RPV Blogster

I wrote a review of Motorola ZN5 with TMobile firmware before. While the phone is great, tweaking it to add applications is a bit painful as TMobile has locked 3rd party applications. This is a review of the same phone with unbranded firmware being flashed and looking at screenshots and photos. People may ask how the flashing will affect the phone, camera quality etc and I present the details here.

The guys at Motomodding.US has done a great job in making the unbranded firmware available and giving the instructions. The forums are extremely great resource and the site is very good for Motorola users. To flash the ZN5 with the firmware listed on the link, one has to make sure the bootloader is 06.2B. I go through the flashing process first, but the review is actually is about the unbranded software and the camera performance. Briefly, press * and # and press power button, then connect the phone to computer, use the RSD Lite software and the firmware that has to be loaded. r6637_g_81.11.17r_128_lp0003_gsjpixl00ecommna.



The flashing process takes around 5 minutes, and after the phone reboots you have the new software. The menus are rearranged a bit, but overall most of the basic actions are same. I present several screenshots of differences. One major advantage is that of installing third party java applications. Google Maps, GMail, Opera Mini are very easy to install. Native Push email works great with Gmail with POP3 settings. IMAP should work fine too. So these are big advantages over TMobile stock firmware.



The initial screens are as above. Note the rearrangement of icons and easier to read descriptions of ringer settings.



I installed the applications under Games. It comes with two standard great games (full version and not demos as in TMobile branded version). Installing applications is very easy. Using Wifi, default browser is used to go to respective websites and download java apps. It will be unlocked and ready to use by default. Great! Also notice the connection options under Data connections. This is new. You can set it to use Wifi, and then default to Cellular if wifi is not available. These are basic settigs and TMobile has locked them out. TVOut has more options too under new firmware.



Games screen on new unbranded firmware.



Push email is a biggest advantage of this new firmware for me. I can get alerts if new gmail arrives. You need to manually setup the POP3 server, SMTP server, use SSL, use Authentication. Gmail account settings page also has the details and you should have POP3 enabled on mail service. You can get IMAP also, and I will be changing to IMAP after seeing POP3 performance for few days. I have not been able to get corporate email yet through IMAP, but I am sure it is possible. TMobile has locked this feature for use only in their data plan not WiFi. I have only wifi and no data plan as of now.



Not sure what this means, but it did not work eventually. I will explore this more. This is also not available in unbranded firmware.



Camera functions as exactly same, I am giving screenshots and many more sample photos to just clarify if someone had questions.


Viewer screens.



Couple of other screens. Reorganized, looks cleaner and logical in unbranded version.

I go into presenting photos taken with ZN5 below. The camera is definitely an asset to have when you travel for local errands, visiting libraries etc. I give some use cases of visiting a library and taking pictures of something that you find interesting. This is in indoor lighting, low light enabled, and some of closups are in macro mode. I took outdoor ones in landscape and normal mode. All are 5 MB original, so you can download and load up in your editor and view EXIF information if you like. I hope blogger does not change the image information or image itself.



An image and associated EXIF information.



Indoor library shot, Macro mode of Fortune magazine year 1931. Check out the price of Chrysler in 1931.




Check out Visit India ads back from 1930s. Very interesting they had tourism promotion back then itself. Current Promotions at Incredible India.



Panaromic Image from ZN5.



Macro photography. Tree bark on a outdoor and Webster dictionary on a indoor setting.


Outdoor photos.




Indoor and an outdoor photo.

Overall the unbranded firmware is superior to TMobile branded in that all restrictions are removed. I wonder why US service providers hinder the software so much. And I was initially skeptical if I should take the plunge, but I have done it in past for other Tmobile phones like Dash for putting WM6. On ZN5, it is a Linux based system, so I like it even better. The 4 GB flash drive is a big bonus. In this review I have not reviewed any 3rd party applications or Music player etc. They are in my original ZN5 review whose link I posted in the beginning.

Let me know your comments!