Motorola ZINE Cell Phone Review - Messaging
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Marianne Schultz Published on January 28, 2009 Comment on this |
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| With no native email application, the ZINE doesn't perform well here and definitely won't be a good choice for those who want access to their email accounts to read and draft email regardless of network connectivity status. Text and multimedia messaging work without a hitch, though IM's will be treated like SMS messages by T-Mobile, which we don't like. | |
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Supported Email Services (0.0)
The ZINE does not have a built-in email client - you must have web access and go through a T-Mobile web portal to check your email. When a phone does not have a native email application, we don't award points for it in this section.
The ZINE's email web portal
Push Email (0.0)
The ZINE is not capable of push email.
Multiple Email Accounts (0.0)
Without a native email client, the ZINE earns no points in this area.
HTML and Attachments (0.0)
Not applicable.
Email Customizations (0.0)
Not applicable
Time to a New Email Message (0.0)
When a phone does not have a native email client, we do not perform this test so the ZINE earns no point in this area.
Email Usability (0.0)
Not applicable.
Instant Messaging (0.0)
The ZINE supports IM and you can set up AIM, ICQ, Yahoo Messenger, and Windows Live Messenger accounts on it. However, T-Mobile counts every IM you send and receive as a text message, and you are charged accordingly - we don't award points for IM capability when this is the case.
The ZINE's IM menu
MMS Support (7.5)
The ZINE has an integrated inbox for both text and multimedia messages, which we like to see. On some phones, you can change your mind in the middle of creating a text message and turn it into a multimedia message easily if you decide you want to add a picture. Oddly, the ZINE offers you the ability to change a text message into a picture message in midstream through the Change to Picture Message command in the Options menu but you are then shows you the following error message if you choose to continue: "This message will become a picture message that contains text only. Convert to picture message anyway?" Once you choose to continue after this message, you can go to the Options menu to insert a picture and continue creating your multimedia message.
The odd MMS error message
If you take a different route and simply choose the Insert command from the Options menu when creating a text message to choose to add a picture, sound file, video, or other media, you won't be presented with that odd error message before continuing.
Adding media to an SMS
Getting to your multimedia content to add to a message is easy - when you choose the type of media you want to include, you are taken immediately to the appropriate folder or application to make it happen. Overall, the ZINE's multimedia messaging functionality is as complete as we like to see in phones, if a little unintuitive and clumsy.
SMS Smiley Face Interpretation (0.0)
The ZINE does not interpret common smiley faces, also called emoticons, in received messages, nor does it provide graphic emoticons that can be inserted automatically into outgoing messages.
SMS/MMS Ease of Use (5.0)
When you have history of messages with someone in your inbox, you must view each message received and sent individually, with no threaded message view to show you the full history in one place.
The SMS/MMS inbox
Creating new message is relatively easy, aside from the odd text-to-picture message quirk mentioned in the MMS Support section, and you can also create folders to organize your messages. There are also templates to make it easy to quickly send common messages, such as "I'm busy now, will call you later" and the like. Overall, ease of use in this area on the ZINE is just okay with nothing to make it really stand out beyond other devices.
A single SMS
Time to a New SMS Message (5.2)
To see how easy it is to create a new text message, we time how long it takes to go from the home screen in the unlocked state to the moment a new text message dialogue is up. On the ZINE, getting to the new SMS dialogue is easy with the Shortcuts menu accessed via the left soft key on the home screen where the 2nd item is Create Message.
The shortcut on the home screen to a new SMS
There's a little bit of a lag before the dialogue comes up when accessed this way and it took an average 1.92 seconds to complete this test on the ZINE making it the 2nd slowest among our comparison phones in this area. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.
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