slim but dim (Motorola SLVR L6)

Member Name: cheesycal

Product:	Motorola SLVR L6
Date:	12/09/06 (1527 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: many features for the price

Disadvantages: budget price means budget performance

The motorola L6 can be quite confusing. On paper, it has the features and it certainly looks very thin and sleek. You'd expect this phone to be a bit more expensive..like its bigger brother the L7. Once you get it though, you realise why it is so cheap. If you buy it as a no nonsense phone, making and receiving calls, sure it's functional. But try use any of the features advertised and you will be sorely disappointed.

I received this phone for free as part of a no-cost contract (i.e cash back contract) in June. If you'd like more information on these kind of contracts, please go and look in my reviews.

Packaged with the phone is the battery, hands-free kit and a normal charger. I'll categorise my review into different topics for easier reading.

Design+Looks
When you first have the L6 in your hand, the first thing to notice is the thinness of the handset. It is 10.9mm so it is remarkably thin. The weight is 86g which is neither light nor heavy for an average handset. The phone is, however, perhaps a bit longer than desirable at 11.3cm. Written out like that, it doesn't seem that long...but compare it to other phones and it certainly is lot longer. Personally i would prefer a shorter phone even if sacrificing thinness. i find that the L6 looks awkward next to other phones due to its elongated form.

the keypad on the L6 is same as those you'd find on any motorola nowadays. the keys are attached in groups of three instead of having separate detached keys. the keypad is also flat and does not protrude at all when looking at the handset from the side.

YOu can get the phone in three colours silver, pink and black. the one i have is silver alhtough in real life it is blueish silver...officially its called "diamond dust africa" which actually doesnt tell us anything about the colour.

the aluminium casing has a nice feel due to its brushed effect. this also means that it wont be be easily scratched. the camera is located on the top of the back of the phone and there is a silver button on either side of the phone.

in all, the phone looks quite sleek as long as it is seen on its own. with other phones, it looks awkward owing to its elongated form.



Features+Performance

the L6 has a surprising number of features given the price:

a vga camera and video camera
bluetooth
downloadable java games
calculator
currency converter
calendar/scheduler
alarm clock
speaker phone

it also has a screen that is 128 x 160 pixels and covered by scratch resistant glass.

i'll run through some of these features now

camera/video camera.

the quality of the camera or the video camera is subpar with the average standard these days. the vga camera is able to capture photos with 640x480 pixel resolution and you should be expecting at least 1 megapixel instead. once in the camera mode, you have the option to adjust the brightness but that is all. there is an auto time capture meaning you can set a timer to take pictures but it is really not useful at all. despite its relatively large screen, when taking a photo, the viewfinder only takes up half of the screen. the other half tells you in needlessly large lettters how many photos you may take and that what you are viewing is infact a "photo viewfinder". i find this to be a complete waste of screen space.

the video camera is pretty much the same as the camera. the resolution is so poor that it's hard to make out the faces of the people.


User interface

the user interface is bland at best and initally quite easy to browse around. the main difficulty arises from trying to change various settings. it seems that the designers gave up half way through and instead of having an icon and a description of the menu, you just have text list with underlining.

for example, to change the ring tone you go into the menu. the menu is tiled and there are nine icons arranged 3 by 3. fine enough. you select phone settings and you are led into a list with smaller icons. next to ring styles is a picture of a bell. nice. highlight that option and select it. suddenly all the nice pictures go away and you are left with

ring styles
style: loud
loud detail.

its written like a text message and that goes for every other inside menu you enter. there doesn't seem to be any form of organisation in these menus. it's irritating because you don;'t know whether they are just telling you information or whether it's a menu. i'm osrry...i just get really annoyed with this little part.

the user interface is also very slow. there is significant lag when entering and navigating the menu screen. when entering camera or video mode, it takes at least 3 seconds to activate and another 3 seconds to take the picture and a further 3 seconds to save it. coming from samsung and sony ericsson phones, the sluggishness of the motorola is often unbearable.

texting is also quite tricky. for some reason, my phone seems to have german predictive texting. the words quessed are often german. it tries to guess the whole word with a few letters typed and when it works it is really satisfying. when it doesnt..it's really frustrating. for example typing in "afte" of afternoon immediately brings up beteiligt as a suggestion. try type in the whole word and what comes up on screen is aftermomm which is neither an english or a german word. flick through the options and you also get aftermono afternonm afternonn afternono and afternono with an umlaut. luckily you can save afternoon into the dictionary and it will guess that first. but you understand my irritation?

this review is getting really long...mainly due to my heated rants about various things...i'll try to keep it concise from now on.


the battery life of the motorola L6 is very short. officially the stand by time is at maximum 345 hours and talktime is 5 hours 50mins. in real life, you will never just leave your phone on and do nothing or talk on the phone constantly for 5 hours 50 mins... but i find that with 40 minutes of talking 40 minutes of games, the phone will last you one day and a half. which is very poor. the poor battery life is attributed to the very thin battery that the motorola L6 uses. it is perhaps only half a centimetre thin.

talking of games, bundled with the phone are blockbreaker deluxe, skipping stones and submarine. the last two are not worth playing at all..the blockbreaker one is quite fun for about 10 minutes. (playing 40 mins just for the sake of this review was pushing it!)

the bluetooth is very easy to use. bluetooth has a menu icon on its own and it is really easy to connect to bluetooth devices, be it computer, another phone or a bluetooth hands free kit. transfer of files via bluetooth is sluggish.

most importantly, the call quality is acceptable for this phone. the sound is more dull than crisp but this shouldnt bother most people. the loudspeaker is quite loud and there is a slight crackly sound to it but that is to be expected in a relatively cheap and thin phone. the only problem i have with calling is that the phone particularly at the ear piece heats up quickly to a point where you can no longer hold the phone to your ear. i wonder whether this is safe at all...perhaps my brain is being microwaved at that ear... yikes.

to summarise a needlessly long review...

this phone packed full of features given its budget price however you should not expect much from this phone. it is very much a case of doing a lot of things but doing them badly.

the short battery life and the heating up of the earpiece are most concerning. other problems include a sluggish interface and sub par camera/vdeo.

however for the price, you are getting an extremely thin phone with camera/video and bluetooth capabilities.

it is hard to judge whether this phone is value for money. if you are a prepay customer, i'd suggest that you might find this quite good. if you are a contract customer, i'd suggest you should look elsewhere.

another quick thing is that you can use a data cable to connect your phone to the computer. the data connection is a non-proprietry (ie normal) mini-usb connector. the only problem is that you have to download the phone manager and drivers from the internet.


PS a word of advice to prepay customers...nowadays contract deals are so good that there is no reason to pay around £80 for this handset and whatever for calls. i am signed up to a contract where i received this phone for free and will receive all that i spend back in cheques.

Summary: the L6 can do many things....but badly

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