Motorola ROKR E8 Phone, Navy
Posted by admin | Posted in Gadget | Posted on 31-03-2010
5
- Music phone with innovative morphing keypad that only shows the relevant keys and one-touch access to your music library
- Compatible with T-Mobile’s MyFaves service–unlimited calling to your five most called contacts
- Bluetooth stereo streaming, 2 GB internal memory, MicroSD expansion up to 4 GB; 2.0-megapixel camera/camcorder
- Up to 6 hours of talk time, up to 300 hours (12.5 days) of standby time; measures 4.57 x 2.11 x 0.43 inches (HxWxD)
- Includes: Handset, A/C charger, wired handsfree headset, USB cable, user guide
Amazon.com Product Description
Motorola reinvents its popular MOTOROKR lineup with the technologically advanced ROKR E8 cell phone/digital audio player for T-Mobile. It features a morphing keypad that only shows the relevant keys in various modes, a wide variety of music file format compatibility, and wireless Bluetooth stereo music streaming. And it includes new Motorola design innovations, including ModeShift technology for moving from phone to music mode with the touch of a single b… More >>
From the title, it should be obvious that I dislike this phone very, very much. Allow me to explain why.
1. I had a hard time just figuring out how to turn it on. It is completely blank/black when it is not in use. Yes, that saves battery power, but it also left me scratching my head and not knowing how to turn it on for about 15 minutes. The manual was no help, either. Turns out there is some stupid little pull down button on the side of it. Fine.
2. The keypad at first is really cool. It changes itself depending on whether the phone is being used to make calls, play music, shoot videos or take pictures. BUT it is also super annoying! It makes this annoying squeaking sound that you cannot turn off! Forget trying to send a text message in a quiet environment. Garbage.
3. As another reviewer mentioned, this phone takes several seconds, maybe even 20 before it does anything. I mean EVERYTHING. Sending a text message, it stops registering keystrokes. By the time you realize it froze, it already made several mistakes. This requires going back and erasing characters. Yes, it freezes on that. Hit the erase button too many times, and now you’ve lost most of your message. It freezes when you want to change your alert type, go through your contacts, change ringtones, wallpapers, make calls, answer calls, end calls, like I said EVERYTHING. I hate it! I am not a very impatient person–it just bothers me when a cell phone cannot execute the simplest of commands without freezing. It’s not as if I have a lot of stuff saved to it. NO MP3s, no pictures/videos, NOTHING that should make it go so slowly.
4. Maybe this is just me, but it bothers me that there is no vibrate & ring alert profile. All you get is vibrate then ring, ring only, silent and vibrate only. Useless. When I am in a loud place like a bar, I like my phone to vibrate so I know someone is calling/texting. Why should I have to change my alert all the time? Why can’t it just vibrate and ring?
5. When the keypad is locked, there is no way to check the time. You have to unlock the keypad in order to see it. Annoying.
6. Rather heavy, bulky. Since mine is black, when it’s off you can see all the fingerprints on it.
I just dislike this phone so much that it’s unreal. I can’t think of anything good about it. I cannot wait until I save up enough money to buy the phone I REALLY wanted. Thank goodness this one was just a gift and I didn’t waste my money on it. What a piece of garbage!!!
I don’t know how it is when playing music. I already have an iPod, so I don’t need my cell phone to play music. All I know is this phone is useless. I will never forget the day when my friend was calling me to let me she was at the airport waiting to be picked up and the stupid phone would not register my finger pushing the answer button several times. I ended up missing the call. Not a huge deal, but COME ON! That is pathetic!!!
Some days, I really have to throw this phone down on the desk and wait for it to sort out what it needs to do in order for me to be able to do what I need to do. It’s so frustrating.
Rating: 1 / 5
I absolutely love this phone. The pros are that I have an excellent music player and I can switch between messages and other things much easier than my old phone. I also now have a much easier time to switching for three way since my other phone had no option to do that. The only con would be maybe that this phone is very slow sometimes so if you plan to buy it, you need to be the patient type!
Rating: 5 / 5
First of all, I’m not one of those super crazy tech geeks. I just use my phone as a clock/alarm and to make/receive calls. Ever since I got the Rokr though, I must admit that I began to use its music functions more often then I thought I would. The 3.5mm standard earphone jack may not seem like much but trust me, it’s really nice because the quality of sound is much better and my regular earphones work on it as well. I never thought that I’d use the FM radio (yes, this phone has FM radio) but it’s really nice to have when you’re working out at the gym. It’s super user friendly, has plenty of storage (2GB plus micro SD), looks pretty cool, and though the cool-looking key pads may feel a bit strange, I really have no complaints about it. The battery life is exceptional, and all this came at more than a reasonable price. I actually loved the phone at first and would’ve given it a 5 stars if I rated it the day that I got it. UNTIL…
this phone started to FREEZE for about 5 seconds. May be “lag” would be a better description, but either way, it just refuses to do anything for about 4~5 seconds, and then operates again as if nothing happened. At first I figured, “well, I could just wait a little bit… it’s really not a big deal,” but guess what. 4~5 seconds of lag is PERFECT for me to 1. get a call, 2. press the answer button, 3. press the answer button again, 4. frantically press the answer button about eight more times, and 5. miss the call. This doesn’t happen all the time, but it happens enough for me to get super annoyed. Though not a valid statistical sample, I think I get a missed call per every 5~6 calls due to the lag. I don’t know. May be my phone is possessed. May be I’m a bit unlucky and this phone might have a defect, JUST LIKE MY FIRST ONE.
Oh, did I mention that my first ROKR had a problem with its would’ve-been-awesome-if-it-didn’t-break-down 3.5mm plug and I ended up returning it? The first phone also lagged once in a while, just not as often. The new one didn’t lag that much in the beginning, but during the past 2 weeks, I’ve gotten a lot of missed calls as I hysterically press the answer button.
Simply put, for the price, this phone would’ve been perfect except for the lag and lack of better quality control. Does the lag justify deducting two stars from a nearly perfect phone? Yes, it is that annoying to me. You might want to gamble and just buy the phone anyway. If the lag is not there, it’s a pretty darn good phone. But if any of my friends asked me today, I would tell them to get something else.
Rating: 3 / 5
I’ve had mine for a couple weeks now and here are some +’s and -’s as I see it. I got this phone mostly because of the music capabilities, thinking it is great to carry only one device rather than 2
On the plus side……
- nice storage capacity. I have a 4 gig card in there now, but have an 8 gig on the way, and understand this phone likes the 8 gig memory card
- sound quality is a little better than my iPod or Sansa w. nice ways to manipulate the sound output. i think it sounds very good, and the included earbuds are pretty good
-i think it looks pretty cool, but take note of the measurements….this is not a small phone
-music transfer is flawless and a snap using a file manager, and it works great with Napster to Go even though it isnt listed as a supported device
- the 3.5 mm jack is a nice way to go
-there are some other pluses i think….
On the minus side…….
system they use doesnt work so well . not nearly as good as my last phone which was a Samsung. It also lags
-The keypad is QUIRKY..and I mean quirky..especially the center select button which seems to have a mind of its own. Also after two weeks, I still dont have a good hang of the scroll wheel when i found the sansa one and ipod very easy to work. This is the big minus for me…it’s awkward
-The menu system lags at times..i dont mean by a fraction..i mean it lags.
-The voice dialing
-it doesnt work with my audiobooks from Audible.com
I am hoping they fix what I see to be problems with this phone via firmware updates and they make it Audible compatible…
I am mostly happy with this phone.
Rating: 4 / 5
I ordered this phone about a week after it became available. So far, I’m in love with it! Much better sound quality than any Blackberry or previous Motorola phones I’ve used. I get great reception, the battery life is awesome, and the best part, of course, is the morphing key pad (with haptic). The MP3 player is kind of similar to an Ipod, and the phone stores 2 GB; you can add up to 4 more (microSD). So far, my only complaint is difficulty getting my Macbook to connect to the internet through the phone, but I think that problem lies with T-mobile rather than the phone. Hopefully that will be sorted out soon; I’ve connected via bluetooth with every other T-mobile phone I’ve used.
The E8 is very user friendly, and My Faves compatible. Camera lacks indoors, as do most Motorola camera phones, in my experience. The browser is decent; however, I have so far been unable to get Opera Mini to properly install. Having a standard headphone jack is cool. I love being able to hook it directly to my speakers with no converter. Overall, it’s a great phone. I’d definitely recommend it.
Rating: 4 / 5