Motorokr E8 looks and works pretty much the same with the younger brother. They even have the same specifications overall. However, once you have a hold of this phone in your hands, you and I will definitely agree that Motorokr E8 is little bit better than the younger sibling.
The reason is simple. Although both of them have the “ModeShift Morphing Keypad” design, which is really brilliant (And I’m gonna explain to you about this later on),
Motorokr E8 has another cool addition, the scroll wheel D-Pad, which works similar with the Apple iPod’s scroll wheel D-Pad.
NextPhones4u Score
Phone Specs: TFT 256K colors, 320 x 240 pixels, 2.0 inches, ModeShift morphing keypad, Navigation scroll wheel, 2 GB internal memory, OS Linux/Java-based MOTOMAGX, Java MIDP 2.0 See Full specs.
- Pros
- Brilliant ModeShift morphing design | Good sound quality | Great Navigation scroll wheel just like on iPod | 2GB internal memory on board with microSD support | 2MP camera
- Cons
- No support of LED flash | The screen size could be better and bigger
- Bottomline
- Bottom line, as a music dedicated cell phone, certainly, Motorokr E8 has all the elements of a great music gadget. What makes me really impressed of this phone are the ModeShift keypad design, which is brilliant, and also its scroll wheel D-Pad. Awesome. Totally worth buying music cell phone.
Design
Motorokr E8 has more brilliant design than Moto Rokr EM30 for sure. If on the Motorola ROKR em30, the D-Pad will only work as a normal D-Pad, where you can only navigate to the normal directions (up-right-bottom-left), no matter where you’re using it, either on the stand-by mode, main menu or music player menu.
But, on Motorokr E8, besides as a normal direction navigation, the D-Pad of this phone will automatically turn into the scroll wheel every time you enter to the music player interface, which works pretty much the same just like on the Apple iPod.
Scroll Wheel Navigation
What makes the scroll wheel navigation of this phone great is because although the scroll wheel on this phone is only designed by the vendor in half, not in full circle, interestingly, every time your finger or thumb stops on the edge of the scroll wheel, the navigation on the screen will keep scrolling anyway. So you don’t need to move your thumb in full circle over again just to navigate the music player interface.
I’m honestly still amazed and even shocked with this brilliant design (Anyway, I was shocked and amazed too at the first time when seeing this awesome design on Moto Rokr EM30). It’s brilliantly genius. Maybe because I never saw such a brilliant cell phone like this before and that is the first time meeting with this kind of model in my whole life.
ModeShift Morphine Keypad
Anyway, earlier in this article, I’ve promised to tell you about the other cool feature of this phone called “ModeShift Morphine Keypad”. Okay then, read on.
Just like on the Motorola ROKR em30, this phone also has been embedded with ModeShift Morphine Keypad design. So the core concept of this design is basically like this. Every time you enter to the music player menu (from normal stand-by mode), the numeric keypad that you can normally use to dial phone numbers in default, will automatically disappear from that area (I mean, all the dial numbers the symbols will totally disappear). And then, the new navigation buttons (Play/Pause, Repeat and Shuffle) will appear suddenly on the area of numeric keypad.
In addition to that, this brilliant design also works on the camera interface or camera gear. So every time you press the camera button on the left side, all the default numeric buttons on the keypad area will suddenly disappear and as the replacement, you will get 4 new buttons on that same area. And the buttons are: Zoom in, Zoom out, Playback and Video options.
Touch Pad Looking D-Pad
The next interesting part is the D-Pad. Although the D-Pad looks like a touch pad, it’s basically not a real touch pad. But I assume that this phone gives you that impression of a touch pad because if you look closer from the bottom angle, the front side of this phone looks quite flat on the entire side of the front device. And again, if you look at the front device with light reflection, you can see that this phone looks like it’s wrapped up with some kind of plastic material.
Multimedia and Entertainment
As a dedicated music cell phone, Motorokr E8 absolutely comes with great music capability for sure. Besides that brilliant ModeShift design, this phone has also been embedded with standard 3.5mm headphone jack. And if you want to store all of your “mega sized” song collection into this awesome cell phone, you will be happy because this phone has been injected with 2GB internal memory on board, with the addition of expandable microSD external memory support.
Sound quality is guaranteed top notch since Motorola also has other series besides ROKR that also have great audio quality. So listening music with this phone is a great experience for sure.
Performance
Similar just like Motorola ROKR em30, this phone also comes with LINUX/Java-based MOTOMAGX operating system, where the selected item or highlighted menu is shown in big icon above the march of small icon applications below it. And that selected menu will be displayed in perspective left and right in 3D view.
Camera
If you have a digital photography hobby, you will be pleased to hear that this phone has also been equipped with 3.2MP camera on the back. Not to mention, the camera of this phone also supports zooming mode while taking the photos. Unfortunately, the camera is not supported with LED flash.
Features
Motorokr E8 also provides some standard and basic features, such as: Bluetooth, USB, Stereo FM radio, Java MIDP 2.0 and many more.
Conclusion
Bottom line, although Motorokr E8 was rolled out before Motorola ROKR em30, what makes this phone more interesting than the younger brother is the navigation scroll wheel, which cannot be found on Moto Rokr EM30. I’m a music lover. And to be honest, I’m actually thinking of getting this phone in the future. Really. And my only reason is of course the scroll wheel navigation of this phone. It’s totally rare and unique around the market.
So in conclusion, Motorokr E8 absolutely has pretty much the same specs with Motorola ROKR em30. However, if you want to get more complete package of a great music cell phone, then Motorokr E8 is definitely your best destination.
