MOTO U9 Review.

Motorola hasn’t produced anything in a while that has made me take notice, which is why I was interested in giving the music-focused MOTO U9 some play time. The U9 is focused on music playback and as a result features an OLED external display that offers the ability to control the music player. The U9 also includes a microSD slot, 25MB of on-board memory, and a USB cable so that you can side-load your music to the phone itself (it’s recognized in Windows Media Player) or a microSD card. The MOTO U9 is a bit more than your average music phone, though, offering Quad-Band connectivity in an unlocked phone, integrated bluetooth so you can use Bluetooth-enabled stereo headphones, a 2 megapixel camera capable of single shots or movies, and a revamped UI. Look and feel The first thing I noticed when I took the U9 out of the box is how small and light it is. Then when I powered it up I closed the lid and was treated to some OLED fun, featuring some animation of a fire–more animations / themes are available, too. I then flipped it open and pressed the dedicated music button. The music player immediately found the songs on my microSD card (I put them on the root) and then put up a pretty uneventful player on the screen on the inside of the phone. It wasn’t until I closed the lid while listening to the music that I saw what OLED can really do. Where there was once an animated fire, now I was treated to a fully interactive music player which showed off song information and also included touch sensitive forward, back, and play/pause buttons. The really impressive thing here is that with the phone off it doesn’t appear that anything could be shown on the front face of the phone, let alone touch sensitive buttons. The U9 also offers up a bunch of other features including the ability to play most games on the market (J2ME), and to put any SIM you want into it–my review unit actually shipped with a pre-paid SIM from AT&T. The improved UI features a variety of ways of navigating and includes a Shortcuts option from the main screen that offers one touch access to taking a picture, changing alerts, creating a message, and more. While I enjoyed playing with the U9 and agree that it’s a stylish music phone, the unlocked price seems a bit high to me. I think Motorola could redefine the unlocked category if they priced the U9 closer to the $100-$150 range. I also was surprised that it didn’t sport stereo speakers, since it’s being touted as a music phone. Overall it’s a solid offering and it being unlocked is a nice way to give the U9 some international love.