The Motorola E550 - a nice little phone. (Motorola E550 with Contract)

Member Name: SRowlands

Product:	Motorola E550 with Contract
Date:	16/12/05 (453 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great phone - Stylish, Robust and a great Battery Life !

Disadvantages: Not a lot different from the V525.

It's hard to believe that a whole year has passed since I last upgraded my mobile phone, but indeed it's true! March marks the date when I start looking around at the latest mobile phone deals on the market, then contact my existing provider Singlepoint (recently acquired by Vodafone) to see what they can offer.

I had been very impressed with my old phone - a Motorola V525. It had a great range of features, excellent WAP facility and it was very sturdy. Despite being dropped on numerous occasions, apart from a few cosmetic scratches it still looked and worked as good as new. The "clamshell" design (meaning it folds on itself) meant that the screen was still clear and free from marks.

When I contacted Singlepoint, I had in my mind the Motorola V3 Razor as my "ideal" phone. This is one of the latest from Motorola, and looks futuristic and very sleek.
When I suggested this as a possible upgrade to the helpful guy on the other end of the phone, he strongly advised me to reconsider - "admittedly they do look great, however their functionality is somewhat questionable." This, and the upgrade cost of that phone quickly persuaded me to change my mind.

After a few more questions as to what I wanted from my new phone, he suggested the Motorola E550. This was an upgraded model of my existing handset, with a few new features and improved software. The Motorola E550 is also known as the V550, depending on which network supplier you get it from.

As I had been so happy with the V525, a deal was soon struck - and two days later my new phone arrived by courier...

From the outside, the phone looks exactly the same as the V525 - fairly small but robust, with a stylish metallic blue and brushed metal fascia. It looks quite futuristic, and would suit either sex. The external case also has a mini-screen (96 x 32 pixels) which displays the time. When you get an inbound call or message, the screen tells you the name or number of the person calling, or that you have a new message. In the event that you miss a call, this information is also displayed here.
There is a sturdy antenna on the top of the phone. I know that this is of concern to some people, as they feel it may snap off easy - but having the V525 for a year (which has the same antenna); I experienced no problems at all with it, despite keeping the phone in my pocket most of the time.

Upon opening the phone, you are presented with a nice, clearly presented display, with an impressive resolution of 176 x 220 pixels, and a colour display of 65000 colours!
It consists of a background picture (called wallpaper) which can be changed to a number of different ones that come with the phone, or you can choose your own by either downloading new ones, or using photo's you've taken with the inbuilt camera (see below). The main display also includes a clock with the date and time, battery charge display and strength of signal.
It also has a "toolbar" located at the bottom of the display with three options - "Messages", which takes you straight to the SMS / Messaging pages, "Live" which connects you to Vodafone Live, and a "Menu" option, which gives you access to all the following...



My Items:
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Pictures:-
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This file contains all the pictures on your mobile. From here, you can view, manage, download and edit the pictures.
The phone comes with eight standard photos, which can be used as wallpaper or animated screensavers, but adding more by taking photographs or downloading them is a simple process.

Sounds:-
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This is where all of your ring tones are stored. The phone comes with around thirty alert and ring tones, although around 90% of them are pretty awful!!
As is pretty standard nowadays, the phone is capable of playing "Polyphonic" ring tones - this is a higher quality of ring tone that can play several different notes at once.
The phone is also MP3 compatible, although with just a 5MB memory, you would be very limited to the quality and quantity of MP3's.

Videos:-
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This is one of the new features of the V550 - the ability to record and play video images. The phone comes with a pre-installed "Ferrari Facts" video which demonstrates the facility. The quality is ok, although the capture rate is fairly low. This results in low quality recordings if the phone (or subject) moves too fast.
You can either use a continuous record mode, which will continue recording until all the memory is used up, or limit the recordings to around 15 - 20 seconds - suitable for sending via the MMS service.

Motomixer:-
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This is a fun tool, although has no real practical use. With the Motomixer, you can create your own ring tones by mixing a base track and adding Synth, Organ, Drums and Bass. I played about with this tool briefly on the V525, and the results were fairly impressive - however I would have personally preferred it if this feature was not included in the newer model, and compensated with a bit more storage capacity.


Vodafone Live! :-
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Vodafone Live! is the mobile internet service provided by Vodafone, or WAP as it is commonly known. This is basically a scaled down version of the world wide web, but allows you to browse various sites and services.
There are numerous news and weather services provided, along with an excellent "Premiership" section, which gives you the latest scores and fixtures for the Premiership football teams.
The service is fast, and general browsing is free - any additional services can incur a charge, but you are requested to confirm if you wish to proceed when this is the case.

You can also use the service to download extra themes, wallpapers, ring tones and games for your V550 - although you can find similar services around at very competitive prices.



Call Log:-
=========

The "Call-Log" sub-menu brings up a list of information - from here you can view calls and numbers that you have received, dialed, and view call times and data transfer times (for WAP).
This is ideal if you have a number of free minutes, or free SMS messages included in your monthly tariff that you do not want to exceed - although you would need to remember to reset the figures at the beginning of each month!
There is also a feature called "Notepad" in this section. Whilst making a call, you can enter numbers into the notepad by pressing the buttons on the keypad - this is perfect if, for example, you are calling someone who gives you another telephone number to ring. As they are saying the number, you can tap the number in and, when the call has finished, retrieve it from the notepad and either dial it or save it to the phones memory.



Messages:-
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The "Messages" section is an essential part of the phone. This is where you can compose, send and retrieve SMS and MMS messages, along with emails and voicemail messages.

When writing SMS messages, you have the option of either Multitap input (e.g. press "2" once for "a", two times for "b", three for a "c" or four times for a "2"), or predictive text input.
This is different from the standard Nokia phones, and may take some getting used to if you are changing from such.
The software gets you to input the first three letters in a pre-emptive mode, and then tries to guess the word - also taking into account previous messages and the structure of the sentence. The suggested word is displayed in a grayed out format, which if correct you press "select". If the word is not correct, you type the next letter.
This sounds complicated, but you soon get used to it, and after a whilst you'll probably prefer it to the Nokia system. I'll give an example of "suggested words" below...

Suppose you wanted to type the word "Civilization" - you would type the first three letters "C - I - V", and the software suggests "civil", so you carry on and type "I - L", and then the suggestion changes to "civilian". Next you would type the letters "I - Z", and the suggestion is "civilizing". However, by then tapping the "A", the word is "civilization".

MMS is very similar to SMS, but allows you to insert pictures, video clips and sounds into the message (although there is a higher charge for using this!).
There are a range of templates supplied on the phone, such as "Thinking Of You" and "Running Late" and numerous other ones. The quality of these if fairly good too.

You can also set up your phone to send and receive email. On the previous model (the V525), I had many problems setting it up and as a result did not use the facility.
On the V550, however, the service was set up very quickly and easily. Once this is done, you can check your email inbox and send email via your phone. Obviously, particularly large messages will not be downloaded (such as messages with attachments), and the phone cannot display HTML, but it is excellent if you are expecting urgent emails.

The voicemail service is provided, in my case, by Vodafone. However, from the messages section you can see if you have any new messages and call your voice mail directly.


Camera:-
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The E550 comes with an inbuilt digital camera - capable of capturing still images and moving, video images - complete with sound!
The camera has a 4X Zoom function, and the ability to increase or decrease the brightness. Photographs are captured in a 640 x 480 format, which is very high quality (for a mobile phone anyway!).
There is a tiny, discreet mirror embedded on the front of the phone that looks quite cosmetic. In fact, this allows you to hold the phone / camera pointing towards you, and see what picture you're taking - ideal for those drunken shots of you and a total stranger!!
You can then send the photo's to friends and family via MMS, to a PC using the Bluetooth facility (see below), or use them as a "wallpaper" on your phone.

The video function on the phone is a new addition to this model over its predecessors. You can record both sound and moving images - and once again send them to friends or store them on your phone or PC.
Generally the quality is fairly good, but the capture rate is quite slow. This can result in poor quality recordings if the phone or subject moves too quickly!
The other problem is that the videos can soon fill up the 5MB memory on the phone.

The camera lens is mounted on the external casing of the phone. This could result in a few problems, however. The lens is more likely to get damaged if it is on the outside, but also (as I have found), by keeping the phone in your pocket, the lens can quickly become built up with dust. This is amplified by the fact that the lens is slightly inset into the casing, so the only way to really clean it is with a cotton bud!


Games:-
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This sub-menu stores the Java based games on the phone.
Traditionally, mobile phone games have been, well shall we just say of average quality. The amount of memory in phones severely limits the quality of the graphics and sounds.
However, times are changing, and the games are finally getting better - although still do not match that of the latest commercial releases.

The E550 comes with just two games installed (and one is just a "trial" version!) -

Golf Club:-
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This is a, believe it or not, Golf game. It's of a very high quality and allows you to play a round of golf. The controls are similar to many other golf games out there - pick a club, select the power and chip / slice and hit the ball.
Unfortunately, this game is limited to just 6 plays as it is a trial version.

Wakeboarding Unleashed:-
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A cross between water skiing and snowboarding, you are challenged to ride the waves whilst being towed along by a speedboat. You also have to hit the ramps, perform a number of stunts and grind the rails to achieve the best possible score.
Again, this is a good quality game and demonstrates the improvement of Java based games today. However the graphics are still a bit jerky and it can be difficult to hit the right buttons at the right moment.


One of the downsides of these games is that you cannot adjust the music and sound effect settings - they are either off, or on... and very loud!!

There are many games available for download from Vodafone Live! and at a mixture of prices. These range from an arcade conversion of Ghosts 'n' Goblins charged at just £1.00, to a conversion of the amazing and still hugely playable "Sensible Soccer" at £5.00.



Organiser:-
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This section was called "Applications" in previous models, but basically houses all the applications to help you run your day to day life.
If features...

Calculator:-
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Makes simple, everyday calculations, and also has an inbuilt currency converter.

Calendar:-
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This allows you to keep a diary of things to do and events. The setup allows you to change the view from monthly to weekly and daily.
One downside of the calendar function is that, unlike Outlook, you can only set recurring tasks on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. My working life revolves around a 10-day pattern, so this is not really appropriate to my needs.

Voicedial:-
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The Motorola E550 is a hands free phone. Rather than dial a number, or selecting one from your list of contacts, you can set it to recognize the recipients name and dial the number automatically.
The software is good at recognising what you say, and this feature is very handy when using hands free communications.

Voice Recorder:-
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Have you ever wanted to record a reminder for yourself? This tool allows you to do just that. You just select the application, then hold down the "voice record" button (located on the side of the phone) and dictate whatever you want to say.

Alarms:-
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As with most mobile phones today, you can set alarms to remind you of events, or to wake you up as an alarm clock.
This phone actually allows you to select a number of different alarms at different times, and with different sounds if necessary. You can also store the alarm settings under different names - so, for example, I have 4 different times that I have to get up for work on a morning shift - either 0430, 0500, 0530 or 0900. I can actually pre-set alarms and then just select which one I need to set for the next day!




Contacts:-
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This is where you store up to 1000 contact details and numbers. This is a huge amount compared to many phone on the market, and should be more than enough for most mobile addicts out there!
Names are stored alphabetically, although you can also assign categories which make finding contacts quicker and easier.


Settings:-
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Settings are where you can change the way that you phone looks, feel and operate.
From here, you can apply different wallpapers and screensavers, change the phones themes (there is a fantastic "futuristic" theme supplied that looks great!), change the ring styles, set up call diverts, change and apply security settings and connect the phone to other devices.



Call Handling:-
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Of course, the main point of having a mobile phone in the first place is having the ability to talk to other people, wherever you are! So how does this phone rate in this area?
As I've mentioned above, dialing the call can be done in four different ways... you can dial a number, use voice dial, look up a contact and dial or use a speed-dial facility. You can assign the keypad so that by holding down a single button, you can dial your most used numbers. When you add contacts, the phone also assigns a speed dialing code, for example #1024. It can be a bit difficult to remember these, but after a bit of time they do sink in !
With regards to the calls themselves, the phone has several different volume settings, so you can change the volume and how loud you can hear the caller. I've not experienced any problems at all hearing people on the other end of the line.
On a few occasions when I have been making calls, the recipient has had a few problems hearing what I am saying. This occurs particularly when outside, should a breeze blow into the microphone. Also, occasionally, the mic brushes against my cheek (and a bit of stubble) that can distort the call.
Overall though, the call facility is excellent. Calls are clear and easy to hear from both ends.
The addition of the external antennae also means that, occasionally , when the signal is fairly weak, my phone can pick up a signal when others can't.
The phone is also Quad Band - this means that when you travel abroad, you can use the phone in other countries (subject to approval from your service provider !).

The phone has a built in Bluetooth facility. This allows two pieces of equipment to communicate without the need of wires ! This means that you can connect the phone to your PC, for example, to transfer information such as the address book or calendar. You can also use Bluetooth as part of the Hands-Free capabilities on the phone, by using it with a Bluetooth headset.
With the clampdown by the police, hands free communication is essential. As well as using a headset, the phone also has an in-built hands free tool, through the use of an amplified microphone and a speaker - so you can chat to someone without holding the phone to your ear.

As with any phones, one of the main points to focus on is the battery life. It's great having a phone with all the latest tools and gadgets, but if the battery life only lasts a day, what's the point ?
The Motorola E550 sports a very impressive 4.5 hours of talk time battery life, and an amazing 250 hours of standby. I use my phone an average amount, but what this equates to is that I only need to charge my phone around once a week !!
Compared to the V525, where I had to charge it every 2 - 3 days, this is a huge leap !



Overall Opinion:-
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As I've already said, I upgraded from the V525 to the E550, which I've now had for about six months.
Initially I felt somewhat disappointed with the upgrade, as it is essentially the same phone and software as the V525, and I wanted some new "toys" to play with. The addition of the video camera compensated somewhat.
However, then it suddenly dawned upon me that I was very pleased with my old phone - I like the phone, and most of the features - and if something works and you're happy with it, why change it ?
The changes to the Motorola E550 are mostly cosmetic and software changes, so there is not a huge difference. In effect, the E550 is the V525's big brother.
It's stylish, works well, robust and fits well in the pocket - so yes, it is an excellent option.
If I were pushed to find faults on the phone, it would be hard to find any. For some people, the fact that the housing of the phone can not be personalised may be a problem - the fascia is not interchangeable, so you are stuck with the same silver and blue design as everyone else who has the phone.
Other than that, and other small flaws that I've mentioned throughout the review, it is hard to criticize.

If you like a phone to be practical, stylish and modern, then this could well be the phone for you !




*Disclaimer - I originally wrote and published this review on Ciao.co.uk, under the same username, and have transferred it to dooyoo.co.uk.

Summary: A neat, stylish and practical little phone.