Motorola Z9 Review - Design & Features

Design & Features

Like I said, Z9’s kind of a big phone.  Measuring up at 114 x 54 x 14 mm and weighing in at 140g, it’s a heck of a lot larger and heavier than other AT&T slider phones like the Sony Ericsson w850, which weighs just 94g, or just about one-third less than the Z9.  But I kind of like Z9’s heft.  If you don’t mind it taking up a little more room in your pocket or purse, Z9 rewards you with what I like to call a “luxurious heft.”  I never felt like this phone was going to creak, give, or otherwise break on me, and there was plenty of room between buttons and on the display.  It’s like driving a big luxury car - once you learn to embrace the size, you dwell in the security and comfort of all that length and weight.  And I never worried about the Z9 getting dinged or possibly breaking if I dropped it - it’s pretty solid and durable.

I liked the glossy burgundy finish of the Z9, though it proved to be a real fingerprint magnet.  The front panel is dominated by the 2.4” display and control array, which features a circular D-Pad that’s ringed by a raised ridge of silver plastic that provides good tactile feedback.  Flanking the D-Pad are six buttons: Two softkeys, and dedicated buttons for AT&T’s Media Mall, Back, Send, and Hang-Up/Power.  Motorola chose to use fairly tiny little raised circles for these buttons and the 12 keys on the dialing pad, but I had no problems using them.  The little silver dots are raised just enough to be easily found in the dark with a thumb, but are also mounted close enough to the phone’s surface to make it easy to mash on them.  I may not be the world’s fastest texter but the Z9’s keys didn’t slow me down at all.

MOTO and AT&T filled the Z9 up with features galore, including Opera for Web browsing, a media player backed by a microSD memory card slot, and access to almost all of the carrier’s multimedia services including Mobile Email and IM, CV Video, MobiTV, XM Radio, and AT&T’s music store.  A built-in A-GPS chip there’s also a 2MP camera with flash and video capture mode that turned out pretty decent images - a little better than your average cameraphone with the added benefit of the flash for shooting close-range photos in the dark.

Next: Usability & Performance »