MOTOROLA Z3 REVIEW

The Motorola Z3 is the latest addition to the company’s superb range of handsets which combine forward thinking designs and high quality features. The Z3 is no different and is fact the first slider phone to be released by Motorola in the European and Americas markets. With the familiar Motorola interface and a healthy inclusion of features read on to see how the Z3 performs according to our tests.

DESIGN

Being the first slider phone from Motorola for the Americas and European markets you would expect the Z3 to possess a phenomenal design considering previous efforts by the company. Sadly the Z3 design does not live up to the standard that has previously been set and seems a “run of the mill” design when compared against competitors on the market. Dimensions of the handset are 106 x 46 x 16 mm which I felt were excessive for a fashion based handset. I felt this was the main reason why the styling of the handset did not come across as intended, as the handset does have attractive elements to it.

In terms of construction the Z3 is built extremely well in all aspects. The handset has a very robust feeling to it mainly due to the slightly excessive weight of 115g, which gives the handset substance in my opinion. All of this weight is distributed evenly across the handset giving it a comfortable feeling when held in the hand. The handset is finished in rubber and metal which helps in giving the handset some individualism and the traditional Razr styling has been applied giving the Z3 a familiar feeling in the same instance. A solid slide mechanism adds to the high build quality of the handset. I found that the slider had a smooth motion whilst being opened and was quite easy to open with one hand. This is mainly due to the thumb grip below the screen and it was also useful to see that handset didn’t open by itself whilst in my pocket.

The 262, 000 colour display works very well with colours appearing bright and objects having clear outlines. Viewing the screen in direct sunlight was not an issue and it was generally felt that the screen was one of Motorola’s better efforts to date. Compared to other handsets on the market the screen may not match up in quality, but for the features that are contained within the device it was totally sufficient in my opinion.

Navigation controls are consistent of a raised 5 way joystick which is surrounded by 2 soft keys, cancel (new addition)/browser buttons and start and end call buttons. When the slider panel is slide upwards it reveals the numeric keypad which has been designed with ridges between individual keys to distinguish numbers. On the left hand spine is the volume control and a voice recorder activation buttons. The right hand side has the camera release button, voice command button and a mini USB slot. Overall navigation controls are good. Excellent grip can be achieved on the joystick, but the other navigation controls were slightly small. The top row of the numeric keypad was slightly close to the bottom of the edge of the slider which led it being hit instead of the keys at times. Positively the backlighting for the keys is of a good standard and the keypad has definitely improved from a design perspective compared to the V3

The camera lens and the flash sit on the rear side of the slider, but an expected self portrait mirror is missing which was disappointing. A few other design faults were noted, namely the poor positioning of the memory card behind the battery cover and a badly designed sim cardholder.

Overall mark 6 out of 10