The Motorola Krzr K1m is an excellent example of style over substance; fashionistas will like the $99 Krzr’s styling, but under the hood you will find only basic functionality, a terrible camera, and poor battery performance. The Krzr is a flip phone, and its design, obviously inspired by the Razr, features a keyboard and control keys that sit on a single piece of metal. The Krzr is deeper than the Razr, but not as wide. We reviewed the Krzr with Sprint service, which currently offers the phone for $79.99 with a two-year contract. The Krzr is also available from all other major carriers, so you should be able to pick it up regardless of which service you use.
Making calls is the first problem. Because of the long, thin design, the Krzr’s keypad is a bit cramped and it can be difficult to differentiate the keys. Therefore, we found it a bit difficult to dial numbers, taking 4.4 seconds to dial as opposed to the 2.96 seconds it took on the new LG Chocolate. The Krzr’s calling features are standard fare, as is the contacts application -- basic, but adequate. The only organizational feature available on the phone is a calendar application; there is no way to make notes or track tasks.
The Krzr’s audio quality was good, with a clean frequency response that means it accurately reproduces voices, although the received sound made incoming voices sound a little bassy.
The Krzr K1m is marketed as a music-oriented handset, and has the touch-sensitive exterior music controls to prove it. Music playback is handled by Sprint’s music software, which allows you to purchase songs from Sprint’s online store and download them directly to the phone via the high speed EVDO connection. This software does a reasonable job, but lacks advanced features like an equalizer or search functions. The Krzr doesn’t ship with headphones, a curious oversight for a music-oriented device. You will also need a high capacity MicroSD card for music storage.
Unfortunately, the performance of the Krzr's 1.3-Megapixel is significantly worse than standard. The camera’s resolution was one of the worst we have seen; fine details on images were lost in a fuzzy mess. Color reproduction was only average; some yellows came out as white, and other colors were pale and unrealistic. The Krzr K1m’s camera also produces a significant amount of noise. No one should be using this camera to take photos that might actually be important to them.
The Krzr K1m is able to handle both text and multimedia messages, and does a reasonable job with both. The phone doesn’t include an e-mail client. You can, however, check your e-mail online using the Web browser. That said, Krzr’s Web browser is very basic and unsuitable to use for anything besides light browsing of mobile-oriented websites.
In our talk time test the Krzr lasted 3 hours and 27 minutes, which is better than the Razr V3m but worse than the new LG Chocolate, which lasted more than an hour longer despite its similar size. Despite being marketed as a music handset, the Krzr lasted only 4 hours and 22 minutes when playing back music. This is far less than the almost 14 hours of music the new LG Chocolate played, and even less than the Nokia N75, a phone we lambasted for poor battery performance. Web browsing time was similarly limited at 3 hours and 34 minutes.
The Krzr K1m has been on the market for quite awhile. Although its $99 price may seem attractive compared to the almost $200 it once sold for, newer phones provide more functions for the same price. The new LG Chocolate from Verizon is the same price as the Krzr, and offers better functionality across the board. The UpStage from Sprint is only $20 more and would also be a better choice for many customers. Both of these devices are also more aesthetically appealing. Given options like these, we can’t recommend the Krzr K1m.
For a more in-depth review, visit the Motorola KRZR / KRZR K1 / KRZR K1m Review at our partner WirelessInfo.com
