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Motorola ROKR E1
Price: £189 inc VAT with Virgin contract

Features
Performance
Ease of use
Value for money
Overall

Reviewed By: Robert Irvine

This review updated: 31/10/2005
Featured in magazine:
Issue 120
Manufacturer Contacts:
Supplier: Virgin Mobile
Tel: 0845 6000 600
Web Address: www.virginmobile.co.uk


Prior to its launch, the world's first iTunes phone was heralded as the way forward for portable audio, eliminating the need to carry around a separate MP3 player. Ironically, it has since been overshadowed by the ultra-slim iPod Nano, but the ROKR E1 remains a desirable all-in-one device for the mobile music lover.

Features
The phone's main selling point is that you can carry around and play 100 of your favourite songs in AAC or MP3 format, stored on the supplied 512MB memory card. Sadly, by today's standards, this isn't a great amount – between six and ten albums. And while iTunes offers more than one million tracks to choose from when the ROKR is connected to your computer, frustratingly you can't download any on the fly. However, we do like the way playback automatically pauses when you receive an incoming call. Other features are merely standard for a mid-range handset, such as a VGA camera, multimedia messaging, MPEG-4 player, Java games and web access.

Performance
Testing the ROKR with iTunes 5.0, we found that although it synchronised seamlessly with the software, music transfer over the USB connection was painfully slow, especially compared to its speedy iPod cousins. The interface on the phone itself also seems sluggish, with functions not responding instantly to their respective buttons. Much more impressive is the stereo sound, which is rich and crystal clear, far from the tinny audio of rival phones. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for its murky digital photos and video.

Ease of use
Aside from iTunes, one aspect that unites the ROKR with the iPod family is its simplicity. All the main options – Messaging, Phonebook, Multimedia and iTunes (which also has its own button) – can be accessed from the top menu level, while other features are logically located and the navigation joystick is small but thumb-friendly. The memory card slot is rather inconveniently positioned beneath both the battery and SIM card, though this annoyance certainly isn't unique to this phone.

Value for money
With VGA camera phones now available for as little as £70 and a 512MB iPod Shuffle only £69, the ROKR doesn't offer a massive saving on buying separate devices but scores points for convergence. Its closest competitor, the Sony Ericsson W800i Walkman, costs almost twice as much and doesn't work with iTunes but has the advantages of a 2-megapixel digital camera and 1GB expandable memory. Also, for a joint Motorola and Apple venture, the ROKR lacks the gorgeous gadget factor of the former's RAZR V3 handset and the latter's iPod.

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