Hands-on review: Motorola's Krave ZN4 "clear-flip" phone

With its clear, touch-sensitive outer flip, the ZN4 is a dead ringer for the communicators in the original "Star Trek" series. Neat, right? Too bad it's such a pain to use.

I've been test-driving the ZN4 (available now on Verizon Wireless; $179 with a two-year contract, or $349 with a month-to-month plan) for a few weeks now, and yes—it does indeed appeal to my inner geek, especially the part that's always dreamt of flipping open a communicator and barking "Condition Green, Kirk out."

But the flip—cool through it is—tends to get in the way more than anything else, and it wasn't long before I was wishing I could just snap it off altogether.

Measuring 4.1 by 2 by 0.75 inches and weighing in at about 4.6 ounces, the 3G-enabled ZN4 it a bit on the heavy side, although it fits nicely in a jeans pocket. The 2.8-inch interior touchscreen (400 by 280 pixels) looks pretty sharp, but the phone's centerpiece is its touch-sensitive, transparent "clear flip," complete with a molded earpiece for calls. An ultra-fine wire mesh (visible if you look closely enough) molded into the flip registers any taps and transmits sound to the earpiece.

In practice, the ZN4's clear flip works almost exactly as the flip on a conventional clamshell—you open it to take calls, and clap it closed to hang up. But here's the twist: With the phone closed, you can still see the touchscreen, and you can access certain functions (including V Cast Music, live TV, pictures, and VZ Navigator) by tapping the flip itself.

Clever, yes, but necessary? Well, that depends. Verizon says the flip will protect the ZN4's main touchscreen from wear and tear (true) as well as help you "place clear and reliable phone calls" (debatable). And if, in general, you're simply more comfortable with a flip phone than with a "candy bar" handset, well, there's always that.

But in my tests, I found the plastic flip to me more of a hindrance than a help, especially when it comes to tapping out messages. Why? Because when you hold the phone sideways to type a text and/or e-mail message (which you'll need to do to use the touch QWERTY keypad), the flip gets in the way of your left hand, and you'll have to awkwardly angle your fingers to type with both thumbs. Not fun.

Another issue: Overall, I found the ZN4 to be annoyingly sluggish, with taps often taking a few seconds to register. For example, when I was trying to play MP3s on the phone's microSD card, it regularly took about 10 seconds for a song to play after I tapped the title. (I thought the phone had locked up the first time I tried playing some tunes.)

Back on the plus side, call quality on the ZN4 was loud and clear (both over the earpiece and the speakerphone), and you can check your messages via visual voicemail—a nice touch.

The ZN4's messaging options are relatively robust for a consumer phone, including text and picture messaging, mobile IM (AIM, Windows Live, and Yahoo! IM are supported), POP/IMAP and Web mail access. The mobile browser is mostly par for the course, except for one cool feature: a fingertip-shaped cursor that you can tap to select any link on the page.

On the multimedia side, you get access to V Cast downloadable music (courtesy of Rhapsody) and streaming video clips, and you can watch 18 channels of clear, crisp multicast video over Verizon's MediaFlo-powered Live TV service (and yes, you can watch video with the flip closed). One problem with the music player, though (besides its sluggish performance, that is)—there doesn't seem to be a way to play tunes in the background while performing other functions on the phone.

Other featuers on the ZN4: Turn-by-turn directions via VZ Navigator, a two-megapixel camera, stereo Bluetooth support, a 3.5mm headset jack, and a slot for microSD memory. No Wi-Fi, unfortunately.

Final verdict? While I admire the engineering (and the bold design choice) behind the "clear flip," it'll drive two-handed QWERTY texters nuts, and the phone's overall sluggish performance makes matters even worse. Unless you're a sucker for the touch-flip design, I'd steer clear.