that you can speak to the phone: call name ornumber, send message, go to shortcut, check item, contacts name, playplaylist, My Verizon, and help. The most useful of these is the “call”command, where you can speak the digits to dial or the name of a personin your contacts list. Even though voice training is not required, itis recommended by using the Adapt Voice program, where you are givennames, words, and numbers to speak so that the program will become moreaccurate. When using the voice commands, we found that it works bestin a quiet environment or when used in conjunction with a Bluetoothheadset. If attempting to be used in a noisy mall or restaurant, ithad problems deciphering which commands you wish to carry out.

TheKrave comes with 137.5MB of internal memory, with almost 15MB used outof the box. The remainder can be used for storing application fromVCast, ringtones, wallpapers, pictures, and videos. However, mostconsumers will take advantage of the microSDHC slot for accessingstored MP3 music files, pictures, and videos, as it is the easiest wayto get the files from a PC to the phone. The current specificationssay that the Krave supports up to 8GB microSDHC cards, but 16GB cardshave already been announced and are due on store shelves before theholiday season. It is unclear at this time if the higher capacitycards will work natively with the Krave, or will require the phone tohave a firmware update.

Messaging:

Just like most other phones on the market today, the Krave is capable of sending and receiving text, picture, and video messages. For composing the message body, the device can use either multi-tap, iTap predictive entry, or QWERTY (by turning the phone horizontally). When using the on-screen QWERTY keyboard, the display shows 3 rows of letters, with a 4th row having the space, symbol, and number keys. While using this method, we immediately started to notice that the flip and hinge (which is open to the left) impedes typing accuracy and performance of the left thumb. After a while we turned the phone vertically and started to use iTap, which we found to be faster and easier. Some people may not have an issue with the way the flip and hinge limits the left thumb movement, but we believe that iTap to be the best method of typing text messages on the Krave.


There is the option of downloading a program called Mobile Email so that you can connect with your own personal e-mail accounts while on the go. It comes preloaded with the ability to connect to Yahoo Mail, Windows Live Mail, AOL, AIM, and Verizon.net, but you can also manually configure it to connect to any other e-mail account through means of POP or IMAP. We were able to access all of our accounts without any problem, and could send messages through the account server. When viewing a new message, you can choose not delete it from the server, so that you can download it later when you are connected using a PC. Even though this application is not as feature-rich as Windows Mobile Outlook, it does a fairly good job for showing plain-text e-mails. However, it cannot open attachments or properly render HTML messages, which is a disappointment since the Browser is HTML compatible. Regardless of the limitations, the application is still worth the $5/month access fee.

For people who like to use Instant Messaging, the Krave also comes preinstalled with Mobile IM, which will connect you to AIM, Windows Live Messenger, and Yahoo. After signing in, you and can send and receive IMs, but it is basically glorified text messaging to people on your buddy list and will count on your calling plan the same as using text messages.

Connectivity and Data:

The Krave is a dual band all-digital device that operates on the 800MHz and 1900MHz CDMA Verizon Wireless network. Non-voice data, such as Web and E-mail, are transmitted using the 3G EVDO network, but it is limited to EVDO Rev 0 speeds instead of the faster Rev A, which is used with the Dare. For Mobile TV service, the Krave uses the 700MHz spectrum on Qualcomm’s MediaFLO network.

Bluetooth version 2.1 + EDR (enhanced data rate) is supported and allows up to 20 pairings. Supported profiles include: handset, hands-free, dial-up networking, stereo (A2DP/AVRC), phonebook access, basic printing, basic imaging, object push for vCard, and file transfer. Thankfully we did not experience the same auto-pairing problems when connecting to the Motorola S9 and HT820 stereo headsets like we did with the Dare. We were able to get achieve to 40 feet of static-free music playback on the two stereo headsets, but when used for calls with the Jabra 250v, we only got up to 25 feet, since the Jabra only supports the Bluetooth 1.1 profile.


For Internet access, the Krave uses Verizon’s EVDO network (yet limited to Rev 0 speeds) and Wi-Fi is not supported. When the browser is launched, you are taken to the VZW Today home page, which has quick-launch icons for news, email, entertainment, sports, weather, connect, Verizon services, more, and favorites. The browser will automatically change viewing modes depending on if the phone is held in portrait or landscape position. Along the bottom are icons for moving back a page, home, refresh, favorites, www, and menu. When selecting the “www” icon, you can type in a specific web address using the on-screen keypad. Even though the browser claims to be HTML compatible, most web sites were not properly formatted and rendered incorrectly. When going into the menu and selecting Normal Screen, the web pages are shown in a single vertical column. Yet even when changing to Wide Screen mode, sites still do not format correctly and are not laid-out as accurately as they are on the Dare. Located in the center of the screen is a circular tool that is used to select and click on text and image links. This is a nice feature, since one complaint we had with other touchscreen devices was the difficultly of clicking on text links. However, there is no way to get rid of the circular tool, as it occasionally got in our way when viewing sites. Despite the limitations of the browser, we are glad to see that it is capable of streaming videos from the popular YouTube site.



The time required for the browser to completely load graphically rich sites, such as PhoneArena.com, is almost 80 seconds, which is much longer that the Dare’s 22 seconds and the Glyde and Voyager’s 50 seconds. We are not sure why the Krave took longer to load, but we have a feeling it has to do with the browser program and not the hardware. More simplistic sites, such as Google, only took 7 seconds to load. Between the browser’s poor download speeds and inability to properly render most sites, limits it to be more of a novelty than a tool to be used daily.

Camera:

A standard 2MP camera is included, but does not come with autofocus or a flash. When the phone is in landscape mode, simply press the camera button on the top to activate the application, which will take 3 seconds to load. Most of the display is used as a viewfinder, but there is a black bar on the right that is used to review images that were recently saved. The camera program is very basic and we were shocked to see that it doesn’t allow for any user settings or adjustments, such as changes to the resolution, white balance, or self timer. Images taken outside during the day look slightly out of focus and suffer from blotchy detail and inaccurate color. Even though the V9m has a 2MP fixed-focus camera, outside images from it look higher quality and more true to life. When bringing the Krave indoors, the image quality became worse due to lower light levels, but this is a problem with most cameraphones.

Videos can be record at 320x240 resolution at 15fps and up to 1 hour long. Once again there are no adjustments or settings that can be altered. Due to the low resolution of the videos, they look their best when viewed on the phone. Transferring them to a PC for playback will reveal their poor quality.



Multimedia:

Clicking on the Music icon in the main menu, and then on My Music will open the application to playback stored MP3 audio files. (It can also be selected directly when the flip it closed.) It starts by allowing you to select how you want to view the MP3 files, by genres, artists, albums, songs, playlists, or shuffle. When selecting an album, the songs within it are properly listed by their ID3 track number, not alphabetically like with the Dare. Once the song begins playback, it will show the album art (if loaded) on the screen and a progress bar at the bottom that you can use to play/pause, rewind, and fast-forward. Unfortunately, it does not support multitasking, like the Dare and Chocolate, so you cannot continue to listen to music while sending a text message or while using the web browser. The overall music playback quality through the rear speaker was quite good and sounded slightly better than we experienced with the Dare. You can also use standard wired earbuds since there is a 3.5mm headset jack, or a wireless headset using stereo Bluetooth.


The Krave can play streaming videos using both the VCast Mobile TV and VCast Video service. Using the VCast Video feature is the same as all other Verizon phones, where you can stream pre-recorded videos over the EVDO network, but because of speed limitations, image quality is pixilated and audio is low quality. For the best viewing experience, it is recommended to use the Mobile TV service, which uses the MediaFLO network, with live TV broadcast at 30fps. Unfortunately, this service is only available in select areas, which means spotty coverage when traveling. The Krave uses a built-in antenna, similar to the Z6tv, to pickup theMobile TV broadcasts, instead of having a retractable antenna like onthe Voyager and VX9400.


Software:

Just like all other Verizon non-smartphones, the Krave uses Qualcomm’s BREW format for all its applications. The most useful is VZ Navigator, which is used for GPS guided directions. It comes preloaded with the updated Version 4, which allows for new 3D maps, traffic congestion and accident re-routing, as well as the ability to find local gas stations, restaurants, movie theaters, show times, and local events. It can also be used with the phone in portrait or landscape mode, and with the flip opened on closed. We were able to use VZ Navigator around South FL without problems when going from one address or GPS location to another. The updated 3D maps are easy to follow and are more professional looking than the previous version 3. These added improvements and the ability not to get lost are well worth the $10 per month price.

No games come preloaded on the Krave, but can be purchased and download over the air directly from Verizon.

Another software feature is the support of Verizon’s FOTA (firmware over the air). This will allow customers to download the latest firmware for the phone without the need for visiting a store and having a technician install it. This is a valuable time-saver for both consumers and employees and we are pleased to see it starting to be implemented on more devices. We attempted to test the FOTA, but since our Krave has the latest firmware (01.19.09P), it did not download or install any updates.

Other applications include a calculator, tip calculator, notepad, and world clock.

Performance:

Two areas that the Krave excels in are the call quality and signal reception.  During our testing, we got a solid 3-4 bars of EV and 1X in most locations, which is 1 bar more than the V9m.  When traveling into fringe areas, the signal would not drop below 1 bar and we were still able to place and receive calls.  However, if you are completely out of range of a tower, you will lose a signal, no mater which phone is being used.  Call quality through the earpiece speaker was excellent and sounded slightly better than the V9m.  We also didn’t encounter the “ticking” sound that was present when using the Dare.  Voices sounded clear and natural, regardless of the earpiece volume level.  People that we called on a landline also said that our voice sounded clear and did not suffer from the Dare’s “tunnel” effect.  The speakerphone was also quite good, but just like most other devices, the quality starts to derogate as the volume increases.

The included 950mAh battery is rated by Motorola to provide up to 4.3 hours of talk time or 16.6 days of standby time on a full charge.  During our testing, we were able to achieve 5 hours and 25 minutes of continuous talk time by fully charging the battery, dialing a landline, and keeping the Krave connected until the battery was depleted.  This is almost 1 hour longer than the rated talk time provided by Motorola, but is still 1 hour less than is available with the Dare’s included 1100mAh battery. 

Conclusion:

Even though the Krave is a quality built phone, it misses the mark due to its late arrival into the touchscreen arena.  The three main areas that it does well in are the call quality, reception, and accurate touchscreen.  If that is all you are interested in, then the Krave might be the right device for you.  However, the user interface is not designed well and lacks customization, the HTML browser does not render pages correctly and takes too long for sites to load, the 2MP camera quality isn’t as good as the V9m, and the phone lacks speed dial capabilities.  Due to these issues, the LG Dare still remains the best overall non-smartphone touchscreen device currently available for Verizon.  However, with the BlackBerry Storm and Samsung OMNIA launching later this year, the competition is going to become even tighter.