Glad I made the impulse buy
Written: Aug 04 '01 (Updated Mar 19 '02)
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Pros: Size, features, looks
Cons: Price, but coming down steadilty
The Bottom Line: If you want a no compromise phone and can justify the cost to your spouse, this is the phone for you.
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| KenRona's Full Review: Motorola V60c |
Just put up a 6 month update to the review
Summary: Great phone. Full featured and it looks great. Small footprint but easy to hold and the buttons are surprisingly big. Uses the new Motorola interface which is light years better than the old one, but still not as slick as Nokia. Full range of rings and vibrate modes, SMS and web capable. The only downside is the price. [Anything is brackets is part of an update]
The long version:
I love this phone. I use about 2000 minutes a month, making my cell phone the single most important piece of electronic gear in my life. Who am I kidding? I use my computer more. Even still, I have not had a good cell phone since I gave me Samsung SCH-8500 to my girlfriend (my review is here (http://www.epinions.com/elec-review-5449-80CA5BA-38F0A442-prod6/tk_~CB005.1.9 (BTW, does anyone know how to embed a link in epinions?)) I was stuck with a rather large, work provided, Nokia 5160. I was constantly complaining about the size and its utter lack of coolness. Also, it was not a flip. I had to remember to lock the keypad otherwise the phone would randomly dial people in my phone.
All of a sudden, I get an email from work saying that we were switching providers to Verizon and that we could choose our phone. Work was going to give us a hundred bucks toward a phone, and we could pay the difference if we wanted to upgrade. I knew I wanted a flip phone and also wanted something pretty small. I called Verizon and ordered the very reasonably priced LG-TM510. I figured “How could you go wrong with the highest rated epinions cell phone?"
Then I made the "mistake" of going into the Verizon store. I immediately called up and changed my order to the Motorola V60c. The phone is a bit smaller and had all the features of the LG, but it just looked so much cooler. That was really what sent me over the edge. I just wanted something that made no compromises. The V60c is a no compromise phone. Well, almost.
Lets talk about the outside of the phone. I am not really that stylish, but (as you can tell) I really love the way the phone looks. It is brushed aluminum and does not hold finger prints. Very slick. People at work stop me all the time to look at the phone. I also like well-engineered products. This phone qualifies as one of my all time best designed consumer products. [At 6 months, the phone is holding up ok. There are a fair number of scratches on the face plate and it does make the phone look a little ratty]
I am not sure if the V60c is the smallest sized phone on the market, but it is not so small or light that anyone should complain. It fits comfortably into my hands and feels fairly solid. When the phone is not in use, I keep it in the supplied belt holster. I took a little bit of practice to get the hang of the holster, but it holds the phone securely. I will say that the holster does stick out a bit. Not the best design, but I think the Motorola engineers wanted to keep the antenna over an inch from skin. Can’t fault’em. [A number of my friends have complained about the antenna breaking. Mine just broke two weeks ago. Breaking the antenna has two, related, effects on the phone. First, reception is worse. Second, the battery life goes down. The phone is designed to put out more juice when reception is bad, using more battery. I got the battery replaced in 10 minutes at a Verizon store for 10 bucks. My strong advice to you is that if you break the antenna, get it fixed.]
The unit has an LCD screen on the front of the flip. I love this feature. The LCD shows caller ID, as well as time and date when the phone is not in use. There are three sets of keys on the outside of the unit. You use the outside keys to control ring modes (vibrate, loud ring, etc.) while the flip is closed. When the flip is open, the keys are “context dependant” meaning they change their function depending on what the phone is doing. For the most part, I use the keys to change the volume.
One part of the phone that I find a little strange is changing the battery. In order to change the battery, you have to depress a little latch at the top of the phone. The whole back panel of the phone comes off. I guess I am a little afraid of losing the back panel. Really this is no different than changing a battery in a remote control, except that I change batteries much more often in the cell. Putting the cover back on is a little tricky and you will have to pay attention the first couple of times. Very minor point. Even still, I think I would have preferred a hinged back cover. The battery life when you first get the phone is not great. Just let the battery run down and then recharge the phone. After the first month, the battery life is pretty good. Probably over two hours of talk. [Update: the battery life sucks of you have to roam. You can almost watch the battery indicator go down. Don't expect more than 4-5 hours of standby on roam][6 month update: MOT offers two different extended life batteries. The big version, which comes with a deeper battery cover, is really good. If you are not happy with the battery times, go get the bigger battery]
The antenna sticks up a bit, but has not gotten in my way. I would have preferred an integrated antenna like the Nokia 8k series. Also, not a big deal.
Onto the inside. The keypad (used for dialing) is actually a little bigger than the LG. I haven’t missed dialed a number yet. The interface has been revamped across all Motorola phones and is a big improvement. I keep my phone book in my phone and the ability to hold lots of numbers is a big deal for me. I was maxed out in the Nokia. This phone can hold 400 or so entries and can categorize by type of phone number (e.g., Mobile vs. Home) for each individual. You can set up the phone to recognize up to 20 voice dial entries. It is a very simple process and works very well. To use the voice dial, you open the flip, hit one of the external buttons (the one on the right of the unit) and just say the name. [I am using the voice dial a lot more. I have something like 30 names assigned to voice. This feature workes very well.]
The phone has a serviceable browser. I have used it a couple of times and it worked well. You might have to call Verizon to turn on the browser. Several of my friends and I asked for web service but it was not enabled when we got our phones. Two minutes with Verizon customer service straightened it out. The datebook, like other phone based datebooks, is all but unusable. I still use my Palm. [I got rid of the web service. It was just not useful]
I should note that if you use Outlook, you can export your address book to the Verizon website. You then have access to that date through the phone. I thought that you could then import the data into the phones memory, but I have not been able to work that bit out. If anyone knows if this can be done, can you please contact me? I will add it to the review.[Update: you can buy a kit from Motorola to do upload your address book data from your PC to your phone. I am going to try to hunt this down and see if I can make it work.][six month update. I never got this to work. I had to program all the numbers by hand]
One cool feature of the phone is SMS. You can send short text messages to other Verizon customer. Even cooler, you can go to the Verizon website (myvzw.com) and set up alerts. Verizon will send you messages based on some criteria you set. For example, I get the weather sent to the phone every morning at 7:40 am. You can track stocks and news, etc. Go to the website and check it out. [This worked OK, but I turned it off. I was getting multiple versions of the same message. It got tedious and I never really got hooked]
The phone has some other features, like a voice recorder and some quick dialing features, but I don’t use them much. It also has a built-in FM radio, but you need a special headset to use it. If you do not have the headset, the FM menus do not show up on the phone. [On their web site, MOT also offers a MPG player. One of my friends has it and loves it.]
The service with Verizon has been great in Chicago and Springfield, Il. I haven’t traveled with the phone much, but that will change over the next couple of months. If I have any issues, I will update the review.
[update: I traveled all over the Southwest and had no problems. Note that battery life sucks when you are in roam.]
Overall, I love the phone. It has been dependable and not under delivered. I am still exploring its features, but so far, so good. In retrospect, would I have spent the extra 300 bucks for the phone. Uh, yea. Did I mention how cool it looks?
Q&A.
Periodically, I get emails about my epinions. I will put the questions and answers here:
Q: Just wondering, can you store numbers and names alphabetically or does phone put them in order as you log them in?
A: You can select how you want to see them. I have mine set up to go in alphabetically, but the speed dial number is assigned by the order you put them in. You can change a speed dial number, but only by erasing the phone number using the existing speeddial. Kind of dumb. When you are in the phone book you can use the key pad to type in the first letter of the name you are looking for. So, if I want to find Jeff Andrews, I just hit 5. If I want Ken Rona, I press 5 twice.
Q. During an incoming call, does the external Caller ID LCD screen show just the phone number only, or does it show the Name of the caller (if you have programmed it into the phone directory), or does it show both name & number?
A. If you have the name in the directory, it shows the name. Otherwise, you see the number.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): n/a
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Epinions.com ID:
KenRona
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Member: Kenneth Rona
Reviews written: 11
Trusted by: 25 members
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