Motorola ROKR E8 music phone

This real estate allows its keypad controls to be well spread out and make room for that nice FastScroll wheel, but strangely Motorola has equipped this large faceplate with just a 2in display. This 320 x 240, 262,000-colour screen sits in landscape format, making it look even more under-sized.

The back of the handset features the rather basic 2Mp camera

This screen configuration does limit the menu layout, although it doesn’t hamper the usability of the controls, which are very user friendly and easy to get to grips with. Out of the box, the main menu screen is a carousel-style spinner, with one large icon showing at a time, though it can be switched to a two-row grid of icons, or a list. Sub-menus pop up as lists, which can be swiftly scrolled through using the wheel or the navpad. Consequently, the limited vertical screen space isn’t generally such an issue.

In familiar mobile style, too, the navpad inside the FastScroll wheel is set up for various function shortcuts, which are user changeable. One of these is for fast access to Google search. There are also shortcuts for pulling up alert style, Bluetooth searching, alarm and so on.

Motorola’s menu operation is mostly conventional stuff, easy to operate and intuitive. For most sub-menu options, quick scrolling is supplemented by numbered options for making selections using the numberpad. Texting is nicely implemented, with an effective dynamically learning predictive text system, and the keypad layout is fine for fast message tapping for SMS or email.