Nicer in the US than the UK?!?!?
Written: Apr 27 '04 (Updated Mar 19 '05)
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Pros: Stylish, excellent display and sound quality, good camera
Cons: Very bad reception (only_in_the_UK?!?), some glitches to be ironed out, lack of features.
The Bottom Line: If I was convinced the faults I've seen are limited to a few phones, I could recommend this, but I'm not convinced...
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| captaind's Full Review: Motorola V300 |
The Motorola V300 phone is a very small, light, and stylish flip phone. It has several features that make it a good choice if your interest is geared more towards photography and game-playing than using it as an actual phone! (Well, this was when I finally managed to get my wife to let me have a proper look at her new toy so I could review it…)
My first impressions of this phone were very good – it looked good, seemed to have a good menu system, and a very good display (176 x 222 pixels with exceptionally good colour definition (65K colours)). The camera worked fine (and has a resolution of 680x480, which is pretty good going!), and while the built-in games were okay, there are plenty of better ones to download (at a price, obviously). Everything was looking good. Before the phone was given some serious use, that is…
The reception is pretty bad, at times even worse than my old Nokia 3210 / 5210, and certainly nowhere near as good as my 3200. For some unexplainable reason, when you’re in an area that cannot get a signal, it refuses to let you access your messages… My sister-in-law also has this phone, and has had a lot of problems with it. Reception just dies completely at times for no reason (we’re on the same network so I know it’s not just the area we’re in), and when she uses the zoom feature on the camera, lines appear and the whole image is generally distorted.
Obviously these are only 2 phones out of who knows how many, but they were from different shops and it does suggest to me that there are at least a few serious glitches with this phone that need to be ironed out. If it weren’t for these things it would be a really nice phone – the display is excellent, it has a whopping 5Mb memory, which even on the highest quality of JPG means you’ll be able to store a lot of photos, and given that the Java (J2ME/MIDP 2.0) games you can download are rarely more than 50K in size, you won’t run out of space for a long time. The battery life is slightly more than average but again inferior to that of the Nokia 3200. Unlike the Nokia range there is no infrared data transfer capability, though I doubt if most people would find that a particular problem.
The Motorola V300 can handle text and multimedia messages, and has a voice recorder. It has all the normal options you would expect with regards to functionality, and is really no better or worse than most other phones for general use. Having been used the the feature-packed 3200 for a while now perhaps I've been spoilt in this regards, but there really aren't many extra features at all on this phone.
Overall
It’s a classy phone but the problems mentioned, especially that with reception, prevent it from getting a good rating as they make it functionally deficient. With these problems sorted out it could be one of the better phones on the market. Ultimately,
it’s a case of nice aesthetics, shame about everything else.
However…
Judging from the other reviews, I would have to say that these could well be problems either specific to these phones or to the UK! Thus I have upped my rating to 3 instead of 2 stars, as it’s a little unfair to rate it down for bad reception if most of you will not experience this problem. I still don’t feel that it’s particularly good value for money, although if you can get it on a free upgrade deal – as both my wife and sister-in-law have - it’s not bad. I still prefer my 3200, but it depends mainly on what you want from a phone.)
Many thanks to moschops for correcting a couple of technical innacuracies that had crept into my review!
Comparison to the Nokia 3200
Display – much better colour definition, similar resolution
Sound – noticeably better
Camera – more advanced
Reception – much worse
Battery – noticeably worse
Features – restricted in comparison with the 3200’s myriad features.
Robustness – slightly worse
Other Phone Reviews
Nokia 3200 - packed full of features, excellent phone
Nokia 5210 - outdated today, but still one of the most durable phones ever made (virtually bomb-proof!)
Nokia 6610 - a pretty good business phone, but not the best in the Nokia range.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): FREE UPGRADE
Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy
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