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Being Verizon’s latest touchscreen offering, we gave the Motorola Krave a spin and – of course – a good tearing down.  With Motorola dying down so fast, it’s natural to want the now-underdog cellphone giant to succeed.  In fact, with this phone, Motorola seems willing to give their Western cellphone lineup a change, incorporating some styling from its Asian counterpart (Motorola MING) and capacitive touchscreens for the touch-hungry Western market.  Not only is there one main touchscreen, the cover also contains a capacitive circuit.

How does the Motorola Krave fair in our review and teardown?  Find out after the break.

Using the Motorola Krave is akin to sitting in a comfortable canoe with a few holes.  You can keep paddling, but eventually you have to either cover up the holes or scoop that water up.  There are some greats and gripes, but in the end, the weighted averages sway more to the gripes.

Motorola Krave Review

Greats

The phone comes with a few interesting quirks.  First, the unique feature (with questionable practicality) is the device’s ability to use the touchscreen with the clear plastic cover closed.  The way this is implemented is through an ingenious, thin mesh that’s able to sense your fingers position (shown below – look closely!).  It also seems that this mesh is actually used to transmit power and signals to the earpiece, as there is no other connection to it, which brings us to the second unique feature.  Taken from the Motorola MING, the Krave’s earpiece is made to appear wireless.  It’s a very interesting concept and it definitely has its appeals. Motorola’s engineers definitely have kept its stride with this implementation, as the call quality sounds great and is capable of pretty loud and obnoxious noises.

The other really good thing about the phone is that it’s built like a tank.  It’s rubbery sides give a really good, comfortable feel to the device, and there’s very little give to it.  The cover hinge is solid and feels strong enough to tank anyones robust flips.  The interesting thing to note is that the speaker actually hits the screen when its closed.  Cheers to hoping it doesn’t actually scratch it.

Finally, sideloading music onto this phone is a breeze.  Sure, Verizon’s got this MTP structure harped down people’s throats because it enables hot plug and play, but transferring your music is easy enough (and very quick!) through Windows Media Player’s sync option.

Greaipes

Sure we made up that word, but Motorola seems to embody this awkward word.  Being a mix of greats and gripes, we were forced to implement this section.  So here it is: the greaipe of the phone, is it’s capacitive touch screen.  It generally responds well (as is generally the case with a capacitive screen), but it has its infuriating moments.  Menus move along with with your finger, and haptic feedback lets you know your choices as you press them.  They’re quick (most of the time) and it works very well with the browser.  Dialing is also a breeze with quick thumb touches.

Unfortunately, it’s one of the most annoying things to use.  Typing on its landscape keyboard is nigh impossible due to the cover’s awkward placement (seriously, how did they let this pass usability tests?).  Also, there are moments when the phone lags like no tomorrow.  This is possibly more of an OS and a processor issue than its touch capabilities, but it still harps down on the phone’s usability.  Lastly, these guys need to put some coating on the screen.  When you first get the phone, a gigantic sticker is put on the phone, which causes the screen to be sticky.  Even after a lot of use, the screen never becomes slick like its other famous touch-rivals.

Gripes

Even though sideloading music is great to use, playing the music through its integrated media player isn’t the most pleasant implementation.  The buttons are hard to press accurately and that’s a major pain to anyone looking for a pleasant music playing experience.  Also, the interface, instituted by Verizon’s team, is truly disgusting.  The red and orange colors are not in the least bit interesting, and it’s really a pain to use day after day.

The other major gripe is the phone’s performance.  Phone browsing is relatively decent (compared to non-smartphones) on Verizon’s EV-DO network, but everything else is sluggish and annoying to use.  Even the general menu screen lags once in a while.

Conclusion

In the end, the gripes and usability issues cause this phone to be a big frustration when used day-to-day by a heavy user.  Its not a smartphone by any means, nor is it meant to be; but when the consumer-focused mindset of this device is coupled along with the device’s incapability of texting, limited browser, and limited media capabilities, it really shouldn’t be your first pick of a phone.

phoneWreck Score: 6/10

Motorola Krave Teardown

Here we go!  This phone was actually even more of a pain to open than the Nokia N95.  This is due to the multiple layers and multiple connections made.  Shielding was an issue, but wire snippers made quick work of that.  In the end, you’re left with a decent and relatively simple PCB.  We’ve drawn a block diagram to lead you through the components.

First thing to notice is the Qualcomm MSM6575 chip used.  It’s got an integrated audio codec which feeds signals to the earpiece, dedicated speaker, and headset jack.  Qualcomm also seems to have several design wins with this phone, since its entire RF and power management ICs are all Qualcomm marked.  It’s got a separate receiver and transmitter (RFR6500 & RFT6150 respectively), which is a little bit odd considering the board space that two ICs use.  The Krave’s power is managed through Qualcomm’s PM66508.  It’s also got a MediaFLO receiver, Qualcomm MBP1610, for all that streaming video goodness.

The Krave uses a Cypress Semiconductor part for its West Bridge components, which explains the quick music sideloading noted earlier.  A quick Google search on its part number: CYWB0124AB brought up interesting articles on how its West Bridge parts independently route data from the USB interface onto a MicroSD card.

Next thing to notice is the two capacitive sensor ICs, both from Quantum Research Group (QRG 6G4670 for the main screen & QRG BF7741-1 for the cover).  As noted earlier, the nigh-invisible mesh on the cover senses the location of the touch.  There is also one on top of the main LCD screen (Samsung).