Motorola ROKR - Any opinions

R

RainyDay

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I'm trying to decide between the Motorola ROKR iTunes compatible phone, and the iTunes Nano. Has anyone got personal experiences of the ROKR to share? I'd really like a radio facility as well - Would this work with an ROKR purchased over here? Have I any options for using the ROKR to play tunes via the car stereo?
 
The ROKR has received unfavourable review(s) in recent weeks, I'm not sure where I saw it, possibly in the Irish Times.

I'm not sure about the headset, but I am aware that US car stereos don't work very well over here, i.e. mightn't be able to pick up all stations.
 
the ROKR has received bad reviews across the board. Also it can only hold 100 tunes. The best of the music phones appears to be the Sony W800i which holds about 500 tunes. See www.gsmarena.com for user reviews on these
I looked into this mself before eventually deciding to go with the the Ipod nano. If you want a radio with your ipod try this, [broken link removed]
 

The Motorola ROKR E1 is a good idea but the implementation is flawed - see ZDNet or any of the other reviews on the Net.

The Walkman-branded Sony Ericsson W800i or the upcoming W900i coming after Christmas or the [broken link removed] (unfortunately [broken link removed] until into 2006) do seem like good phone & music player combinations. Eventually, good phone and player hybrids will make owning a separate phone and iPod or MP3 player seem redundant.

I do however say eventually because there are a number of problems to be solved:

  1. Combined phones and MP3 players tend to be on the bulky side; certainly larger than a small flip-phone and iPod Nano.
  2. The user interface on the phones needs to be very good when using as an MP3 player - you need controls separate to the phone buttons, something like the iPod's clickwheel.
  3. The battery life is currently an issue - do you want to lose calls because you use up the battery playing music.
  4. Today's MP3 players still require PC & Internet access to load songs onto them. The telcos are more interested in allowing people to download music via 3G (and beyond) and this would certainly make these devices more appealing to the non-PC connected youth market. However, slow 3G speeds in reality and expensive tariffs (not to mention expensive phones) means that an iPod or MP3 player which is updated from a parent's PC is a cheaper option for most.
  5. The proliferation of non-compatible Digital Rights Management schemes should detract from the success of such devices due to the fear that the telcos have of content being stolen rather than downloaded. Apple is reluctant to open up its iPod (Protected AAC) format to other devices; Sony is going mad developing totally restrictive anti-copying software. People do not want to buy music and not be able to play it on other devices. If you already own an iPod and have bought music, you won't be able to play it on your Sony Walkman branded phone and vice versa. Not good.
My advice: stick to a separate phone and iPod if buying (be)for(e) Christmas but take a look at it again next year. The W900i or N91 or perhaps an updated ROKR phone could fit the bill then.
 
lynchtp said:
This may interest you..
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/08/razr_gets_itunes/
Click to expand...
In the What MP3 magazine included in this month's What Hi Fi, there is a comparison of MP3 Mobile Phones.

The [broken link removed] unsurprisingly did not fare well, due to the 100 song limit and the USB 1.1 cable being slow to transfer songs. Sound quality is not great either apparently.

The top of the group was the [broken link removed]
They called it the best music phone yet.

I have played with one and have to agree - it's a compelling choice if you are after a combined phone and audio player - you don't need a 3G phone.
Mind you, the upcoming looks even cooler - especially the swiveling MP3 player controls.
 
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