Motorola Z9 (MOTO Z9)

Available now
1st April 2008
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Although we got our first glimpse of the Motorola Z9 a couple of months ago, Motorola have waited until the phone is actually available before making an official announcement.

The good news is that the MOTO Z9 supports 3G and GPS. But the bad news for Motorola fans is that this is strictly a US model, exclusive to the AT&T network.

In many ways, the Motorola Z9 highlights the weaknesses both in Motorola's product range and also shows how far behind Europe the US can be. This is the only GPS capable phone in the AT&T range, but it's also the only mainstream Motorola handset with GPS at all.

This is no Nokia N95 beater - there's a fairly basic 2 megapixel camera with flash, a QVGA resolution screen, HSDPA support, stereo Bluetooth and microSD expandable memory. AT&T say that the camera is only 1.3 megapixels (see below), but this presumably is an error.

The Motorola Z9 uses the AT&T Navigator software to utilise the inbuilt GPS system. As far as we can tell, this is just a rebranded version of Telenav Navigator, but this is a pretty well-known application which seems to work well on mobile devices.

Apart from the GPS, this is a 3G capable phone with HSDPA high-speed data. The Motorola Z9 only supports WCDMA 850/1900 MHz networks, and not the 2100 MHz network used in Europe and worldwide. It does support quad-band GSM though, so travellers using the Z9 will at least be able to use the phone when outside North America.

The media player on the Z9 supports MP3, WMA, eAAC+, Real and WAV formats, plus streaming video. The media control keys light up when available, which is quite a nice feature. On top of all this, the MOTO Z9 has a web browser, email client and instant messaging support.

It's a surprisingly weighty phone coming in at 4.9 ounces or 139 grams. That's heavier than the N95, and the Motorola Z9 has less features too. Talktime is up to 4 hours with a maximum of 13 days standby time.

If you're an AT&T customer, then the Z9 is probably a good choice given the fairly poor selection of handsets available. If you live outside the US, then you're really not missing much.

The Motorola Z9 is available now for around $150 to $200 when taken with a two year contract.