Review of Motorola's iTunes Phone, the ROKR E1

The ROKR E1's email system is good, with one exception. The good stuff first. It was able to send and receive email without a hitch using both POP, IMAP, and SMTP. You can configure the ROKR E1 to use SSL for inbound and/or outbound email connections, too. It supports automatically appending a signature to outbound email, and inbound email can be limited in size. But that is where the problem is. While you can configure it to not download messages larger than 4k, for example, but you can not tell it to download only the first 4k of each message. If the message is too big, it ignores it entirely. There is no way that I saw to download only the headers, either. That's kinda a problem. You can only configure a single mailbox, too, which is also a bit of a limitation for some people (like me). The phone can be configured to auto-check for new email at a specified interval, but of what real use is that if you can't tell if a new email message has been ignore because it was larger than your configured cut-off? If that 8MB PowerPoint presentation finally comes in, you'll never know.

I also tested out the IM client that the E1 has. I used it to connect to AIM via Cingular's GPRS network without a problem. My Buddy list came right up and I was able to send and receive IMs without a problem. Pretty slick.

ROKR E1 browser

ROKR E1 browser

ROKR E1 game download

ROKR E1 game

Apps

Motorola's ROKR E1 ships with one game pre-installed, and, at least in our Cingular version, you can buy more games yourself. Our unit included an oddball mole shooting game called Crazy, that I just didn't "get". An application called "Safe" was also installed. Safe let's you store sensitive passwords and other information like credit card numbers in a secure, password protected manner.

The MP3 player and FotoFunPack 2 applications were already described elsewhere, so we'll ignore those here. The rest of the applications are the typical organizer lot. The ROKR E1 has a very nice calendar app. It supports both a monthly and weekly view, and it is pretty easy to navigate through. You can sync it to a PC with the included cable or Bluetooth if you have the Motorola mobile PhoneTools software. The ROKR E1 also includes a very nice calculator application, and a very simple alarm program that doesn't support repeating alarms.

Conclusion

There is much to like about the ROKR E1. Its stereo speakers, rhythm lights, and haptics system are great entertainment when hooked up with the iTunes application and the standard media player. But the 100 song limit on the iTunes app is going to be a real issue to some, and Motorola might have a hard time getting people excite over a VGA camera - even if it is a good VGA camera.

Motorola's E398 is one of my all-time favorite handsets when it comes to being an all-around good phone. The ROKR is every bit as good. The difference is that the rest of the industry hasn't been sitting idle, and a minor software upgrade to a somewhat old design - even if that means you get iTunes synchronization, isn't going to impress everybody. But if you like your music on the go, and are looking for a rock solid phone, I can highly recommend the Motorola ROKR E1, but for somebody looking for a phone with a lot of wow factor that can stand up to devices like Sony Ericsson's W800, the ROKR E1 falls a bit short. Still, I give it a "Recommended" rating based on its overall performance.

You can find more photos of the Motorola ROKR E1, plus some samples taken by the ROKR E1 itself, on the following pages.

 

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