by Sali Earls
The Motorola ROKR was launched as the iTunes phone. Convergence has meant that we've had phones with MP3 players for sometime, but at last Apple fans can get their hands on a gadget that enables them to listen to music on the move, while carrying out all the other normal functions you come to expect from a mobile phone.
It should be pointed out that the review unit did not come with any instructions, so some of the issues encountered were as a result of not knowing what to do, rather than poor functionality.
The text, as standard, appears in blue on a pictured background, so this is a little hard to read at times.
The menus were slow to navigate, and became even slower when playing music, which was frustrating.
Using the phone, I can't help feeling that they should have put the iTunes wow factor in the far more attractive and modern Motorola RAZR format - but that's just my opinion.
This is not a criticism of the phone in any way.
The line quality was average when tested on a couple of occasions, with callers mentioning a slight echo after speaking, but this is the case with many mobile devices.
VGA resolution is a good size for emailing snaps, and the quality is good in the right lighting conditions.
The camera is not remarkable, but compares well with others that we have tried. It can also be used to take short videos, and will meet the requirements of most people.
The iTunes software is fairly easy to use with the fiddly joystick, allowing you to create your own playlists and organise your collection.
The ROKR comes with some nice, fashionably white headphones and a remote control to operate some parts of the phone including the iTunes functionality.
However when first trying this out, I did manage to make a phone call rather than play a tune.
The Virgin WAP site is very much aimed at the young market, is colourful and bright and much "funkier" than the other network providers offer.
The Motorola ROKR is a nice phone. The one thing that stands out is it's ability to interface to iTunes.
This means that tunes you have bought can be downloaded fairly easily to your phone, but it's a pity that you cannot connect to iTunes and buy and download tunes to the phone, on the go.
The sound quality is extremely good and on a par with the best of standalone MP3 players.
I found the interface a little too cluttered to be really useful. On such a small screen you really need simplicity.