Motorola KRZR K1m -- Send it back.

What's up with all these people on the phone forums, like Howard's, and on the tech review sites like C-net talking about the Moto's being great phones. It turns out, apparently, that either they are only talking about the "phone" function itself or that they have, again apparently, never used an LG or Samsung phone.

Verizon seems to be figuring out that this phone is a loser as two days ago they started dumping it for $20 on a new contract. That's close. This would be a terrific twenty-dollar phone w/ no strings attached. (Watch: this one will be the "and get three free" in a week or two.)

Here are a few details where the KRZR V1m works or lets the user down.

The good things about KRZR:

1. The phone call quality is excellent. Crisp sound, clear to the person I called and clear to me. A nice touch is just a bit of audio feedback of my voice to me as with regular landline phone.
   
2. It's very pretty and slim and pretty much unobtrusive in a pants pocket.
   
3. The sound from the external "speaker" on the back of the phone is clear.
   
4. You can assign all four direction keys to perform the functions that you want.
   
5. The 30-day satisfaction-guaranty return policy.

The not-so-good or just plain bad things:

1. Slow. Everything this phone does is slow. The user has to wait for this phone to do things.
   • Example: On the KRZR and on every other Motorola phone I've looked at in the last few weeks, the menu does not appear until about a second after you release the menu/OK key. On the LG or Samsung phones we have or have tried this month, the menu appears instantly when press the key. It seems like maybe not so big a deal except that it happens with most of the menu keys and you start to realize that you actually are waiting for the phone to act. (Again; not so -- or not perceptibly so -- on the rival phones.)

   • Example: taking a picture. I have phones that are two or three years older than this one -- technology wise -- that snap a picture faster and then store it in half the time of this one.

   • Example: sending a TXT or PIC message. The Motorola phones are slow at sending messages. No explanation; just very, very slow at making the connection and then actually transmitting the message. We experimented sending the same short TXT message from the same location from the KRZR and from an old LG VX8100 and from a really old Samsung SCH-650. From pressing "Send" to the "success" the older phones were between 4 and 7 seconds, but the Motorola KRZR was generally between 10 and 20 (Twenty!) seconds and once almost 40 seconds. No reason given; just slow.

2. Silly slow. Extra keystrokes required for no reason.
   
   • Example: "Speed dial". In the real world of cell phones (such as LG and Samsung) to speed dial you press the number(s) for your speed dial entry and then press "Send" to start the call. Not so with Motorola.
     
     
     
     • On planet Moto to "Speed dial" means that you must press the pound key ("#") after the numbers but before "Send".

     • If you just press, say, "99" and "Send", the Motorola phone will actually connect the phone and try to dial 9-9. What you actually get, of course, is an airtime billed call to an earful of non-functioning-number tones and a machine voice declaring that the number doesn't work.

     • (Note to Motorola: adding key-presses is the opposite of "speed". Lose the pound.)

3. Keyboard: too small. Really, it's too much interaction between keys and a layout that puts the key that you really don't want under the edge of your thumb. Like something that will cause your TXT msg to be cancelled and deleted and never to be seen again unless you start from scratch to re-enter it.

4. Camera is fuzzy. Ok; really fuzzy. It has a funny trick where if you hold it on a piece of rigid furniture for steadiness and push the button very, very carefully; the picture still comes out looking like you had the shakes. It will look clear in the little screen before you take the picture but not after you snap the picture. Weird. Doesn't matter what resolution your have it set on... it's always fuzzy. Exposure is weird too. Don't get this phone if you need usable photos from it.

5. Camera is slow. painfully slow.

6. USB drivers don't work. It seems that Verizon and Motorola know this, but promotions for the phone still say that you can hook up to Windows Media Player on XP or Vista computers. I didn't try Vista. XP is more likely to work, right? No go. NG. Nada. Tried every official and unofficial driver that I could find on the 'web. None work. Most barely got the phone recognized, but none actually worked.

   
   

7. Silly user interface flaws and aggravations.
   
   • Example: Calendar -- can't change the date of an event nor can you copy an event to a. You must delete the event from the one place and then re-enter it entirely on the new date. (Note to Motorola: don't know about where you work, but in the real world meetings do get changed.)
     
   • Example: Rings too loud. Can't set volume for rings and alerts separately and, except for switching to vibrate, the volume control seems to have little or no effect on ringtone volume.

   • Example: Can't delete "all" contacts. No way to just wipe the address book clean. One of the reasons that is important is that you ...

   • Can't reassign speed dial numbers. "Huh?", you say. No really; there is no real practical way to reassign speed dial numbers. You see...
     1. Motorola assigns every phone number and email address entry a speed dial number That's error #1. Not just every entry, but every phone number, including faxes and beepers and, also, email & IM addresses. So you could enter one person and already be on speed dial number 3, 4, 5, or 6 by the time you get to person number two.
     2. If you load your contact list from Verizon's back up service, all of your speed dial assignments are thrown away (thanks Verizon) and your Motorola buddy assigns new ones in the order that the phone numbers arrive from the back up service. That's error #2.
     3. If one of your now rearranged numbers needs to be reassigned to your preferences (you have preferences?), you can't just change it to the speed dial number that you would prefer because somebody else has already been assigned that one. Instead you must: reassign the usurper in, say, #2 to a high number that has not yet been assigned (like #573 or so) and then you can change the phone number you want into the vacated #2 spot. Really. I'm serious. (Error #3.)
     4. Now; if you've downloaded your whole contact list from the backup service, you can reassign a few numbers to the low numbers that you desire, and then re-download the rest and let them be assigned by the Moto god. Except.... (now go back to the "no way to clear the contact list" problem.) (Error #4.)
     That's four errors of design in the contact list so far. There are more, but this is enough, isn't it? Just stop here and just dwell on these.

   • Example: classy heat sensitive music controls on front panel. Very pretty, very sexy and quite sensitive. And no way to lock them out. So when you're playing music, don't put the phone in your pocket or on your belt or any place where you might graze it with your hand or finger or arm or leg (including through thin pocket cloth) because you'l be changing the tune or stopping or starting or jumping back or any combination of things that end up sounding like the skips on a portable CD player being used for a Frisbee.

   • Example: memory card is under the battery cover. Because the USB drivers don't work you'll need to load your music card or unload your photos (if you care to -- see "camera is fuzzy") by putting the phone's memory card in your computer card slot. You have to remove the battery cover, flip up a rubber pad gizmo that is clearly not designed to be used alot, and use your finger nail to coax the tiny memory card out of it's slot. Not fun nor "easy". (Note: to Motorola, serve no products before they are used by your own employees in every feature.)

   • Example: can't use photos that are on the memory card as "wallpaper". So if you default to storing your photos on the card, as only makes sense, then you have to move it to the phone in order to use it to decorate your phone or to cheer yourself up about this phone-lump in your hand.

   • Example: If you close the phone case with the camera turned on, the camera will remain on and sucking battery. This is supposed to be so that you can take self portraits using the tiny, tiny, tiny screen on the front as a vewfinder. If you turn on the camera with the case closed so that you can do those self portraits ... oh wait, you can't do that. ( ? ) You have to open the case to turn on the camera. If you would like to leave the case open while you make those self-portraits, so that you have more phone to hold steady, well then the outside screen will not be functioning as a view finder. Huh? Can this really be happening?
     
   • This list could go on, but to avoid kicking a phone when it is down, I'll stop this part of it here.
     

   Bottom line: I'm sending my KRZR back to Verizon. I will not be tempted by Motorola prettiness again. I will stick with LG or Samsung and will enjoy phones that work and that do what they say they will and do a few unexpected things that just make sense. Phones from planet earth.