Most of us are pretty happy now that Black Friday is behind us. We get to sit back and relax once again, waiting for the inevitable reports of how this was the worst retail Black Friday ever thanks to the current economic slump. It’s not a good thing, but at least we can drive around again without worrying about being rear-ended by a crazed shopper hunting down a $20 DVD player. The weekend deals still continue however, and T-Mobile is running a sweet one through the end of the day tomorrow. If part of your holiday plan was to snag a new handset and service for yourself or friend / family member, it really doesn’t get much better than this. Open a new 2-year contract before the end of the day tomorrow and T-Mobile will hook you up with your choice of one of three free handsets. The first two, the Motorola RIZR and the Nokia 6263, are only options for online shoppers. The cream of the crop, the Morotola MOTOZINE ZN5, is available both online and in stores. The ZN5 is T-Mobile’s most capable camera phone and comes packing a 5 megapixel Kodak camera with a xenon flash. It’s normally available for a reasonable $99 but free beats a hundred every day of the week. Click through or head down to your local T-Mobile store before COB tomorrow and get some high-quality shots of your holiday gatherings this year instead of those terrible 1.3 megapixel blur-fests you usually end up with.

Read

There hasn’t been much doubt about Motorola’s MOTOZINE ZN5 hitting T-Mobile, but official confirmations are always a nice thing, no? Starting today, at select T-Mobile corporate locations and online, you’ll be able to pickup a Motorola ZN5 for yourself. A 5 megapixel camera phone is going to seriously hurt those pocket though, right? Normally we’d say yes, but T-Mobile looks to have subsidized the crap out of this thing (or Motorola’s just happy they have a carrier who’s willing to take their goods) as it’s going for only $99 on a 2-year agreement. Not bad at all we say. Here’s a quick spec refresher for you:

• 5 megapixel auto-focus Kodak camera with Xenon flash
• Wi-Fi
• Quad-band GSM/EDGE
• 350MB of internal memory, microSD expandable up to 4GB
• 3.5mm headset jack
• FM Radio
• TV-Out
• Stereo Bluetooth
• Built-in Kodak EasyShare software for instant Wi-Fi uploading to the web

We’ve given Moto their fair share of public beatings in the past, but we’re actually pretty impressed with the price-point here. We think this thing is going to fly off the shelves. What say you?

Read

This weekend shouldn’t be all about AT&T, right? How about some T-Mobile holiday love? Motorola announced the MOTOZINE ZN5 back in June and since then we’ve heard some rumblings about the 5 megapixel shooter possibly coming to T-Mobile here in the US. Rumblings confirmed. Word just came in that T-Mobile will be dropping the MOTOZINE ZN5 on November 3, just in time for the holidays. Sure the ZN5 might not be quite as exciting as some of the other news we’ve gotten this weekend but as far as camera phones go, this is no slouch. 5 megapixels, a xenon flash, on-device photo editing courtesy of Kodak Perfect Touch, EasyShare integration and a dedicated one-click Simple Share key make this handset a mobile photog’s dream. Spec refresher:

• 5.0 megapixel camera with Xenon flash and video capture
• High resolution landscape screen
• CrystalTalk technology
• ModeShift technology
• 150 MB of available memory, 1 GB microSD card included
• Simplified sharing and editing via Kodak applications
• Stereo Bluetooth connectivity
• WiFi
• Microsoft Windows Media Player 11
• Integrated FM radio
• MegaTones and HiFi ringers
• myFaves capability
• Photo caller ID
• Video capture and playback
• Video messaging
• Voice recorder

Hit the jump for five more marketing slides.

Thanks Gman!

Did you vomit in your mouth just a little? Yeah, so did we. One would think that Emporio Armani would have learned its lesson from the lambasting it took for its Samsung Night Effect, but they’re admirably persistent. We wonder what kind of deal was struck up between Motorola (who probably snubbed Dolce & Gabana by warming up to another designer) and Emporio Armani… “We’re designers, but we really don’t want to design a new phone. We failed, so can you just slap our logo onto one of your boring, overpriced phones and just make it that much more expensive? Thanks.”

No news on when this might be available or where it will be released, but hey, if you have to ask…

Read

Much to our surprise, Motorola has just announced the MOTOZINE ZN5 handset. On paper, at least, this is a very nice phone, sporting a 5-megapixel camera with auto-focus (yay!), Xenon flash, image editing, Wi-Fi, E8-style ModeShift keypad, and an EDGE radio. The specs are decent, and the EDGE radio is more of a limitation of the target market’s spectrum than of any nefarious attempts to destroy our access to 3G goodness. We made our thoughts about this handset’s evil slider twin known a couple weeks back, though the addition of auto-focus on this one is sure to bring a bit more appeal. Motorola is billing this with built-in Kodak Gallery integration, which is a nice thought, but attempting to upload a 5 megapixel image over an EDGE connection sounds like a savage exercise in frustration. No word on pricing, but expect this to launch in China next month, with worldwide availability coming soon thereafter.

Read

Don’t even ask how this one showed up on our desk this morning. But it’s here, the much-awaited much-rumored 5 megapixel camera phone from Motorola with the Kodak lens. This is a slider phone running on the MOTOMAGX Linux platform, and it’s actually not the worst looking phone. There is one major issue we ran into before we even started playing with it and that’s that the 5 megapixel camera is NOT autofocus! The fact that Moto doesn’t get it is really disheartening because they could have had a decent phone in the market which they desperately needed. In terms of specs, the device is a quad-band EDGE phone (FAIL) has Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 100MB of internal memory, microSD slot, and a “ROKR” type touch wheel which also serves as the 5-way navigational pad. We’re going to do a whole review on it soon, in the meantime, check out the pics in our world-famous gallery!

Click on over to our Motorola ZINE gallery!