Motorola A388 GSM phone

The phone has a good overall feeling of handling. The lid does not open as easy as the former clamshell models (StarTac), but it closes better and more definite.
The provided clip attaches the phone firmly to whatever your needs. The 90° angle locks of the clip are good, but inexact sometimes.
The lid of the carrying case has a magnetic “lock” which tends to open unpredictably and it is inexact in closing. The case is a bit too big, so the phone inside tends to wobble.

Reception / transmission is very good and surpasses the former TDSM qualities by far. Sound is a bit tinny and, even at normal volume levels, sometimes distorted. Intelligibility of the voices is fair to good, but could be better.

The battery capacity really surprises me! It holds out for ages and I can talk until my ears fall off. Three days – in normal operation – without recharging are wonderful, compared to 8 – 10 hours with my former model (Motorola 7790). The phone tends to warm up when charging.

Most of the functions are readily accessible through the on-screen menus of the touch pad, but occasionally the on-screen interaction gets a bit confusing due to the many sub-menus.
I was able to work my may through the initial setup without even consulting the manual once.
The provided stylus is more exact to point to different options, but for normal “finger control” the touch pad has enough resolution and sensibility to accept index-finger commands.
Readability of the screen is good and the chosen font makes it even better. On-screen messages are clear – at a set “medium contrast”.
SMS messages are a new feature to me (third world country?), and they make life so much easier. The SMS message option is easy to handle.
The included StarTac synchronizing software is very straightforward to set up, but the imported data (mostly addresses and phone numbers from Outlook 2000) sometimes gets truncated. Annoying feature is, that letters contained in an original phone number are automatically “translated” into numbers on the phone’s database. It makes the “manual re-editing” tedious and bothersome.
The provided “data cable” is ridiculously short. Who wants to crawl behind the machine every time?

I have not been able to test the Internet and e-mail features, since this service is not yet available in Costa Rica. Mañana?

Typically American, it has a “Sound editor” which is a waste of memory and energy. Does everything I do have to click, clack, beep or chime? And who wants to punch in, note by note, Beethoven’s Ninth?… anyway.

Out of a possible 5 stars, the A388 gets a 4 rating.

Haymo Henry Heyder
Costa Rica

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 429