Motorola ROKR E8 review

Let's kick this review off with some sound effects - unusual for a text based review but nonetheless they pretty much sum up our feelings about the ROKR E8. Pick it up: "Ooooh." Try it: "Hmmmn." Put it down: "Pffft".

Yes the Motorola E8 is a smart looking, even futuristic - if scratch prone - handset which shines briefly before frustrating interminably. So let's dive straight into the clever bit, Motorola calls it 'ModeShift'. In essence this means instead of individual physical keys you have a smooth area of plastic with Haptic feedback - Moto's first - where the appropriate keys light up from application to application highlighting only the functions you need.

In music mode, for example, you get Back, Forwards, Play/Pause, Shuffle and Repeat keys, in camera mode you see Zoom In, Zoom Out, Video View and a Camera/Video toggle, in phone mode you get the standard 0-9 keypad and usual text messaging letters. This all sounds great, especially for the technophobe, but sadly it doesn't really work and the primary reasons for this are twofold.

Firstly, and perhaps most obviously, the keys for each phone mode only show up when you are in that mode. Consequently, where typical handsets offer shortcuts for common functions or even dedicated buttons here pausing music or skipping tracks requires switching mode completely, waiting for the new controls to flash up, selecting them, then returning to what you were doing. It's a flaw that will irritate even the most basic of multitaskers.

Also not helping the situation is ModeShift's partner in crime, the 'FastScoll navigation wheel'. For a start it isn't actually a wheel, it's more of a horseshoe and this basic geometric oversight blights its operation. Unlike a circle, the horseshoe has specific start and end points and instead relies on an acceleration based system whereby the closer to either end your finger is, the faster the scroll works.

Again this is fine in theory but in practice it works little better than simple up and down keys - and worse when actually on the move. Meanwhile the physical space it covers is enormous and means while the phone is perfectly slim (10.6mm), its length is stretched to a rather hefty 115mm which - to put into some context - is the same length as an iPhone.

All this wouldn't be so bad either if it also shared a 3.5in display but unfortunately the knock on effect forces Motorola to fit a proportionately tiny 2in QVGA screen which actually has to be jammed into landscape rather than the traditional portrait mode of most phones. This would be good for movies (were it larger) but the E8 has limited codec support (H.263 or MPEG 4) and the restricted horizontal depth means navigating lengthy song lists is hazardous with the ultra-sensitive FastScroll non-wheel. The same system is used to search through photos and contacts and it requires the reactions of an Olympic ski jumper.

And this is the heart of the problem with the ROKR E8: one flaw causes another which causes another.

Ultimately this is something of a shame because you get the feeling Motorola has really tried to do something different with the ROCKR E8. There's 2GB of onboard memory plus a microSD slot, the vital 3.5mm headphone jack is present, the hold button and volume keys are sensibly positioned on the side and in general the user interface is much improved. There's also an FM radio and voice recorder but don't expect to find higher end features like 3G, WiFi and GPS.

Much as I'd like to end on a high with the ROKR E8 I have yet to broach the camera so we can't. The measly two megapixel shooter is actually worse than its already low pixel count suggests, and while it is important to remember image processing is far more important to overall image quality than the number of megapixels, sadly the image processing clearly isn't up to scratch either while there's no flash or autofocus.

Conclusion

What could and possibly should have been a fresh and innovative step forward for midrange mobile phones priced out of the full touchscreen experience ultimately turns out to be an ill thought out gimmick where mistake compounds mistake. We wanted to like you so much ROKR E8, but we can only sigh.

Motorola ROKR E8 technical specifications