Customer Reviews

Motorola MOTO Z9 Phone, Mahogany Red (AT&T) Version 1

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This phone has to be the best slider phone I have ever used. Its functionality is truly amazing. My one recommendation to anyone who buys this is to purchase the unlimited data package for an extra $15 a month because then you can access CV (no extra charge, use Opera Mobile 8 as much as you want (its included free and its an amazing web browser, rivaling Safari Mobile on the iPhone and iPod Touch. It can also view flash so you can view youtube or flash-based websites. It includes AT&T's GPS service which can useful for those times on trips when you need to get somewhere in a cab and the cabdriver needs directions (i.e. someone's house) and you can easily direct them there, plus you can always download Google Maps. It has an okay email feature, but I just downloaded the GMail app and it works great. I had an A737 before this and it had "3G" and the reason I put quotes is that it was very slow for supposedly having 3G. THis phone is a great improvement over it and one of the best improvements is in its screen. It's big, beautiful, and vibrant. The keys aren't divided but have little metal knobs to help you find your way around the keyboard, but they aren't the keys themselves. This confused me when I first saw the phone. The side buttons vibrate when you use them, which is very nice. I think more phones (like the iPhone) could use vibration feedback. WHen you listen to music music control symbols appear on the nav wheel (play/pause, skip forward/back). I think the use of lights is awesome and that they should do this on more phones. The phone is heavy (a little less than half a pound, give our take) which makes the phone feel very solid in my big hands. The slider feels especially solid and this is a big plus because I'm always scared the slider will break. All in all this has to be actually the best phone I've ever owned (Motorola RAZR v3, Motorola KRZR k1, Samsung A737). In addition to these phones I own a 16 gb iPod Touch and two of my sisters own iPhones, as do 3 of my friends so I have the experience and I can judge, and I can confidently say that no 3G, no GPS (Google Maps is a free download), no downloads from Safari, no mobile TV, recessed headphone jack, no physical keyboard (QWERTY or numeric), no video recording, no vibrating feedback, no expandable memory and NO REPLACEABLE BATTERY (COME ON APPLE I DON"T WANT TO SEND MY IPHONE TO CHINA TO GET A NEW FREACKIN' BATTERY!) make the iPhone still a piece of work. It has a great UI and awesome multi-touch screen and Safari is as good if not better than Opera Mobile 8, but I can't help the feeling that I'm really buy an iPod with a phone slapped on, because all of my issues were phone related and not iPod related. Because of the awesome UI and multi-touch I picked up a 16 gb iPod Touch without spending extra money and taking the plunge with a 2-year iPhone contract. If the second one fixes at least 50% of those problems and adds some cool new features I'll probably pick it up. Enough about my iPhone rant. Let's get to the Pro's and Con's.

PROS:
-GPS
-Vibrating feedback
-Sturdy feel and slider
-Gorgeous screen
-Changing buttons due to lights
-3G
-Cellular Video
-Includes Opera Mobile 8 for free
-Knobs to guide your fingers
-Good quality photos, and I'm not just saying that I've been around many other 2 MP cameras and they sucked big time (iPhone, Blackjack II, etc.)
-Fantastic call quality, an again I've been around bad quality phones and especially speakerphones (iPhone, T-Mobile Shadow, etc.). There are a lot of bad speakerphones out there.
-Stereo Bluetooth support
-Easy, familiar UI
-Roomy keyboard

CONS:
-Micro SD card impossible to get out! It took some serious work!
-Not much different than other Motorola's (RAZR, KRZR, ROKR, RIZR, SLVR)

Even though it's not too far off from the RAZR-ie phones it's a great, solid phone and everything works and works well. It's stylish and eye-catching yet functional. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

I have been using this phone for a week and the Z9 is a very solid phone with excellent features. I use it primarily for calling, music and pictures.
Calls sound a bit muffled from the ear speaker, but overall good quality.
Music sounds fantastic for a phone coming from the speaker on the back.
Pictures are of good quality when taken outdoors. Indoors they are a bit grainy and the "flash" does not really help. In fact it just makes things like a bit more blue.
Overall, good phone. I would recommend it to others.

I got spoiled a bit by my LG CU500, and that's the first phone that I used a lot of features on. It's my basis of comparision. I used that phone for calls, texting, photos, and limited browsing, in that order.

What I like about the Z9:

Reception:
The Z9 performs quite well as a plain old phone. It gets great reception, it sounds good on both ends. The phone book is intuitive and easy to use. The speakerphone is decent. The stock ringtones are all boring but they're LOUD. The "Vibrate" setting is a little subtle for my tastes. Since this gadget is primarily a phone and it does that job excellently, I'm going to keep this phone even though a number of other features are making me crazy.

Build Quality:
It's a classy color and an attractive design. It's weighty and has an executive look to it. The slider operates smoothly.

Connectivity:
I also like the connectivity of this phone. I put in my Micro SD card and it was immediately recognized. I plugged the Z9 into a USB port on my desktop and (after switching it to USB in the Connectivity menu) had immediate access to the files on my phone. I bought a Jabra BT3030 and was up and running in less than two minutes.

Music:
The music player on this phone is nice, there's the option to sort music into albums and create playlists. There's also Spatial Audio, Shuffle, and Bass Boost. The music player is controllable with a Bluetooth headset. I did find that songs created as custom ringtones were too loud to listen to through the earbuds on my Jabra, so my SoundForge settings will have to be different for MP3s. I like my ringtones LOUD because I work outside with a lot of ambient noise, and I also like to leave my phone in one room of my house and then wander off. But I want to be able to hear when I'm sixty, so I won't be listening to super-loud MP3's on my headset.

Browsing:
The big bright display makes browsing fun. The G3 network is fast, and the phone cheerily and quickly downloads all sorts of big graphic files. Between the better browsing capabilities and the issues with picture texts (see below) I was well over my data usage limits within two weeks of buying this phone. Hmpf.



What I hate:

The camera:
The camera takes blurry photos at every distance I've tried. You can take big blurry photos or small blurry photos, but if you take a big blurry photo, you can't crop it down before you send it. As far as I can tell there is absolutely no photo editing software on this phone, which means you can't crop, rotate, change contrast or color balance, and it means if you want to send a picture text, you're sending (and paying for) the entire file. I find the camera on this phone to be almost unuseable.

Texting:
Texting - This phone is so big that it's impossible to text with one hand; welcome to the ranks of the Chipmunks. Two-handed texting is still cumbersome, because the T9 dictionary on this phone doesn't make sense to me - there's no logic to it that I can see. For example: I type "I" and get "it", "IN" gets me "instead" and if I type "INST" I get "hosted". I'm trying to get used to typing with both thumbs so I'm looking at the keyboard, and when I look up, T9 has produced a bunch of random nonsense because it sometimes chooses the longest word it can think of. It also hasn't learned that if I press the punctuation key and then 7, I expect to see "apostrophe S". It seems to learn about half of the combinations I use frequently. There's about three times as much futzing that needs to be done to send a text with this phone as on my last one. I used to be able to text one-handed and without actually looking at the phone until right before I hit Send.

Also, if I scan through my Outbox, I can't tell who I've sent the texts to, unless I open the text up, and then go to Message Status. Which is ridiculous.

Games:
I downloaded EA Tetris, and every time I went to open the game, it wanted to access the network to check my license. I was already wary of data overages, so one time I told it never to access the network again, and it hung up every time I tried to open the game after that, saying it "couldn't access the network". When I reinstated its permissions, EA said my "subscription was expired". I paid for the full-blown game! I've seen online that another person with the Z9 had the same problem with the same game.

Weight:
This thing is heavy. It's nicely made, as I said, and feels substantial, but the extra mass makes me very scared for the moment when I (inevitably) drop this phone on pavement.

The ear speaker:
Is pretty small and if you let the phone shift slightly while you're talking, suddenly you can't hear the other person. You have to be overly precise about holding this phone to your ear and then not move it from that spot. So you can't use your shoulder to hold this phone to your ear - which means one hand will always be tied up, unless you go Bluetooth. (The speaker on my CU500 was really big.)

I don't know about:
The GPS service, mobile email.

UPSHOT:
It's excellent at calls, bad for texting, horrible for photos, great for browsing (too great), and surprise! the music player is a nice bonus. Doesn't make up for the texting issues but I'll take it anyway.

After agonizing about buying an Iphone or other smart phone (and having to pay an extra $30/month for a data plan), I realized that what I really needed was a phone to which I could add my Outlook Contacts and Calendar info above all, and do emailing. This phone does all that (with add'l software; see #2 below) and more, and has a ton of features (including voice dialing, which the iPhone doesn't, and recognizes any name in the address book...you don't have to record individual voice tags).

I do have three recommendations:

1) Buy the Unlimited Media plan (only $15/month on AT&T) - you'll be browsing quickly with this phone and you don't want to pay for unit charges.

2) Most importantly - buy SyncCell software. This amazing software ($25) allows Motorola phone users (and a few others) to sync their Outlook contacts and calendar from their PC screens (no Mac) directly to the phone via usb cable. Think about it - no having to hit those tiny little keys to enter names, phone numbers and calendar info one at a time...just highlight and transfer!!

2) And lastly, buy the 8GB micro SD card - I've already loaded over 40 CDs and 600 tracks, and have only used 3GB of space.

(note:previous comments under Gerry as to how I actually got this phone)

In the midst of waiting for this phone I had purchased an LG Shine for my niece....which she promptly "got stole" aka lost. I had another Shine delivered to my house. I was vacillating myself between the Z9 and a black Shine. I almost changed my order to the Shine because I could not fathom waiting 2-8 weeks for this phone. I waited 1 1/2 weeks and it was getting unbearable (I lack the patience gene). So I have been playing with her Shine. Or should I say...cussing the hell out of this Shine. I can't transfer anything to the memory card! The phone is fairly solid but not quite solid enough. It has beautiful graphics, but the exterior gets dirty easily. So considering what I've spent so far, it's a bust. It's nice enough but not awesome.

So I get my Z9 today. Menus seem clear and simple enough. I'm coming off 5 previous Nokias over the past 10 years, my last Nokia was a 6102i and let me say if they had put an SD card slot on it it would have been perfection for me. I really do love my Nokia and I like simple, easy to use phones with a hint of fun. But it's obsolete with its 4MB memory (I wish I was joking). The screen is beautiful. I put in my 4 GB microSD card...not nar a problem, it has easily been recognized by my computer and is ready to go (it's downloading as we speak!) The exterior is nice, the color really is not as bright red as you see in these pictures, it's very rich looking. I'm not having any problems with the keyboard (the Shine bugs me more with the lip at the bottom). I think this is a wonderful upgrade, really nice introduction to Motorola for me, the RAZRs just didn't catch my eye but this phone has a very classy look to it.

I put my little case on it to keep it clean and it snapped right on. I put my SIM card in and it's been nothing but go! I'm foreseeing good things with this phone, I even signed up for a Media Net bundle. I think I made a good choice.

I took a star away because it is rocking a bit on the hinges and that made me uneasy. Still not as unsturdy as the SHINE. Also it has a tendency to want to get really, really dirty already.

I really love my Motorola z9. It is a beautiful phone and the color is rich and beautiful! The screen color is clear and bright. There are a lot of great features that are great about this phone. Motorola could have added a few more ring tones there is almost no selection. And it totally sucks that I can't use itunes so i basically can't use the music player because i would have to buy all new songs. and who wants to do that?
I gave this phone 4 stars because the battery sucks. I literally got this phone last friday 08-08-08 and it is only the 12th and i have had to charge it at least 4 times. i can't talk as much as it says that i can which is annoying. but other than that this is a great phone.

oh yeah, i also ordered this on amazon.com thinking that i could extend my contract and instead of extending my contract they signed me up for a new account. so they were going to charge me for an entire new account PLUS my old one. so i quickly canceled the order and ended up going to an at&t store. so be careful when your order from amazon. make sure they aren't setting up a new account but that they are just extending yours (for current customers). good luck!

This trendy looking phone looks great and works wonderfully as long as you're willing to keep the back cover on using some tape. I had to return mine because I couldn't deal with pulling my new phone held together with masking tape out in public ...or private. :-( Both my son and I got the same phone on two different dates and both phones had the same problem. Design problem here? I'm out hunting for another phone that's well put together.

I love, love, love my new Motorola phone! Looks great and it's made solid. I've dropped it a couple of times and it didn't even get a scratch. The music recognition program is so neat, but there's a monthly fee. Navigation program is great...but there's a monthly fee. I downloaded Google Maps, it works fine...for free.

I got this phone from Amazon in August and still love it. I love the larger size, slightly heavier weight (than other cell phones), fit, and finish. I have big hands and hate how small some cell phones are. I put an 8 GB memory card in it and it holds tons of songs, pictures, ringtones, etc, with room to spare. The sound quality can't be beat. I hear people loud and clear and they hear me. Paired with a Motorola 700 series Bluetooth headset (from Costco), it works flawlessly. No one ever complains about background noise. The screen size is bright and clear. The camera feature takes decent pictures but its not a true replacement for a digital camera. It will get you by if needed though. Recorded videos have a wave effect if you don't hold the phone steady, but overall great audio recording abilities. I have not used the GPS feature. I only text a few messages per day and it takes some getting used to with the keys. The keys are small metal buttons that you push. After a while you become used to it. I think I would want a full QWERTY keyboard if I did a lot of texting.

The top of the phone is shiny which can lead to it being slippery. The back has a somewhat tacky feel to it. I ended up purchasing a black rubberized grip phone protector that snaps to the front and back of this phone (purchased on Amazon). I wouldn't use the phone without one because it is an expensive phone to drop and I would hate to scratch it!

The phone remains locked if it is in the closed position. This avoids accidentally calling people. To answer it you just slide it open and/or hit the green answer button. The slider has a very solid feel to it. The best way to describe it is that it feels like solid metal pieces compared to plastic pieces of cheaper sliders.

This phone was great when the power goes out because you can shuffle through your music and it has a decent sounding speaker. You can also use the camera "flash", which is really just a bright LED light, as a flashlight if you need one.

Due to the shininess of the front of the phone, I found it easiest to clean off oil and fingerprints by wiping the phone down with a microfiber towel. Battery power is good. If you don't talk a whole lot, it will last you several days. If you talk moderate to a lot and/or listen to music through the speaker, then of course you will have to charge it more often. The phone can be charged over your USB port on your computer. Pick up a car charger for a few bucks and you'll always be able to charge it.

I haven't had any problems with dropped calls through AT&T with this phone which is a big change from my prior Sony Ericson z525a (worst phone ever).

If you want a nice looking solid built phone with great call quality and nice features, then this phone is for you. If you want to text all day long or play a ton of games, then you might want something else.

I have received a Damaged phone , i was not able to put the battery cover. Amazon has replaced the phone . But the same problem with the replacement phone with some exceptions little bit of better than the other one. Seems to be some genuine problem with the phone or may the products with amazon.

The battery life is poor.