Good VFM. Review on Motorola MOTOROKR Z6

I m using Z6 premium Edn that came with 2GB microSD & S6 BT stero headset for the past 4 months. Bought for Rs. 13000

Somethings I observed, Good n Bad:

THE GOOD: 1. At first glance the phone looks like the usual Motorola new look phone, till the stunning phone display quality reveals itself. Well proportioned body dimensions and contours and unnoticeable unglazed finish in the gripping areas, which helps in firm grip of the phone even for the careless user  & The top of the class slider. One can observe how important these features are if we try to handle Samsung D900i metallic series instrument which tends to slip off from the palm unless carefully handled due to its larger width & glazed gripping area and it slipped off almost when I handled it the first time; One should be able to clutch a mobile phone comfortably with fingers and palm; it is very importation for people who donot sit ata desk all the day but move around. And the contours/thickness of Sony 830i/850i sliders fail us in this aspect. New MOTO phone sliders are THE BEST though 830/850i sliders are also good and lasting but not with the feel of a ‘warm knife slicing through a block of butter’ as I feel in Z6 slider which is intact even after initial usage of 3-4 months and the eager spring mechanism closes the slider with a confident thud; appears and feel to last quite a longtime. These are the basic things a user should look for esp., who use the instrument for making/taking calls for more than 75% of the time.

1. Top class display quality among 262K peer models. I find all the 262K displays are not of the same quality in terms of sharpness and colour contrast in all the makes and sometimes even within the models of a make and definitely new Motorola phones have now emerged as the leaders in this department. Voice quality is crisp & Speaker vol level max. is adequate even for an unsophisticated listener, but not as much as required to allow silent damage your ear drum sensitivity, which has gained importance these days with i-pods and the lot.

   
   




2. Though battery is 720 mAh, may be because of Linux OS it lasts quite a longtime for me(80% on calls, rest fiddle with phone, music etc) Make sure you change Band from Automode to 900/1800 which saves a lot of power.

   
   




3. Reception with the S6 Bluetooth Stereo headset is of very good quality, good for a decent distance. Camera is OK. Voice dial also works well with some practice. The phone rarely hangs up; happened once, which can be reset only by forcibly pulling the battery  out as I couldnot switch it off and restart, but it happened  even with just music player on without any other stuff running along.

   
   




4. Messaging is a breeze unlike the earlier motorolas, but it doesnot allow the templates to be edited as we need and send right away. One has to save the changes first before sending. The 3 factory themes are v.good. The phone can work like an external drive to store all files on the 2 GB card as unidentifiable files, since Z6 has no document reading capabilities

   
   

THE BAD: 1. The very bad phone features or lack of it are: All manual redials appear as multiple entries instead of just indicating the number of redials /missed calls alongside as in case of other phones, that too within the paltry 20 call history limit, filling it up in no time.

1. Fast edit and dial of recent nos. from history/phonebook is a big pain. For eg: when you need to make attempt to dial nos. in a series when you get engaged tone number after another esp., in networks/PBX boards that donot have number hunting facility.

   
   




2. One cannot access Missed Calls & Inbox messages directly from alerts on the homescreen, which has only two useless options of Clear & ClearAll, which need to be mandatorily pressed first & then punch another stupid confirmation buttom to reach home screen. From there press the usual series of buttons for Inbox or alert.

   
   

The four navigation hotkeys are the only way to access some deeply embedded functions like BT, ringtones & many other stuff

1. It appears there is no way to get the tower information /area information, in the unabled networks, which I couldnot switch on inspite of best efforts. This is very useful in road/rail travel where you can readily see the place you are in(rather the tower it catches)  without the need to ask anyone around. I couldnot do it even in on my wife’s W220 basic Motophone.

I am not a motofreak but I liked its trendy and VFM proposition which started with RAZR series & the features and feel, after seeing my wife’s basic Motophone  220. Nokia I observe is providing more features for the same money but of late it is failing in performance response, hang-ups and they are not at all sleek, rather like bulky brick pieces. But as a package Z6 is also a good VFM and for those who cannot maintain the sophisticated stuff like touch screen phones E6 or Motoming 1200.

REQUEST:

Can any one suggest the sites where downloads/applications for Motorokr Z6 Linux OS are available. Especially to comeover the above difficulties. And also to empower the phone in document reading capabilities atleast Word & excel may be even Adobe reader.