Motorola Rizr Z3: Hello slider

By Andrew Lim on 07 December 2006, 2:11pm

We've been lucky enough to get our tech-loving hands on one of the first Motorola Rizr Z3s in the UK. The Z3's design is inspired by the classic Razr V3, but this time it's a slider. The sliding mechanism is very smooth and the Z3 feels solid to hold.

It's much narrower than the V3, measuring 45mm wide, but a little taller (105mm) and thicker (16mm). The Z3 features a 2-megapixel camera with LED photo light and an MP3 player that supports AAC, AAC+ and AAC+ enhanced.

You can listen to your music using the proprietary headphones or your own stereo Bluetooth headphones. There's 20MB of on-board memory and an expandable microSD slot that can support up to 1GB of music or pictures. It also supports quad-band connectivity, so it should work anywhere in the world that uses a GSM network.

Our first impressions of the Z3 are good -- Motorola isn't renowned for making slider phones, but this isn't a bad offering.

Two initial niggles we have with the Z3's design: the lip at the bottom interferes with using the keypad, but any Razr veterans will be used to this. The other thing is that we would have liked the camera to have been hidden behind the slide mechanism, so that it was protected.

Aside from that though, we like what Motorola has done and if you're looking for a Razr-flavoured slider then this fits the bill. It's currently available for free on a monthly contract or for about £230 SIM-free. -AL

Update: a full preview of the Motorola Rizr Z3 is now live.