Verizon Wireless just launched the Motorola Krave ZN4 this morning, a flip-touch phone that slightly resembles the Motorola Ming, albeit without the smartphone functionality.

The dark-titanium gray clam shell shaped Krave is a wild looking device.

Its cover is completely clear, and it still acts as a touch screen for the display below when it’s closed. If you look close enough, you can actually see a small wire mesh net running through the clear cover up to the earpiece in order to deliver audio.

The Krave ZN4 features all of Verizon wireless’ deck offerings, including Mobile TV, V Cast Video, V Cast Music with Rhapsody support, and VZ Navigator, and it’s completely exclusive to Verizon Wireless for now. Other features include a microSD slot for adding additional memory, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and dual speakers for watching TV, listening to music, or making calls using speakerphone. The speakers actually get pretty loud and we thought they sounded crisp. There’s also a 2MP camera, which doesn’t offer flash but can recordvideo at a QVGA resolution and at 17 frames per second.

But is the Krave worth raving about? Check out our video and gallery.

Its touch display is made of glass, not plastic like others, and uses capacitive touch technology. The underlying display is much more responsive to touch than the plastic top-lid that covers it. Aside from its responsiveness, though, the UI is a bit sluggish and you can see menus slowly pop up instead of jumping in a fluid, speedy, fashion.

The full QWERTY keyboard is straight-up awkward. You have to type with the top cover open and sideways. Motorola should have had a hinge that allowed it to fall down to the back of the device, or even a slide-out instead. Maybe we’ll get used to it during our review period, but our initial reactions have us thinking not.

For $149.99, the Krave is fresh looking and full featured, despite our initial caveats, and we’re excited to get started on our review.

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