Motorola Krave ZN4

The new Motorola Krave ZN4 for Verizon Wireless offers the same basic design that resembles a Star Trek communicator, but it adds more features while offering innovative design tweaks to an intuitive and easy-to-use touch interface.

The sexy Motorola Krave ZN4 makes a great little portable TV, and incorporates some genuinely innovative touch-screen technology. Motorola have taken the Motorola MING concept a stage further and are aiming it at a market other than China. This is a good news for us. But in the other hand, Motorola KRAVE ZN4 is aimed at Verizon’s CDMA network in the US and anyone else who’s interested will just have to do without.


There are some problems of Motorola Krave ZN4. The bar for touch-screen phones has been raised considerably recently. With the iPhone, the LG Dare, the Samsung Instinct, the T-Mobile G1, and the BlackBerry Storm out there, just having a touch screen isn’t enough anymore. A handset needs to offer fresh software, too. And the Krave’s software feels old—functional but stale.

At first glance, the Motorola KRAVE ZN4 looks like just another touchscreen phone, but with an added plastic cover. But the clear plastic cover isn’t exactly what it appears to be, because the cover itself is touch-sensitive and has almost-invisible electronic circuitry embedded in it. This dual-touch technology is certainly very clever.

The KRAVE ZN4 presents a full menu on a large 2.8″ 240 x 400 pixel display, but close the lid and the menu options get much simpler and the effective display shrinks down to 240 x 320 pixels. So, most basic operations can be carried out with the cover closed. Another clever feature is that the “M” logo on the cover acts as a speaker when the ZN4 is open.

Other features include a 2MP camera, VCast Mobile TV (MediaFLO), HTML browser, EVDO Rev A, Bluetooth, microSDHC memory card slot, and a microUSB port.

Pros: Responsive touchscreen interface. Cool design with the clear flip and invisible wiring. Great navigation features.

Cons: User interface feels half-baked. Some static during calls. Reception problems with V Cast Mobile TV service. Lousy Web browser with strange pointer tool. Aging messaging and music playback apps.