Motorola Krzr K1m Review - Multimedia
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Alfredo Padilla Published on April 20, 2007 Comment on this |
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Accessing Music Software (2.01)
To test how easy it is to access the music software we time how long it takes to open the phone, launch the music software and get a song playing. We repeat this test five times and take the average for our score. The Motorola Krzr K1m took an average of 9.94 seconds to complete this process. This is faster than the Razr V3m's 12.1 seconds, but slower than the Sprint Upstage's 6.54 second average time. As with all Sprint phones that use their music software we found it slow to load.
Dedicated Music Controls (8.0)
The Motorola Krzr K1m has dedicated touch music controls on the exterior of the phone just below the exterior display. You can use these controls for play/pause, next and previous. You can also control volume using the dedicated volume keys. We normally have concerns about touch controls, but in this case we found them to be responsive and easy to use. We were pleased to see this array of music controls on the Krzr K1m, this is a significant improvement over the Razr V3m, and we found the controls to be more convenient than the Sprint Upstage.
Music Software Functionality and Organization (5.0)
Online Song Downloading (8.0)
Streaming (0.0)
The Krzr K1m did not support streaming audio from our test web sites in any format. You can however stream audio using Sprint's on demand services.
Podcast Support (0.0)
The Motorola Krzr K1m does not include any software that allows you to download an download and organize podcasts.
Music Sync with PC (0.0)
The Motorola Krzr K1m does includes neither the software nor the cable necessary to synchronize your music with your computer. Because we only review handsets as they are shipped the Krzr K1m does not receive any points in this section.
Music Formats and DRM (2.5)
The Motorola Krzr K1m supports Mp3 and AAC music. It does not support WMA or Real music files. The only type of DRM the Krzr K1m supports is that used by the Sprint music store. This means you will not be able to use the handset with services that use other DRM types like Rhapsody or iTunes.
Music Interruption (10.0)
As with the Razr V3m the Krzr K1m and Sprint's music software does a solid job of handling calls when music is playing. Music is paused allowing you to take the call; when the call is complete music begins playing again from the point it was paused.
Video
Video Software Access (1.93)
The only video playback software included with the Krzr K1m that is capable of playing videos you place on the phone is that included in the album software. This software is generally meant to play back videos you take with the phones camcorder, but you can also use it to watch your own files if they are appropriately encoded. To test how easy it is to launch a video using this software we time how long it takes to go from phone closed until a video file is playing. The Krzr K1m took an average of 10.34 seconds to play a video. This is significantly longer than the Razr V3m, which took only 6.3 seconds to play back a video. The Krzr K1m is hurt by the fact that it took a significant amount of time for the album software to load up the thumbnails of videos before we could choose one to play it back. It is also hurt by the fact that the album software is buried in the menus and the play button is also accessed via a menu rather than by simply selecting a file. We were dissapointed by how slow the Krzr K1m was to play back video.
Video Controls (4.0)
When playing back a video the controls available on the Krzr K1m are similar to those on the Razr V3m. The directional pad is used for play/pause (up), stop (down) and next or previous video (left/right). The left soft key and center select key both allow you to send the video via MMS, while the right soft key is assigned to an options menu. From this menu you can choose to play the video in full screen. The volume keys control video volume. You cannot customize your controls.
Video Software & Organization (2.0)
As with most regular phones the video software on the Krzr K1m is extremely basic. We were pleased to see the option to play back video in full screen, however there were no library management features or the ability to rate your videos as found on Windows Mobile devices.
The video software on the Krzr K1m is extremely basic and does not support any signficant video organization features. There is no support for playlists, however you can sort videos by date, size or name. There is no support for background play of videos, nor can you search your videos. This is to be expected given that we are dealing with software that is meant to play back videos you take on the phone, not to watch full length videos like TV shows or movies.
Video Sync with PC (0.0)
The Krzr K1m does not have the ability to synchronize videos with your computer.
Video Formats (4.0)
The Krzrk K1m was able to play back Mp4 video files and all three of our test 3GP files. Mp4 and 3GP are both popular standards for video and we were happy to see support for these. This is an improvement over the Razr V3m, which was unable to play Mp4 videos. The Krzr K1m was not able to play back any other video formats, including Flash, Quicktime or Windows Media.
Video DRM (0.0)
The Sprint Upstage does not support any video DRM formats. This means you will not be able to play videos purchased from services like iTunes or Amazon's Unboxed store.
Video Playback Smoothness (5.0)
To test how smoothly video plays back we use five different 3GP video files encoded at increasing bitrates. We then judge how many of those files can be played back without problems. Although all five of our video files could be played back they all had problems with jagged playback. For this reason we are only awarding half points for the Krzr K1m.
Online Video Downloading (0.0)
The Krzr K1m does not support any online video download services.
Video Streaming unscored
We tested the Krzr K1m with online streaming video services windowsmedia.com and www.zoovision.com. The Krzr K1m was unable to play WMV streaming files from windowsmedia.com, but was able to play 3GP encoded streaming video from zoovision.com. In addition to streaming video from the web you can also watch streaming video from Sprint's services on the Krzr K1m. We do not score video streaming because formats have not been standardized, which makes testing uncertain.
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