The 2-megapixel camera takes pictures in four resolutions (1,600x200, 1,280x960, 640x480, 320x240) and three quality settings. Other camera settings include self-timer, five shutter sounds with a silent option, five lighting options, six color tones, exposure metering, and an 8x zoom. Fortunately there's a flash, but with no self-portrait mirror, vanity shots will be tricky. Picture quality was decent but not without its flaws. While our images were mostly sharp with adequate lighting, the color weren't very bright. Also, some smaller objects could be blurry. The camcorder shoots clips with sound in three resolutions (320x240, 176x144 and 128x96) and three video quality settings. Videos meant for multimedia messages are capped at 30 seconds; otherwise, you're limited only by the available memory. Internal storage is a decent 45MB but you can add a microSD card for more space. And as with all Moto camera phones, a convenient meter tells you how much internal memory is available.
Basic offerings include a vibrate mode, text and multimedia messaging, a calendar, an alarm clock, a world clock, a calculator, a speakerphone, and a voice recorder. On the higher end, you'll find stereo Bluetooth, voice dialing, e-mail, and instant messaging. Also, you can use the Z9 to send voice messages directly to another cell phone.
The Z9's phone book accommodates a generous 2,000 entries (the SIM card holds an additional 250 names). Each contact holds six phone numbers, three e-mail addresses, a URL, three street addresses, a nickname, and a birthday. For caller ID you can match callers with a photo and one of 25 polyphonic ringtones and alert tones. Three caller groups are available as well.
You can personalize the Z9 with a selection of ringtones, wallpaper, color skins, themes, screensavers, and function tones. More options are available for download through the Opera 8.5 wireless Web browser. Gamers get demo versions of four titles: Lumines, Scrabble Blast, Tower Bloxx, and Super KO Boxing. You'll have to buy the full versions for extended play. And for your business needs, the Z9 offers a Mobile Banking application.
Performance
We tested the quadband (GSM 850/900/1800/1900; WCDMA 850/1900) Motorola Z9 world phone in San Francisco using T-Mobile service. Thanks to Moto's CrystalTalk feature, the handset's call quality was very good, particularly the volume level. In fact, it was the best we've heard from an AT&T phone in a long time. The noise-canceling feature automatically adjusts the sound level to compensate for the surrounding noise. We could hear our callers with no trouble even outside on a busy street. Voices sounded natural as well and we encountered no interference or static. We also had no issues getting a signal.
On their end callers said they could hear us fine. In fact, at times they couldn't tell we were using a cell phone. On a few occasions callers said we sounded a bit tinny, but that was far from a universal assessment. Automated calling systems understood us most of the time, but we encountered more trouble if we were in a noisy environment.
Speakerphone calls weren't quite a satisfactory. Though calls were clear, the volume level could be rather soft unless we stood close to the phone.
The Z9's 3G reception was solid for the most part, but we wish the connection was more reliable. While some Web pages and videos loaded quickly, others took noticeably longer. There didn't seem to be a pattern to the performance but it definitely varied over the course of our test period. Videos were quite decent. We never had to pause to rebuffer, and none of our videos froze while playing. Of course, videos could be a bit fuzzy, but that's not surprising for streaming media. All videos are Real Player enabled.
Music quality also was agreeable. Though the main speaker is on the Z9's rear face, it does have powerful output and clear audio. The music experience was even better when using a headset. Also on the audio side, the sound matched the speaker's mouth in videos.
The Z9 has a rated battery life of four hours talk time and up to 13 days standby time. Though the standby time is respectable, the promised talk time is relatively low for a GSM phone. According to FCC radiation tests, the Z9 has a digital SAR
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