Motorola Rokr E8

T-Mobile's Rokr E8 is a candy-bar cell phone that's marketed as a choice for music fans, but reviews disagree whether it's all that special in that regard. No major reviewer says the Motorola Rokr E8 is any worse than "good" overall, but at most review sources, "good" is the vast middle ground. CNET's Kent German says the music player is "top-notch," and MobileBurn.com's Russell Jefferies calls it "fantastic." PCMag.com's Sascha Segan says it's a good music player, but that the Apple iPod 3G has a better one. InfoSyncWorld.com's Philip Berne, usually more negative than most cell-phone reviewers, even calls the music player "mediocre," but that's primarily because of navigation and menu issues. Not necessarily regarding the music player, there is a general consensus that the navigation and menus are a total pain, at least initially. Katherine Boehret, writing for The Wall Street Journal spinoff All Things Digital, and MobileBurn.com's Jefferies are in a distinct minority in liking the interface.

At issue is a morphing keyboard that, as Boehret describes it, is "rows of tiny, unlabeled bumps" that become a traditional alphanumeric keypad when you make a call or text, for instance, and change into altogether different keys when you're playing music or using the 2-megapixel camera. Boehret likes it. CNET's German says it's "novel though slightly quirky." InfoSyncWorld.com's Berne goes a bit more over-the-top in describing the interface: "a jumbled mess… strange scroll wheel design and slow hardware… [the touch panel] kind of creeped us out." Music lovers, however, will want to note the inclusion of an FM radio, 2 GB of built-in memory and a microSD slot that can handle up to 4 GB. Professional and owner reviews note the lack of 3G network speed, and some say the Symphony browser is slow. Owner reviews cite balky performance and freeze-ups. PCMag's Segan says, "It's not possible to replace the browser or email program with superior third-party options, because T-Mobile bans all but its own apps from accessing the Internet." There is some variance in battery tests, but a couple of reviewers get more than 10 hours of talk time. One of those was PCMag, yet Segan recommends the Nokia 5310, the Motorola Razr2 V8 or the BlackBerry Curve 8320, depending on your needs.

A great number of tech review sources -- even some that don't regularly review cell phones -- weigh in on the Motorola Rokr E8. The best frame of reference is by those who review the most phones, so at the top are CNET, PCMag.com, PC World, InfoSyncWorld.com, ConsumerReports.org and MobileBurn.com. WirelessInfo.com usually ranks highly, but its review is a "first look" and not as detailed as usual. User reviews aren't plentiful -- about 20 at CNET, fewer at Amazon.com.