Motorola Rizr Z6tv review (black, Verizon Wireless)

The 2-megapixel camera lets you take pictures in portrait or landscape modes. It also includes an 8x zoom, self-timer, brightness and white balance settings, four color effects, and a selection of fun frames to dress up your pictures. Unlike the Rizr Z3, the Z6tv's camera doesn't include a flash, which is a feature we expect on a 2-megapixel camera phone. Like the Z3, the picture quality was disappointing, resulting in blurry images with flat colors. The Z6tv comes with about 56MB of onboard memory, but you can add up to 2GB of extra storage with a microSD card. The Z6tv also shoots video in two resolutions and it comes with a set of editing options similar to the still camera.

Performance
We tested the dualband (CDMA 800/1900; EV-DO) Rizr Z6tv in the Chicago area using Verizon Wireless service. Call quality was very good with little background hiss. Callers reported no trouble hearing us and even noted how clear we sounded using the speakerphone. On our end, the speakerphone tended to get distorted at high volumes during calls. As for Bluetooth, we successfully paired the Z6tv with a Plantronics Discovery 610 headset and were able to beam contacts between the Rizr Z6tv and a Samsung SPH-A640 cell phone.

When watching V Cast Mobile TV, however, the speaker was loud and clear enough for us to hear voices even when we were outdoors with heavy traffic going by. Provided you're able to get a strong signal, V Cast TV quality is excellent, with no lag between video and audio. As was the case with other V Cast phones, we had trouble getting TV reception indoors. But this shouldn't be an issue if you use this feature while on the go.

We were also impressed with the speed of Verizon's EV-DO service. It took about 60 seconds to download a 3-minute song. Music playback was clear with a set of Shure earbuds, but with no bass or treble adjustments, tunes tend to sound a bit flat.

The Motorola Rizr Z6tv has a rated battery life of 5 hours of talk time and 15.6 days of standby time. According to FCC radiation tests, the Rizr has a SAR rating of 1.35 watts per kilogram.