Motorola's 5MP Motozine ZN5 - with added Kodak

By Nick Mansell on Mon 23 June 2008

The camera phone megapixel race has begun, and while Sony Ericsson may be winning with its 8.1MP C905, Motorola is closing the gap with this 5MP effort, the Motozine ZN5.

Sony Ericsson of course has the expertise of Sony to fall back on so Motorola, not yet renowned for its imaging prowess, has teamed up with Kodak to beef up the ZN5's credentials...

Like other dedicated imaging phones, it boasts auto-focus and a proper Xenon flash for parties. There's a reasonable 350MB of onboard memory but it will take MicroSD cards up to 4GB, which seems an unnecessary limitation now that 8GB and even 16GB cards are readily available.

Kodak's lent the phone its 'Kodak Imaging Technology' to combine, "Kodak’s unparalleled experience in imaging science with easy connectivity." That means features such as one touch viewing of photos on the QVGA screen without digging around in menus and easy upload to Kodak Gallery for online sharing.

On the phone side the ZN5 has Bluetooth and Wi-Fi but not HSDPA - favouring EDGE instead. It should be out before the C905 with a launch date in China slated for next month and a "roll out around the globe throughout the remainder of the year."

If you can't wait for then, Russian site, Smape, already has a (very!) lengthy review, which notes the dedicated Imaging Processing Unit for speedy operation and the option to take photos in lossless TIFF format. Reasonable pricing and a decent finish also make it sound a promising release.

[Press Release]