Up Close and Personal with New Moto ROKRs, RAZR

Alright, first things first: Motorola's been doing a little tweaking with their brand names. Remember the RIZR Z6, the glossy new Windows Media Player-friendly slider that was first introduced back in January? Well, now it's the ROKR Z6, which puts it in line with its just-announced CDMA slider sibling, the ROKR Z6m—a phone I'd assumed was the latest RIZR when I first laid eyes on it.

Now here's a pop quiz: Know the slick RIZR Z8 that debuted at 3GSM in Barcelona? Guess its new name. Psych! It's still the RIZR, as is the original RIZR Z3 that just arrived on T-Mobile. Moto reps tell me that they're giving what they consider "music-oriented" phones the ROKR moniker, while their, um, non-music RIZRs (although the Z8 has plenty of music capabilities) will still just be RIZRs. That might sound obvious to them, but I had to go back to the Moto booth just to double-check.

Now that we've got that out of the way, let's get to the phones themselves. The new EV-DO-enabled Z6m is certainly a sleek specimen, at least as glossy as the EDGE Z6 that preceded it. The etched metal keypad was impressive, with wide and flat keys, while the display looked sharp enough, if not exactly eye-popping. I'm a big fan of Moto's decision to add a 3.5mm jack for standard earbuds, a much better solution to the ungainly USB-to-2.5mm adapters that ship with various RAZR models. On the other hand, the Z6m won't sync with Windows Media Player, as does the Z6; strange, although if the Z6m ends up on Verizon Wireless or Sprint and gets their respective music apps, it may be a moot point. Overall? Worth considering.

Moving on to the new RAZR maxx Ve (available April 24 on Verizon Wireless)...well, yes, it's another RAZR, with a good-looking screen, the etched-metal keypad again, EV-DO data for video streaming and music downloads, and a 2-megapixel camera. All well and good, but frankly, if Motorola stopped making RAZRs tomorrow, I wouldn't miss 'em. I'm officially RAZR'd out.

Which brings me to a Moto phone that's genuinely exciting—and that we're not getting in the U.S., at least for the time being. The bound-for-overseas RIZR Z8 (yes, it's still a RIZR) got some airtime here at CTIA, and it's a true original. This slider phone is what they're calling a "kickslide"—that is, it slides up and curves forward to fit the contour of your face. The HSDPA-based Z8 also comes with VGA and 2-megapixel cameras for two-way video conferencing, a media player capable of playing video at 30 frames per second (some Z8's are actually shipping pre-loaded with full-length movies) and support for stereo Bluetooth. Very nice.