p2pnet - rss feed: Rokr iPhone gets so-so marks
p2p news / p2pnet:- Apple’s - or, rather, Motorola’s - latest wunderkind somewhat underwhelmed Chicago Tribune technology editor Eric Benderoff
He predicts the Rokr E1 iPod, due on the shelves today at $250 with a mandatory with a two-year service contract, will be winner because it’s easy. And he says, “With the headphones on - included with the phone from Cingular - the sound quality is on par with an iPod” although, “Without the headphones, the music sounds like it comes from a mobile phone.”
But Benderoff lists a number of drawbacks:
- It has iPod ‘technology’ built in, but it’s not as intuitive or as simple to set up, “based on a brief test Wednesday”
- It only holds about 100 songs (although it does include a camera)
- It didn’t “set up immediately on two different laptops, one a Mac and the other a Dell running Windows XP. A call to a technician finally solved the issue, but the delays for this reviewer - fluent in all things iPod - were frustrating”
- And, “transferring songs from a computer to an iPod is a simple drag-and-drop operation handled in seconds (unless you have set to automatically update, which is also fast). But a drag-and-drop transfer from the Dell to the Rokr was excruciatingly slow, taking minutes for just two songs”
Benderoff points out that he did the demo with a Cingular exec and didn’t know if the difficulties were down to the the exec’s laptop (“this reviewer’s iBook never did recognize the phone”)
Thereafter, however, he gives the phone good marks.
- When a call comes in, the music stops and to allow the phone’s usual ring
- The menu is much like the iPod’s software
- Movement among options is via the phone’s joystick
- iTunes access is through a separate function button
He doesn’t say what the power-draw is while you’re listening to music.
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See:-
Chicago Tribune - Rokr a hit, with reservations, September 8, 2005
September 9th, 2005 at 4:59 am
It’s not an iPod Phone or “iPhone”. It’s not even an Apple phone. It’s a phone with iTunes load on to it. This is an example of iTunes licensing by Apple, not a Apple branded phone.
Apple +2 points for licensing it’s technology.
Moto +1 points for liccensing Apple’s technology.
Moto -1 points for an “iPod Killer” design on par with attempts by Sony or Creative.
Cingular 0 points for being a leach.
This is not an “iPhone” but either way it’s a win for Apple as it enters the wireless space with the best music software on a iTunesPhone.
The iPhone is yet to come.