Motorola and Kodak launch Motozine ZN5 – a 5 megapixel camera phone

Monday, December 22, 2008, 6:14
Cell Phones
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Motorola, in partnership with Kodak, has launched a cell phone that serves the user as a digital camera as well. As its reviews, the Motorola Motozine ZN5 is part cell phone and part digital camera. The phone boats a 5-megapixel camera with a cluster of impressive settings and features. At $99, it is far cheaper than the Nokia N95 (approximately $500, unlocked), which also has a 5-megapixel camera.

The Motozine ZN5 is a typical candy bar shaped phone. Beneath a bright, 2.4-inch, 320-by-240-pixel screen lies a flat keyboard. The phone has dedicated keys for different camera functions, such as photo reviewing and sharing. It seems that Motorola put a lot of effort into the camera component but compromised on other aspects of the phone, such as design and support for 3G.

The ZN5 looks like a stand alone point and shoot camera loaded with a Xenon flash and lens cover. The phone weighs about 4 ounces and is constructed with a combination of hard and soft plastic that makes it comfortable to hold for long periods of time. The 5-megapixel camera has auto zoom, a low light setting, three focus settings (auto, landscape, and macro), five white balance settings, panoramic and multi shot modes, an autotimer, and six shutter sounds.

But the camera has a limitation. But the user can edit photos on the camera. The user can resize, rotate, or crop, adjust brightness, contrast, or sharpness, and add image borders and graphics to the photos. The phone contains editing tools like Kodak’s Perfect Touch feature -a one-touch photo enhancer that lightens dark areas and deepens colors. The user can transfer photos and videos to the PC with the included USB cable or 1GB microSD card, or via text message. The user can also upload pictures wirelessly to the Kodak Photo Gallery, where they can be shared and ordered for prints.

The ZN5 supports Wi-Fi. Call quality is enhanced by Motorola’s CrystalTalk technology. The battery lasts for a good 10 hours. The ZN5 has the standard Moto media player, which supports WMA, MP3, and AAC, plus a few other types of audio files. The audio quality is pretty good. Video quality, on the other hand, is not very good. The videos play with a lot of blurriness and interference.

At $99, the Motorola Motozine ZN5 might not be the most eye catching phone, but given its impressive camera features, is surely worth a buy.