Avoid this phone like poison!
Written: Jul 12 '04 (Updated Jul 12 '04)
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Pros: Small, flip phone, 1-line screen on outside
Cons: Everything else.
The Bottom Line: I can't wait for my contract to expire.
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| marksman's Full Review: Motorola V60x |
I recently replaced my Motorola StarTac 7868W phone with its successor: the Motorola V60x. The Startac was a brilliant design that served me well: it was small, compact, easy to use, the reception was awesome, and the battery lasted forever. The V60x, on the other hand, sucks really, really badly!
Reception
I’m still with the same phone company, but reception is WORSE than with the Startac! This is presumably due to the absence of an extendable antenna.
Size
The V60 is smaller than the Startac. However, the standard holster makes it stick out an extra inch from your waistband. Worse, the click-in system is so inadequate and hard to use that you are almost guaranteed to drop it. A cheapo leather phone holster from Wal-Mart fixed these problems.
Ringtones
I always wear this phone in vibrate mode in a holster on my belt. The only time I hear the ringtone is when the phone is charging and automatically switches from "Vibrate" to "Loud". You can change the ringtone, but the standard one suits me fine. Even in the supposedly discreet "Vibrate" mode the phone will emit an annoying beep every few minutes when it starts to runs out of juice, which happens a lot.
Battery life
Right out of the box, the battery life is an absolutely, totally, horribly inadequate 12 hours on standby! According to the manual, the battery life gets longer with each complete discharge. In the meantime, be prepared to get cut off in mid-sentence a lot.
Charging
To make the battery life problem worse, this phone is not capable of charging its battery while you are talking. So you might be talking in your car, or at home with the phone plugged in, and still get cut off! In addition, inserting the charger plug and actually having the phone realize it and start charging, takes about half a dozen tries each time. One of the three “teeth” on the plug is shorter than the others, which might explain this phenomenon.
Screens
There is a monochrome screen on the inside of this flip-phone, and a one-line monochrome screen on the outside. This is actually an improvement over the Startac, because you can see what time it is or who is calling without having to open the phone.
Menus
The V60 has a new phone-number menu compared to the Startac (much like old Nokias, in fact), which is not an improvement, because you now have to scroll much more than before. The buttons on the side are used to change the ringer tones, among other things. However, this means that the ringer will change randomly, depending on which side-buttons you accidentally happen to mash. I’m scared to take this thing to a theater in case it suddenly starts to ring instead of vibrate. Worse, when it accidentally goes to “silent” mode, I miss incoming calls.
Voicemail
Because of the horrible reception and problems with the ringer, I was forced to get voicemail. However, actually getting a “new message” notification without switching the phone on and off will take anywhere from hours to days. I’m not sure if this is a problem with the phone or the network since I didn’t have voicemail with my Startac.
Extras
In lieu of a good antenna, this phone is packed with electronic extras. It can be used as a calculator, knows the Greek alphabet, has games, has interchangeable custom front and back covers, can receive and send text messages and pictures, be used for data transmissions, use different ring tones, has a screen-saver, has a calendar, has voice-dial, is an FM-radio (with optional handset) and God knows what else.
Bottom line
None of the “improvements” in this phone do anything to relieve my frustration when I can’t talk to people because of its poor reception or dead battery. It is, after all, a phone, not a replacement for a Nintendo, calculator or PDA, and the primary function of a phone is to let you TALK to other people, something the designers of this technological leap backward seem to have forgotten.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 30
Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy
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Epinions.com ID:
marksman
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Location: Columbia, SC
Reviews written: 8
Trusted by: 0 members
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