Great phone, especially when it's free!
Written: Mar 07 '05 (Updated Jun 16 '06)
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Pros: Looks nice, crisp display and very clear sound quality, great battery life
Cons: Menus a little confusing, speaker phone not very loud, scratches easily, durability issues
The Bottom Line: Great phone if you can get it free and don't use a lot of e-mail or messaging and don't need a camera.
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| mjwood0's Full Review: Motorola V180 |
Introduction
Recently, my wife and I noticed that we were paying way too much for our cell phone service. We looked around and decided to try Cingular. We live in a remote area, and they offered a 30 day trial to see if the phone would work at out home. When we looked at the different phone options, we decided to go the free route with the Motorola V-180 phones (one for each of us). We’ve owned Motorola products in the past, and they have always held up reasonably well to our use.
Physical Description
The Motorola V-180 phone is a sleek flip or clamshell designed phone. There is a fixed antenna on the top as well as a USB port. On the bottom there is a plug for a hands free headset and a plug for the included wall adapter for charging. On the face of the phone when closed, there is a black and white two line display that shows signal strength, battery life, and current time. When you receive an incoming call, this display becomes backlit in a nice bluish tint and the current time is replaced by the caller ID of the person calling you. Very nice. Apparently the black faceplate on the outside (called a lens in the instruction manual) can be replaced with different colors, allowing for easy customization of the phone.
Opening up the phone one finds a beautiful color display. Starting at the top left, you again find the signal strength indicator and at the top right, you have the battery life indicator. You also have small icons to let you know if you are in silent mode, vibrate, or audio. Good when at work and you want to check how much noise your phone will make during the upcoming meeting. In the middle of the display, the word Cingular is displayed since it is my service provider. At the bottom of the display there three menus. The left and right menu correspond to the left and right menu keys on the keypad. These are user customizable (a feature I really like since it makes it look just like my old phone and drops the learning curve). In the middle on the bottom of the screen are three bars which correspond to the middle menu button. This button is not customizable and gives you access to the full menus of the phone. There is also the option for a background picture.
Also, when the phone is open, the keypad is backlit in a really nice blue light. Works great in the dark and is just bright enough without being blinding in the pitch black.
Finally, I must mention the weight of this phone. It weights almost nothing. I have a belt clip and I can't even tell if I have my phone or not. I keep reaching down to check. This wasn't a purchasing requirement for me, but it is a real benefit!
Using the phone
This phone is truly customizable. Lots and lots of menus which contain options to customize almost everything. In fact, almost too many options. It took me a while just to get to the point where I can set up my address book and start making calls. Not too hard, but the menu system leaves something to be desired in my opinion.
The address book on this phone allows for 500 entries. However, the layout is not that great compared to my old phone. I used to be able to have an entry for every person and then multiple numbers under each entry. This no longer works. I need an entry for each person for each number. This means I have two entries for my wife (home and mobile), and three entries for many of my friends (home, mobile, work). Seems like this could be better.
Update: In searching the web, I was able to fix my address book problem. It now only displays one name per person, and I can use the left and right arrow keys to switch between their different numbers. Just like my old phone! I'm a happy person! For those interested, the way to do it for me was to go to the address book and press the Menu button (top middle button). Once here, select Setup from the list of options and change the "Sort by:" field to name and the "View:" field to primary contact.
Apparently you can hook the phone to your computer with a USB cable and edit your address book that way. However, the USB cable plus the software costs close to $40 and since I didn’t pay anything for the phone, I was most certainly not paying for extra software. Manual entry of the phone book worked okay for me, but then again I only had around 50 entries. Your mileage may vary.
Once your address book is set up, the caller ID will automatically show you the name of the person calling instead of the number. Pretty standard, but still worth mentioning. Calling is quite easy too. Navigate through the menu to the address book (I made this one of my customizable buttons since that’s what I’m used to) and press the green phone (or “send”) button. You will call that number. Pretty easy.
Another feature worth mentioning is the speaker phone. I use my phone a lot to call my wife while driving so speaker phone was a must for me. I must say I’m a little disappointed in the volume of the speaker. It’s not too bad, but with road noise does become a bit too quiet at times. However, one nice thing is that when you are on speaker phone, you can close the phone without hanging up on a person (normally closing the phone will hang up). This allows me to close the phone and place it on my lap while driving. It’s not perfect quality but it does suffice.
Other Items
I don’t use all these features, but I will comment on those I do.
MP3 and polyphonic ring tones
One of the first things I did was set my ring tone to a standard ring noise. Call me old fashioned, but I like my phones to ring and my MP3s to be on my computer or MP3 player. The MP3 ring tones on the phone do sound quite good and my wife uses them on her phone quite a lot.
Instant messaging services with AOLŪ Instant Messenger (AIM)
This feature would be nice for people who travel a lot. It was an extra monthly fee for me and I really don’t need this on a phone. It would seem easier to me to use a computer for messaging.
Brilliant color display (128 x 128 65K CSTN)
I do have to say, this display blows away any other phone display I’ve ever had. Then again, I’ve not had any phone with a color display, but even so, it is much more crisp and easy to read than many of the black and white displays out there. Also, the background images available are quite clear. I can see where this would be very nice. I would also like to figure out a way to get custom images on my phone without the USB cable, but I’m not sure that’s possible.
MMS messaging
Again, not a feature I use so I can’t comment here.
J2ME™ downloadable games
I don’t use my phone for games. It did come with one game, a trial version of Bejeweled and I tried it. Looks clear on the screen and runs well, but not the intended use for my phone.
For use on GSM 850/900/1900 networks
I don’t clam to know much about cellular networks. I do know that this phone will apparently work in other countries -- a plus for travelers. I don’t travel much outside of the US, but the service I’ve received so far has been clear and trouble free. This may be my service provider, or it may be the phone, but whatever it is, it sounds like the other person is sitting right next to you.
Battery Life
My old phone got around 3 hours of talk time and a couple of days of standby... Not this baby! The advertised talk time is 7 hours and the advertised standby time is 14 days! These times both assume digital signals. I must say, I've made multiple hour long calls over a two day period and I still show two out of three battery bars remaining. I'm truely impressed -- especially since it is so small and light.
Conclusion
These phones were free, and as such, I’m very impressed. They don’t have cameras (I can’t have a camera where I work anyway) and they don’t have all the newest gizmos like Bluetooth, but they work very well. I will say that the durability is a bit questionable as far as cosmetic looks. I’ve had my phone for around a week now and the black front “lens” is already scratched a little. It’s still very usable, but we’ll see if it lasts over time.
But I really can’t complain. The phones work as they should and the sound quality is impressive even if the speaker phone is a little quite. Overall, very nice for free!
Update: One+ Years of Use
While the Motorola V180 has seen much use over the last year, I must say that my fears as far as durablilty have started to become a reality. The built in earpiece on my wife's phone recently stopped working right which has forced her to use a hands-free headset constantly. Also, her phone has begun dropping calls for no apparent reason. While she is able to make and receive calls just fine, at random intervals the signal strength indicator will show no signal. Usually, this disconnects whomever she is talking to. After a few seconds, her signal re-appears.
My phone, on the other hand, has been relatively trouble free. The battery cover on the back is somewhat loose which makes it feel somewhat cheap, but causes no functional problems.
I would still recommend these phones based on price alone, but would caution people that they may not last through a full 2 year contract.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 0.00
Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy
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Epinions.com ID:
mjwood0
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Location: Southern Tier, NY
Reviews written: 19
Trusted by: 0 members
About Me:
Engineer who enjoys the outdoors, computers and is trying to start a small hobby farm!
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