[GSMarena]
Well, the Motorola ZN5 is finally official - the 5 megapixel handset, which is co-branded by Kodak, offers some original cameraphone features that are bound to give shutterbugs a fair share of restless nights.
Information and photos of the Motorola ZN5 leaked online numerous times and we are glad to see it officially posted now. It turns out that the ZN5 is the first handset to be produced under the MOTOZINE lineup, which will be Motorola's new label for multimedia-rich devices. If all goes well, we hope to see more devices under that sub-brand.
The MOTOZINE ZN5 is a smartphone based on the Linux OS and runs on a Freescale 500MHz processor. All recently leaked Motorola phones seem to use that OS and that makes us wonder what happened to UIQ ones - Motorola used to be highly involved with UIQ technology in the past.
With the ZN5 users will enjoy a 2.4-inch QVGA TFT display and Wi-Fi connectivity. Stereo Bluetooth (A2DP), 3.5mm audio/video jack (TV-out), FM radio, microSD card slot and some 350MB of memory are also on board.
The touch-sensitive morphing keypad, called ModeShift and first introduced in Motorola E8, is also present here. It's got haptic feedback on every key press and key designations and backlight change in accordance to the currently used application.
The Motorola ZN5 will measure 12mm in thickness, which is a rather nice achievement - it actually puts it in Top 5 of slimmest 5 megapixel cameraphones. The body thickness however increases around the camera area to up to 16mm.
The ZN5 however managed to disappoint us with the lack of 3G connectivity - having only EDGE is a bit of a downer even if it's quad-band GSM, iPhone owners will tell you that for sure. We are guessing the reason for that is the Motozine ZN5 is targeted mainly at the Chinese market, were EDGE is as fast as it gets. We really hope that this feature will be updated as the device rolls throughout 3G-enabled markets.
Now in terms of photo-centric capabilities, we already told you that the new Motorola ZN5 will be able to offer some really nice surprises. We start off with the xenon flash, the auto focus assist beam, and some cunning low-light setup. Those things aren't new, but it's getting better.
The ZN5 camera will offer two apertures values, which is a first among cameraphones. The camera will automatically pick between F2.8 (the standard for all cameraphones) and F5.6 (when there is enough light). Now that may not mean much to you, but a tighter aperture such as F5.6 will actually bring less lens issues and better corner-to-corner sharpness.
The ZN5 is also capable of shooting in RAW image format. The image data is losslessly stored in TIFF format.
The Kodak participation has brought the Kodak Perfect Touch technology to the ZN5. While it sounds impressive, it's a mere quick fix of photos that will be available straight on the handset. We are guessing something like the Sony Ericsson PhotoFix option, which improves underexposed images and adds contrast.
The ZN5 also offers direct image upload to KODAK Gallery, as well as integration of the ShoZu client, which can upload images to various social networking clients.
Motorola ZN5 will be first available in China in July 2008 and is expected to ship around the world later this year. Pricing is yet unknown.
