Motorola ZINE Cell Phone Review - Hardware

The ZINE has one of the worst keypads we've ever seen, and the soft menu buttons are also horrendous. This is only somewhat mitigated by a decent D-pad. We're happy that the ZINE has charging, expansion card, and headphone ports that follow fairly common standards, at least.

Text Words Per Minute (7.32)
To see how easy it is to type on a device, we time how long it takes to enter a set of standard text using the fastest text entry method available. The ZINE managed 36.58 words per minute in this test, putting it behind only the LG Dare and the Motorola Razr2 V8. We must note that the ZINE's keypad is one of the worst we've seen for typing. The keys have no separation whatsoever between them and the two keys in the bottom left and right corners in particular are hard to press with little travel.

The ZINE's atrocious keypad

You can get used to it, but we'd find it less painful to repeatedly poke ourselves in the eye with a stick than use the ZINE for extended texting or emails on a regular basis. If you are a frequent texter, we urge you to try the ZINE out in advance and decide whether or not you can live with its atrocious keypad. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.

T9 and Auto Complete (10.0)
The ZINE offers T9 predictive text with auto-complete, allowing you to press fewer keys to type out words as the phone guesses what you're trying to type. Additionally, the ZINE has a word learning feature that sees what words you type most often and then offers them as suggestions to complete your words sooner than it will other words that may use a similar key combination to enter. With its insufferable keypad, we are pleased to see that the ZINE has some software features that will allow you to use it even less than you would otherwise need to.

The Text Entry Settings menu

One-Handed Typing (6.21)
To see how easy it is to enter text with one hand, we run the same test as in the Text Words per Minute section above using only - you guessed it - one hand. As you'd expect, it takes a little more time to enter the same amount of text with one hand instead of two. The ZINE scored 31.05 words per minute in this test, earning it one of the lowest scores among our comparison phones. The ZINE's deplorable keypad was twice as vexatious to use with one hand, and we don't recommend it to anyone unless you're up for some self-torture. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.

Keypad Backlighting (4.0)
The ZINE's keypad backlight has a purple tinge to it and it works in exact tandem with the screen. There are no separate controls for it, and it is governed by the timing and brightness settings for the main screen. The keys are lit pretty evenly and all markings on them are clearly legible.

D-Pad/Joystick (7.0)
The ZINE's D-pad will be very familiar to anyone who has used a Motorola cell phone in the past several years. It offers good tactile feedback and it's easy to press the correct direction on the raised rim of its exterior. It's raised high enough to easily distinguish and separate it from the surrounding keys. Overall, we like the ZINE's keypad but can't say nearly as much for its keypad and soft buttons.

Touch Screen (0.0)
The ZINE does not have a touchscreen.

Jog Dial (0.0)
The ZINE does not have a jog dial.

Soft Buttons (1.0)
Where should we start? The ZINE's soft menu buttons are, like the keypad, some of the worst we've seen. In the same vein as the keypad, there is no physical separation between them and the Send, End, back, and image review keys that are right below them and it's incredibly easy to press the wrong button. Additionally, the menu key labels that are shown on the screen don't align with them actual buttons well, particularly in the camera interface. The only thing these buttons earn points for from us is their good level of travel and tactile feedback. Other than that, they are stunningly horrible.

The soft buttons right next to the Send & End buttons

Volume Control (5.0)
The ZINE's volume up and down buttons are on the top of the phone's right side. They're made of thin plastic and have no markings to distinguish them by feel alone, though you can tell which one is which by the orientation of the phone, of course. They offer good travel though less tactile feedback than we'd like, and we do wish that had some sort of raised markings to make them easier to pinpoint when the device is out of sight in a pocket or bag.

Power and Standby (1.0)
The ZINE's power button is also the End button and functions as such with long presses versus shorter ones you'd use to End a call. As we noted in the Making and Receiving Calls section of our review, the End button is terrible, located immediately next to the right soft menu key and the back button, and needing to press it longer to turn the ZINE off and on doesn't improve how it feels one little bit.

Other Buttons (6.0)
The ZINE has a few other buttons, most of which we don't like since they are embedded in the keypad and are hard to press and impossible to isolate by feel alone. There are 3 of these heinous buttons that serve to control camera functions, including toggling between viewfinder and picture review modes, an image delete button, and an easy share button to quickly send a selected image to someone or to the web.

The ZINE has a lock button on the right side below the volume up/down buttons that prevents key presses from registering. This button slides back and forth with a satisfying click and is raised enough to easily differentiate it by feel alone.

The last button in this category on the ZINE is the camera/shutter activation button at the bottom on the right side. As previously mentioned, it's a lurid purple metallic color that's just slightly raised from the side casing but is still easy enough to find by feel. It offers good travel but less-than-ideal tactile feedback.

Primary Screen Gross Resolution (8.0)
The ZINE's primary screen resolution is 240 x 320, earning it 8 points in this area. The resolution indicates how many pixels are on a screen horizontally and vertically. The higher the numbers, the more pixels there are to show details, particularly visible when viewing pictures and videos on a device.

Primary Screen Pixels per Inch (8.44)
Measuring pixels per inch tells you how closely pixels are packed together on a screen. The ZINE's screen measures 1.896 inches on its longest side, and with a resolution on the longest size of 320 pixels, this means that the ZINE has 168.78 pixels per inch.

Screen Physical Size (5.93)
A device's screen is often a little smaller than the claimed size by the manufacturer when you measure its actual viewable area. The actual viewable area of the ZINE's screen is 2.37 inches diagonally, just under the claimed 2.4 inches.

Screen Brightness (7.2)
To measure a screen's brightness, we set it to its highest brightness level, navigate to a blank white web page in the browser, and then use a light meter to measure its output. The ZINE's screen puts out a relatively impressive 114 lumens in this test.

The display settings menu

It does not, however, have a sensor that will automatically adjust the screen's brightness level based on ambient light conditions, and you must instead choose manually between 6 fixed levels.

Screen Bright Light Performance (7.0)
To see how a device's screen performs in bright light, such as outdoors on a sunny day, we shine the equivalent of bright sunlight onto the screen and attempt to navigate the menu system and use the device. The ZINE performed well in this test and was easy to navigate once the glare of the screen was overcome. It helps that the default theme has text in contrasting colors to the background, so your mileage may vary with other themes that don't offer this.

Color Depth (8.0)
The ZINE's specs state that its display is capable of showing up to 262,000 colors, putting it on par with most of our comparison phones and surpassing the Motorola Razr2 V8's color depth.

Secondary Screen (0.0)
The ZINE does not have a secondary screen.

Power & Data Ports (7.0)
The ZINE has a single Micro USB port used for charging and connecting to your computer's USB port. The ZINE can also be charged via USB when connected to your computer. We definitely appreciate it when a device has ports using popular standards instead of proprietary ones, which makes it easier and usually less expensive to find accessories and replacements cords.

Headphone Compatibility (8.0)
The ZINE has a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, offering the most flexibility to use any existing headphones you may already have or shop among a wide range of offerings at almost every price point for new ones.

Internal Storage (2.0)
The ZINE has 350MB of available memory - while not a stunning amount, it's at least enough to store a few pictures and music files in a pinch if you don't have an expansion card on hand and we appreciate that the ZINE doesn't force you to rely completely on an expansion card for storage.

Expansion Slot & Format (6.0)
The ZINE has a microSD card slot, located near the battery on the back, and we're a little bothered that the battery must be removed in order to get to the card slot. But we're happy to see that the ZINE comes with a 1GB microSD card in the box, so you aren't required to go buy one immediately in order to start taking lots of pictures with its fabulous camera.

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