[blessingx]

Don't know how accurate this 'poll' is, but the ROKR has seemed a flop since the day it was announced. See one analysts take here.

"We got off to a little bit of a rough start,'' Zander said in an interview after Motorola reported on Oct. 18 that third-quarter profit tripled, driven by more-popular phones such as the Razr. "People were looking for an iPod and that's not what it is. We may have missed the marketing message there.''

 

[Sparky191]

If you've used any Motorola phones lately you'd know why. I have a Razer, and while I like the slim profile, it suffers from the same poor GUI and interface problems as does all Motorola recent phones. They need to sort out the basic GUI and bugs that have existed for years at this point, intead of adding mediocre new features. A child could tell them that.

The problem is not marketing. Its that they have a poor quality product, period. Thats why they are being returned. I'd be tempted to return the Razor myself just because of the GUI problems alone.

 

[GSTom1]

I think the Sony Ericsson walkman phones such as the W800i are much better than the ROKR. Even the new Nokia phones with stereo output are nice than the ROKR.

The feature set on the ROKR is just not there. I think most people would probably agree that if Apple designed this phone themselves, it would certainly be much better looking and easier to use.

 

[jefemeister]

when is Apple just going to put a cellphone inside the iPod, or some kind of equivalent? Do they not understand that they would make millions of dollars by the truckload?

 

[jpelg]

Wow, that's too bad. I agree that Motorola has always had problems with their user interface - usually a waaayy too complicated nested tree structure. Nokia's always had the upper-hand there - very intuitive UI. Never had a Sony.

My hesitancy with regard to a combined cellphone/mp3-player device is battery life. I don't want my phone not to work when I need it just because I've been listeing to music on it. I rip my mp3's at 256K, so that impacts battery usage a lot too. And I'm not re-ripping my library at a lower rate just for use on a 512k memory chip.

Still, if the return-rate on the ROKR drives their prices way down, I'd pick one up for the novelty.

 

[blessingx]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jefemeister when is Apple just going to put a cellphone inside the iPod, or some kind of equivalent? Do they not understand that they would make millions of dollars by the truckload?

Reported it was a huge struggle to get even the ROKR to the market. Apple optimistically thought they'd be able to talk to several carries and again reportedly they shut them down. You can call Apple greedy, but they're nothing like U.S. cell phone carriers. They increasingly will not carry a feature they can't get a continuing fee from. I was only on Verizon for two weeks, but picked up a V710 and even its bluetooth was disabled to try to force movement of photos and music over its line to charge fees. It's pretty incredible. T-mobile is better on this front. Sprint is in between.

As for Motorola's GUI, I went from a Motorola to now a Nokia. Wanna talk about messed up interfaces?

Different strokes, but did the Nokia designers code this on Windows 3.1? Besides being ugly the logic breaks nearly ever GUI law I've ever read (menu structure to folder with same name and only selectable item back to menu to select just selected folder, etc.). Motorolas multi-placement settings organization is a god send in comparison.

EDIT: Oops. As I was typing jpelg chimed in. Okay, we disagree.

 

[DigDub]

the rokr is just a minor updated verison of the e398. motorola was probably hoping an apple name thrown in somewhere will make consumers lap it luck like a hungry little kitten, but they were wrong.

 

[GSTom1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by blessingx I was only on Verizon for two weeks, but picked up a V710 and even its bluetooth was disabled to try to force movement of photos and music over its line to charge fees. It's pretty incredible. T-mobile is better on this front. Sprint is in between.

Verizon routinely shuts down a lot of the features on their phones and forces uses to pay for eveything (i.e. downloading photos, ringtones).


Quote:

Originally Posted by blessingx As for Motorola's GUI, I went from a Motorola to now a Nokia. Wanna talk about messed up interfaces? Different strokes, but did the Nokia designers code this on Windows 3.1? Besides being ugly the logic breaks nearly ever GUI law I've ever read (menu structure to folder with same name and only selectable item back to menu to select just selected folder, etc.). Motorolas multi-placement settings organization is a god send in comparison.

Is your Nokia a smart phone? I think the Symbian (S60) interdace is nicely laid out and very easy to use. I have never liked Motorolas interface. Always clunky and difficult to use. It takes forever to find a simple feature.

 

[RedLeader]

I personally love nokias. Ive tried other phones, and aside from the gui which I love, I've found nokias are incredibly tough, and drop far fewer calls.

 

[Michael1980]

ROKR is not an Apple phone. It is a Motorola phone with iTunes on it. That is the first problem.

The second one is that the ROKR is a bad product.

 

[Sparky191]

I've had a number of nokia phones and they've all had slightly different menus and features for no rational reason. I'm sorry but you could strap a 1GB shuffle to a Razor (or slightly bigger phones) and still be smaller and have better battery life than most mobile phones and MP3 players. Its obviously not a packaging problem.

If you make too good a phone (like a 6150/6310) people won't upgrade. So they stopped making them. You won't find new phones as good.

 

[chaosinfinity]

ROKR E1 isnt reallly a bad product.

I own the Motorola E398, which is pretty much the same thing as the E790, except without ITunes, extra button, and video making.

Ill tell you something, for playing music, its tops, for watching small vids, its great. Its not the constant mp3 player. Its something that if your in line at the DMV for something, you just put your handsfree in it, and just start listening to some music. It shouldnt be a mainstay mp3 player. Its got great batt life btw, and the GUI is really nice compared to Nokias, which i really do believe.

Motorola man said it right, its not an IPod. This isnt a mainstay mp3 player. A cellular phone should never be such a thing, simply because its not a proper use of resources(batt life i mean).

Phone itself, is great. Great looking, great sounding, great reception. MP3 play is great, but not something thatd replace my current mp3 mainstay.

So dont give in to groupthink, by saying "Its a bad product!" cause its not a damnedable IPod. Its a phone with MP3 capabilties. Nothing more.

 

[blessingx]

Quote:

Originally Posted by GSTom1 Is your Nokia a smart phone? I think the Symbian (S60) interdace is nicely laid out and very easy to use. I have never liked Motorolas interface. Always clunky and difficult to use. It takes forever to find a simple feature.

I don't know. Once you learn Motos OS, I say it's much easier. For the record I played with several Nokia phones, but no I don't have a Symbian (if I was was going smart it would be a Trio). I went with the Nokia disco phone 'cause I fit the demographic so well.

Actually, it had the best reception out of the phones I tried during the first month trial period.

 

[blessingx]

There's an interesting lengthy Wired 'behind the scenes' ROKR article here.

 

[AlanY]

I can see the ROKR being a failure. Does anyone know anyone at all who was planning on buying it? Even interested in it? The feature set just isn't attractive.

If you really care about digital music, you have to carry an iPod anyway because of the 100 song limit. So why would a person pay extra for the ROKR? The 100 song limit might work for people who aren't enthusiasts, but people who aren't music enthusiasts aren't exactly the kind of people who spend a lot of money on music gadgets. There's no market here.