Motorola ZINE ZN5 5 megapixel cameraphone review

Motorola ZINE ZN5

Motorola ZINE ZN5

Motorola ZINE ZN5

Motorola ZINE ZN5

The Motorola MOTOZINE ZN5 was a long time in coming. The initial announcement that Kodak and Motorola made regarding a co-developed cameraphone ran across the wire over 2.5 years before the ZN5 made it to the Chinese market just barely in time for the Beijing Summer Olympic games earlier this year.

Now that the MOTOZINE ZN5 is available from T-Mobile USA, we've managed to get a hold of one to put through its paces. Read on to learn just how well the ZN5 does as both a phone and a 5 megapixel point and shoot camera.

The body style of the ZN5 is similar to that of other recent Motorola handsets like the RAZR2 and the Z9. It has a parallelogram profile and is relatively thin. A bulge on the back makes extra room for the autofocus camera lens and the sliding lens cover that activates the camera. The side and top edges of the ZN5, as well as the rear cover, are made of metal, while the bottom of the device is coated in a rubber material.

The ZN5's display offers QVGA (240x320 pixel) resolution and has a fairly high maximum brightness. The colors are quite good and the images are very sharp. A larger display would have been nice for a phone with such a focus on photography, but would have required that the phone be larger.

The keypad is a flat plastic sheet with raised bumps that act as finger guides. The bumps on the keypad are a good idea and help to keep fingers where they need to be when dialing or entering text. The feel of the keypad is decent, but not as nice as that from the metal keypads found on many of Motorola's devices. The d-pad controller that sits above the keypad works pretty well even if it is a bit small, but the buttons that surround it are poorly designed and somewhat hard to use.

On the right edge of the ZN5 are the volume controls, the lock button, and the camera shutter button. The camera shutter button is purple in color and oddly shaped, but seems to work well enough. The left edge of the phone is home to the uncovered 3.5mm headphone port and the covered micro-USB power/USB socket. The cover on the micro-USB port tends to get in the way during charging and, if one is not careful, the cable or power connector won't engage the phone fully.

The keypad is the first of a few build quality issues that ZN5 owners will have to deal with. It is too flimsy and is not attached properly at its edges. The gap between the keypad and the rest of the device is also inconsistent, which looks somewhat cheap. Motorola has said that they became aware of that problem after we received our ZN5, but before T-Mobile customers did, and that the issue has been addressed. We are waiting for a new unit to test. The other problem that would be considered a build quality issue is the aforementioned rear cover. It has to be coaxed into the proper position when put in place, else it will not click in properly. A little side to side action when snapping it into place will often do the trick, but a trick should not be necessary at all. In spite of its pieces not always fitting together with tight tolerances, the phone overall feels very strong - which is a good thing for a device that will see as much photo action as the ZN5.