Motorola Krave ZN4 (Verizon Wireless)

Calls and speakerphone: We found calls to be loud and clear on the Motorola Krave. We rarely needed to use the side volume keys to adjust the sound. Using the speakerphone didn’t degrade call quality, and we particularly like that two people can talk simultaneously when the speakerphone is activated. Since the cell phone’s flip is actually made of plastic, the earpiece doesn’t heat up when you talk on the phone for long periods of time.

Audio quality: Playback of songs and music is decent, though a bit tinny. Additionally, since the speaker is located on the back of the cell phone, you should turn the Krave over to listen to songs. On the plus side, the cell phone sports a 3.5mm headset jack, so you can use your own high-end headphones to listen to music. Songs sounded much better when we listened to them using basic earbud-style phones’.

Menu/phone book: Like many Verizon Wireless cell phones, the Motorola Krave ZN4 has a standard menu system; if you're already accustomed to it, using this Motorola cell phone should be a breeze. This cell phone sports a touch-screen, so everything you want to do is just a tap away. There are easy access touch screen buttons to the applications most used at the top of the screen when the plastic flip is closed. When the flip is open you’ll see the quick-access buttons for Messaging, Dial pad, Menu, and Contacts. Though the Motorola Krave lacks traditional buttons (there are home and power keys) all the prompts you need can be found on the cell phone’s spacious display.

We particularly like how easy it is to use the phone book, which can store 1,000 contacts, each with five phone numbers, two e-mail addresses, and a picture – sorry, there's no slot for addresses. You won’t find your phone number in the contacts unless you manually enter it as a contact Speaking of the phone book, one feature we could have done without is that you can’t just send a picture unless the contact is already in your phonebook.

Camera/video: The Motorola Krave sports a 2-megapixel camera, and it can record videos. Although the Krave lacks a flash, we doubt that having one would enhance picture quality much. About that: Picture quality is acceptable and the camera has a pretty fast shutter, so you won’t miss many spur of the moment shots. Most images came out in focus, with a decent amount of details. Unfortunately, colors did appear a bit washed out. Video is about the same quality. You can snap pictures by pressing the button located on the side of the cell phone with a camera icon on it. If you touch the screen when in viewfinder mode you can adjust some features, including zoom. The good news is that you can send pictures via Bluetooth on this cell phone.

Music: As noted, listening to songs played through the cell phone’s speaker is acceptable. This cell phone lacks audio-centric controls such as bass and treble; however, it does have other MP3 player features such as shuffle, repeat, and that ability to create playlists on-the-fly. The included music software will also provide suggestions for additional music you might like based on songs you already have stored on the Motorola Krave. We particularly like that if you touch the main VCast logo square in the middle of the screen it will display all the songs on your cell phone so that you can easily change songs on-the-fly. There are plenty of choices if you choose to download music to the Krave directly over-the-air, since this cell phone supports V Cast with Rhapsody.

The Krave will support an optional 8GB MicroSD card – you can store approximately 200 music albums on a card with that much storage capacity – that’s a lot of tunes. If you plan on listening to more than just a few songs, you’ll want to get an external MicroSD card. The Krave will play back Window Media Audio (WMA), Apple’s music file format (AAC), and MP3 files. The easiest way to get your own music onto the cell phone is by synching songs from your computer via an optional USB synching cable. You can also get music onto the cell phone by dragging and dropping songs onto the MicroSD card (as long as you have a MicroSD card adapter that works with your computer) and then slip it into the MicroSD slot located on the spine of the Motorola cell phone. Note: It is likely that you will not be able to listen to songs you purchased online at a music store on this cell phone.

Connectivity/Bluetooth: We were able to pair the Motorola cell phone with a Plantronics Discovery 925 Bluetooth headset and call quality was still quite good.

Look and feel: In a word, the Motorola Krave just looks cool. It’s definitely one of those cell phones with an understated elegance. It’s got a charcoal-gray plastic covering that flips open to reveal the cell phone’s large, bright touch screen. The back of the cell phone is slightly rubberized (like the Pebl's). While the Motorola Krave isn’t exactly what we would call small (a little wider than the Motorola Krzr, but about as long), it’s definitely compact and fits easily into a pant pocket or small purse without creating too much of a bulge. Our least favorite design aspect is the amount of buttons lining the spine of the cell phone: lock key, record button, MicroSD card slot, camera button, miniUSB port, volume keys, and the 3.5mm headset jack.

The display is bright and crisp. It could easily guide you through a dark room in a pinch. Since the screen is protected by a plastic casing, it doesn’t attract as much grease and fingerprints as many cell phones available today. As noted, the cell phone sports a touch screen, which is responsive to the touch of a fingernail. We particularly like that you don’t have to flip open the plastic screen cover to use the cell phone.

Keypad: The touch-sensitive keypad sits on a bright screen with white numbers and letters, so dialing in the dark isn’t an issue. If you want to see the full QWERTY touch-sensitive keypad, you need to use an application where you might need access to it. About that QWERTY keypad, it’s not the easiest to use. This is mostly a result of the plastic cover being open; making it difficult to accurately hit the letter keys on the left side of the display. The good news is that the predictive text software included with the Krave is pretty accurate, so you won’t have to peck out all the letters of a particular message yourself. While we had a much better time tapping out the correct number or text using the numeric keypad, we did have to double check our work quite a bit.

In the battery life department, the Motorola Krave had decent performance. We found that we could last a little over three days before needing to recharge when using the Motorola Krave regularly to make calls and send/receive text messages. Users who barely use the cell phone to make/receive calls and send/receive messages can wait about five days before needing to recharge, while heavier cell phone users will likely need to charge the Motorola Krave every two to three days. Additionally, we are happy to report that leaving Bluetooth activated does not have a negative impact on battery life.