Half and Half
The review unit of the Motorokr EM30 mobile phone arrived without a manual. Apparently Motorola has faith in the ease and convenience of its user interface. Their belief is mostly justified, although I must admit that it took me a few minutes to figure out how to open the back of the unit so I could insert a SIM. Oh, right, push and slide. Stupid me.
Let’s get this minor quibble out of the way: I don’t love the name “Motorokr.” To me it sounds like a highly evocative cussword frequently uttered by rap musicians. But that is a personal quirk; maybe the name actually appeals to the target market. This Motorola is half-phone, half-music player, and in my observation it’s the younger audience that goes for this combination. We older folk don’t listen to music on our phones because we worry that the battery will run out.
The Motorokr EM30 is a sleek, thin, black and red phone with no keys, just raised notches like Braille readers. The back is matte black with a rubbery texture so you get a good grip on the phone. (These details matter. Phones with a smooth finish tend to slip from your grasp if you have sweaty hands.) When you press the “On” icon, the keyboard lights up. The letters and numbers are illuminated in blue.
When you press the music icon, the controls for the music player light up in red. The music player has high-fidelity audio, shuffle, and repeat functions. You can switch between phone and music player at the touch of a button. The FM radio has a data system which identifies the artist and song playing on the radio. If you like the song you just heard, you can find it and download it in seconds. The Rokr EM30 is compatible with Windows Media Player 11.
Motorola has commissioned 14 new Filipino artists from different musical genres to produce seven MotoMashup collaborations. These new songs are downloadable for free to Motorola users. The artists include Imago, Wahijuara, Queso, and Bembol Rockers. You can get an optional 8GB removable storage card for your music.
This is all very nice for fans of new music, but what about the phone? Motorola and I have not always had a pleasant history: two years ago I was using a hand-me-down E398 from my sister, and I had to be restrained from dashing it against the wall. Sending text messages on that phone was an arduous process that required pressing too many keys. I am pleased to report that the Rokr EM30 makes texting easy. True, the keyboard takes some getting used to—since there are no actual keys you have to press harder for the letters to appear.
The phone has text-to-speech recognition, meaning it can recite your text messages to you in an uninflected male voice. My friends and I play this infantile game in which we send each other text messages in Tagalog, then listen to the machine read them aloud with an American accent. Tip: You need to syllabicate the Tagalog words and add “H” after the vowels.
The USB port and headset jack have frail rubber covers that easily come off; I don’t know why they bothered to attach them. The headset jack is top and center of the phone, which I thought was unusual until I had a look at the Games pre-loaded in the unit. Among them is a program called Healthy Feeder, which has a calorie counter, body mass index calculator, fat-burning sports calculator, weight-loss menu and tips. Ah, I get it. You can listen to music while running, and then compute how many calories you used up.
I don’t know how long the battery lasts, though. As far as I can tell it’s a regular cellphone battery: the 360 minutes of talk time and 300 hours of standby time quoted in the specs don’t factor in music listening time.
The EM30 is equipped with a 2MP camera and Bluetooth.
For years, mobile phones have been usurping the functions of other household gadgets. Lots of people have stopped wearing watches because their phones have clocks anyway. All cellphones now have cameras. You can check your email and surf the internet on your phone. Well here’s a phone that’s also a music player, or a music player that’s also a phone, depending on which function is more important to you. Would I give up my music player for a Motorokr? No. However, if I didn’t already have a music player, it’s a practical, cost-effective alternative.
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