Ain't it pretty! (Motorola C350)

Member Name: Tybalt348

Product:	Motorola C350
Date:	08/09/03 (1224 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, Looks good, Colour screen

Disadvantages: Keypad, Keypad, Keypad

Having had my battle worn Nokia 5110 for a few years now, I figured it was time to finally give in and buy a new phone. It's a shame, because I really liked that phone. It may have been obsolete and it did take up about twice the pocket space of the C350, but I still liked it. If I hadn't damaged it by dropping it, so that it now switches off randomly, I'd still have it.

As you've probably guessed, I'm not into spending hundreds on the latest phone with all the latest features that no-one ever actually uses. No-one sane anyway, as the charges to actually use those features are usually outrageous. All I wanted was to be able to send text messages, make calls and have a colour screen, since I love the way they look. So off I went, looking for the cheapest colour phone I could find, which turned out to be this one, the C350. It cost me £80 on Vodafone, and I bought it without so much as a second though or testing it out. Mistake? Maybe, maybe not.

The first thing I noticed was how tiny it was compared to my old phone. Compared to my brother's 3410, it still looked pretty tiny. Perhaps too small. Messing around with it, I found it a little difficult to use, the buttons were so tiny. In a bright environment it's even harder, as when the backlight comes on, the keys are white on a silver background, making it pretty hard to pick them apart. If you're not used to really small keys, this will take some getting used to. I don't have large hands - an ex girlfriend nicknamed me Dainty Hands, which she thought was hysterical - and I found it pretty tough to use. For the ogre-fisted people out there, this phone could be nearly impossible to use. They keys aren't especially good in use either - they just don't "feel" right. It's hard to explain, but if you use one, you might see what I mean. It just makes it pretty hard to write text messages. What's even more frustrating is h
ow easy it is to hit the red "end call" button while writing a message. Hit that, and your long message is lost forever, forcing you to start again.

The user interface is very, very similar to a Nokia, so Nokia people will get on with the phone nearly immediately. It does feel a little cumbersome at times, requiring more button presses than it should, but it's not a real problem. The menus are clear, well thought out and easy to navigate. I've looked at the manual about twice since owning it.

Of course, any phone you buy now will come with some useless gimmicks, and this one is no different. I'll tell you now, I've never really used any of these, but I'm sure there will be people who just can't live without the features like picture messaging (though it has no camera, so you can only send messages it already has loaded onto it), WAP and the motomixer. The what mixer? It's a little thing for making up your own ringtones, based on a few bass tracks, piano loops, drum beats and guitar lines. To be honest with you, it's about the most useless, pointless thing ever thought of. It doesn't do much, and the ringtones always come out sounding the same.

I'm not sure whether or not I'd recommend it. I mean, it looks great and always gets people to make "cool" or "nice phone" comments. It has polyphonic ringtones and a colour screen, so it sounds good and looks pretty. It makes calls, as a phone should, has text messaging and the obligatory host of useless features. But the keypad often causes frustration and comes close to ruining what would otherwise be a great phone. Just make sure you test it before you buy it. If you can live with the keypad, great. If you don't get on with it, don't buy it. Simple as that.

Summary: