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Verizon customers could consider themselves very lucky, because after LG Voyager, LG Dare and Samsung Glyde touchscreen phones, they will exclusively be given the chance to experience the brand new Motorola Krave ZN4. The phone has an eye-catching and unique design, with an innovative and responsive touch interface. It offers some amazing high-end features and rates favorably in call, photo and streaming quality.

The Motorola ZN4 resembles the MING series in its form factor, semi-transparent cover and the large touchscreen, which was released a year ago. Now, Motorola has brought a variant of the phone to the United States. Even if there are some complaints about it, as there’s still no WiFi and the Web browser takes acclimation, the Krave remains a sharp and satisfying device.

The Krave ZN4 sports one of the most distinctive cell phone designs around: it has a slim and compact shape, measuring 4.13 x 2.0 x 0.75-inch and weighing 4.59 ounces, a vibrant touch screen and transparent plastic cover that give the Krave a sleek and futuristic look. You might not understand the purpose of the cover, but Motorola explained that it’s designed not only to protect the touch display, but also to give Krave the aesthetics of a flip phone. Moreover, the cover is also usable: it’s in fact a secondary touch surface one can use to access a selection of features without flipping it open. You even get a bit of tactile feedback to help you press the right thing. This is possible due to an innovative mesh that is embedded in the cover, blending in with gray color of the screen so you have to hold it up to a light to see it. The same mesh also serves as a speaker, which again sits on one end of the cover.



But the cover’s touch surface doesn’t allow access to every feature, as the company made some research in this respect. As a consequence, the features which you can access this way include the music player, the VCast Mobile TV, the photo folder and the VZ Navigator feature.

Do you want to make voice dial calls without opening the cover? Forget about the Ming, Krave is the perfect solution for you. The only thing you should do is to press the control on the right spine and you can speak the name or phone number of the person you want to call. Keep in mind that starting a call with the cover closed, enables the audio through the speakerphone.

The 2.8 inches display supports 65,000 colors and a resolution of the 240 x 400 pixels. There’s a possibility for you to change the brightness, the backlight time, the clock format and the dialing font size. When you want to access the menu, you should tap the middle of the display.

The Krave ZN4’s touch interface is accurate and responsive with no lag time. In addition, the tactile feedback and the onscreen highlights show where you’re pressing and this is a great help, you have to admit it. There’s no stylus coming along with the phone, but it is very easy to navigate through the menus. Like many other touchscreen phones, you can browse through long lists by dragging your finger up and down the screen.



You can tap out messages using the standard nine-digit and Moto’s predicative text keypad, but the Krave also offers a full QWERTY keyboard, which is more convenient. Even if the display is rather small, it seems relatively spacious, but on the downside, holding the phone with two hands might be a little awkward, since you must reach your thumb around the open cover. As far as the numbers and additional symbols are concerned, they can be accessed through a secondary keyboard. The phone features an accelerometer which helps flipping between the standard and QWERTY keyboard, by rotating the phone.

On the left spine, there are a display-locking switch, a voice dialing control, a memory card slot and a camera shutter. On the other spine, there are a 3.5 mm headset jack, a volume rocker and a micro USB port, the latter accommodating the charger.

Krave’s phone book is limited as far as the size is concerned, due to the available memory, so each contact holds five phone numbers and two e-mail addresses. Callers can be saved to the Favorites list and they can be associated with a photo or one of the 24 polyphonic ringtones. Among other features, there are also a vibrate mode, text and multimedia messaging, a calendar, an alarm clock, a calculator, a notepad, a world clock and a tip calculator.



The Krave ZN4 features a stereo Bluetooth, voice dialing, USB mass storage, PC syncing and access to Verizon’s Visual Voicemail feature. On the other hand, you can always access Yahoo, Windows Live, AOL, AIM and Verizon.net POP3 accounts. The Krave is an EV-DO phone, so it supports Verizon’s V Cast streaming service. Options and channels resemble other V Cast phones, but in addition the Crave offers a tweaked interface to go along with its unique design. You can choose between the portrait and the landscape mode to watch clips by using the accelerometer. For music lovers, there is the , to download clips over the air. Once you downloaded the tracks, the service will recommend more songs based on your purchase.

The phone is provided with a 2-megapixel camera which lack editing features. The only option is a digital zoom, so don’t put your hopes too up, ‘cause you won’t be able to change the resolution or the color tone. As far as the clips are concerned, those meant for multimedia messages are limited to 20 seconds, but you can record for a full hour in standard mode.

You can take photos with bright color and little image noise, but there’s no flash, so you’ll need adequate lighting. On the upside, Krave makes it possible for you to view photos as a slideshow: all you have to do is to turn the phone on its side, switch the feature on and watch your shots in succession. The pictures you took can be transferred to a computer or printer via Bluetooth or a USB cable, sent in a multimedia message or stored in an online album.

If you’re that certain type of person who tends to get lost whenever he has the chance, Verizon’s VZ Navigator service might give you a helping hand through audible directions, local traffic and maps and a searchable points-of-interest database.

The Krave’s Web browser integrates well with the touch interface when the phone is on the upside. It’s accurate and the response time is quick. In addition, there’s a unique tool in its browser: when you’re browsing through a page, a circular icon with an arrow at its top end appears on the display and can be used as a cursor.

The Krave is provided with a dualband, dualmode (CDMA: 800 / 1900; EV-DO) which ensures clear conversations with no static, interference or face-outs.

The battery life is of about 4.2 hours talk time and 20.8 days standby time. The Krave ZN4 is already available through Verizon Wireless for $150 after rebates and new contract.

(Source phonearea.net)