iowamommy's Full Review: Motorola StarTAC 3000 Cell Phone
When my husband and I upgraded our mobile phones, we were unsure of what to buy. We knew we each wanted a “flip” phone, but didn’t know which one. We had it narrowed down to the StarTAC 3000 and the Nokia 282. We decided to get one of each!
The StarTAC is small, measuring about 2 x 3-3/4 inches when folded up. It is thinner than the Nokia. It is lightweight and doesn’t feel as solid as the Nokia, nor is it as sleek. It has a sort of “square” feeling when in hand and isn’t the most comfortable to hold.
The phone came with a battery, an AC wall charger and a plastic holster to clip onto your waistband.
FEATURES
There are 9 different ring settings to choose from. This phone does not come with the option of having the phone vibrate instead of ring, although I believe you can buy a special battery that allows that.
The display screen shows indicators of battery level, signal strength, whether the phone is in use, and whether or not you are in a no service area or a roaming area.
There is an internal phone book that can store up to 20 numbers. You can use the “scratchpad” feature to enter a phone number on your screen during a conversation, such as if you are asking your friend the phone number of another person. You will then have this number entered in and when you hang up from your first call, you are set to call the other party and the number is already in there instead of you having to scribble it down somewhere.
There is a pause dialing feature that lets you enter number in a linked sequence, like bank account numbers or other numbers in an automated calling system. You can enter the series of numbers with pauses in the appropriate places. You store that and simply bring that up and send as needed.
The phone is messaging ready. It has a caller ID feature and voice mail notification. However, these are things you have to subscribe to from your service provider.
If you are trying to track your minutes of use, you have some options. You can set an audible timer that will alert you as every minute passes by during your call. You can view the air time of each phone call during the call and after the call. You can also set an elapsed time function that will show accumulated air time during any period of time until you clear the screen. Finally, the total air time during the lifetime of your phone is kept track of and is not able to be reset.
You can “lock” your phone to prevent unauthorized use of it.
WHAT DO I THINK OF THIS PHONE?
The good
- Clear reception. Keep in mind that some of this depends on your service provider’s towers and service area. We get nice, clear calls and when my husband calls me, I usually can’t tell he is even on a mobile phone.
- Lightweight and compact size
- Belt clip is included
- Larger, easier to use buttons than the Nokia 282. They have a rubbery coating on them and make contact well.
- Numbers and letters in display light up brightly, as do the indicators on the display. Easy to read in darkness.
- The manual that is included was helpful and covered details well.
The bad
- Battery life. Standby time on the phone has proven to be about 12 hours maximum for us. We don’t talk all that much in a day to test the talk time, and we just recharge it every night. We need to buy the optional vehicle charger to eliminate the need for some of this charging in the house.
- The antenna seems very flimsy to me. It seems like it could break very easily.
- The menus are not all that user friendly. You wouldn’t want to be stranded without a user manual if you are trying to do something fancier than send or receive a call. You’ll find yourself clueless trying to navigate through any sort of menu. The Nokia model had a much more user-friendly menu, in my opinion.
… and the ugly!
The letters on this display are downright ugly! The letters and numbers are the type that are made up of lines lighting up in certain places on a rectangular figure 8 background, such as you see commonly on calculators and such. That works fine for the numbers. For the letters, however, it is a different story. It makes for some weird looking gibberish that is a strange combination of upper and lower case and abbreviations that don’t just jump out at you and tell you what they are for. That could use a definite improvement!
RECOMMENDATION
Due to the short battery life, this phone is good for those who make occasional calls. That is what we use it for and it is fine. If you are a chatty person who is using the phone every place you go during the day, you might be disappointed. The vehicle charger would help. The reception is clear, though, and it has a lot of features. If you can put up with the strange menu display and limited battery life, this is a nice choice! My husband, the primary user of it, has been pleased.
(If you are debating between getting this phone or the Nokia 282, please read my review on the Nokia for more information to see what features that one has.)
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