Motorola V100 - THE LOWDOWN! (Motorola V100 Personal Communicator)

Member Name:

Product:	Motorola V100 Personal Communicator
Date:	13/07/01 (71 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: -

Disadvantages: -

We are reluctant to call this device a phone because it clearly has no microphone or speaker and the traditional numerical keyboard is absent. Instead, you open up the case, a bit like a ladies’ compact and you see a larger-than-normal screen and a miniature QWERTY-style keyboard. Have no doubts - this device is aimed squarely at the serial texter.

Ease of use

It is immediately obvious which population group is the intended user of the Vbox . The gaudy colours that are available - three of them semi-transparent like an Apple iMac - show that this is not a business toy and that it is intended for kids. So it has to be easy to use, although modern youngsters seem better able to handle complex technology than more mature so-called technologists.

Motorola has dubbed the product the V.Box although the official name is the V100 and this is emblazoned across the box and manual. This is clearly an effort to avoid any confusion with the V50 which we reviewed last week. Also, it is a much more user-friendly term that should appeal better to the leisure users the product is aimed at.

We shan’t go on about how the Motorola user interface is the most awkward of all the major manufacturers, especially since the latest version is an improvement. The manual is certainly easier to work through than for other Motorolas although most kids never open them anyway. If you were in any doubt that this phone is meant as a toy, these doubts evaporate when you see the ridiculous cartoon character - an open V.Box with limbs and a face - on every page.

It would be dangerous to compare the way this phone works to a normal handset. It only works as a phone anyway when you plug in the hands-free lead since there is no external microphone or proper speaker.

The normal voice functions are all included and probably more than you would expect on a budget-priced device. You have 25 voice dial locations that enable you to dial by ta
lking into the hands-free with the case closed. Dialling numbers is fiddly though because of the tiny keyboard and there is no question of dialling numbers with one hand as with a standard mobile.

Design/Style

This handset is not stylish but it certainly has its own style. The comparison with the iMac PC is inevitable since the V.Box does nothing special, it just does what it does in a very special way. It may be ugly to some eyes but kids will love its solid feel and appearance and choice of four bright colours with appropriately ridiculous names.

Because the V.Box is so quirky it will grab attention. But its quirky nature is derived from a nice piece of marketing: it basically puts mid-range Motorola phone insides into outsides that are focused on texting.

Vital statistics




Metric measurements
Weight: 130g
Dimensions: 94mm X 72mm X 26mm
Display: 53mm X 32mm/ 126 X 64 pixel

Imperial measurements
Weight: 4.58 oz
Dimensions: 3.7" x 2.8" x 1"
Display: 2" x 1.2"/ 126 X 64 pixel


Voicenotes, 25 voice dial locations, ring tone editor, QWERTY keypad
Vibrate alert
11 ring tones
Phone.com WAP browser

WAP browsing



The lovely big screen gives a surprisingly limited five lines of WAP text. However, the screen is much wider than a normal screen and allows longer lines of text to be displayed. This also meant that graphics - while offer well presented - were pushed to the left of the screen. On the plus side, you could hold it virtually at hands-length and still see text and images clearly.

The screen really came into its own when reading news sites or those heavy with text. You are able to see many more characters - albeit with the strange g, y, j and a that Motorola insist on using - than a phone designed for voice. It is no Ericsson R380 or Palm V but it is also a fraction of the p
rice.

The four-way cursor keys although tiny were easy to use to move the cursor around the screen while special characters were easily generated using the shift and alt keys. Kids can avoid detection by teacher when surfing the net with a short-cut key that disconnects the WAP call with one press, the rubber diamond key on the front lip of the V.Box.

The Phone.com browser - not one of the nicest to use - and phone software are virtually straight from the latest-generation Motorolas. It is a shame that no modification was made to eliminate the soft-key prompts on the screen. Since there are no keys immediately below the screen on the V.Box as there are on the Timeports, the three options that appear at any time on the bottom line correspond awkwardly to the C, Menu and OK keys on the keyboard.

WAP-related features



Having a keyboard makes entering data onto WAP sites so much easier than using a numeric keypad as on traditional mobile phones. For this reason the V.Box does not have predictive text which has become virtually standard on any WAP phone, including Motorolas.

However, the keys are very fiddly and there is no reassuring click when you have pressed a key. The tiny buttons are so closely spaced that adult fingers inevitably press neighbouring keys, although it was rare to cause the wrong letter to appear.

The V.Box was also irritating to enter data into because there was an inordinate delay before the letter appeared on the screen. You could write a seven-letter word and then the whole word appears on the screen with a mis-spelling in the middle only after you type the seventh letter. However, we must make allowances because this device is clearly aimed at little people with little fingers.

Although the device looks initially like a personal digital assistant you have no significant on-board memory so virtually no cache. This means pages have to be resent when you go back to a pag
e you have already seen. Also you still only have one possible setting for a gateway or connection: annoying if you want to go through an independent WAP service provider to that offered by your network. You also have a limit of a meagre 10 bookmarks.

OVERALL


It is a breath of fresh air to see a device that is genuinely ground-breaking. After while it gets boring just seeing another smallest, lightest phone with more voice dials, longer battery life, more memory locations or more chrome than the last. Motorola have cleverly targeted a design at a particular sector: youngsters that do not make many voice calls. This is clear by the launch of the V.Box straight to pre-pay rather than contract.

It is a shame that the software was not more customised to the target market and is little more than a repackaging of other Motorolas. The WAP capabilities of the V.Box are also disappointing given that soon we can expect WAP call prices to tumble and content to become more compelling for youngsters. But this device is not meant to be long-lived so expect more sophisticated versions of devices aimed especially at SMS addicts.

The V.Box may not be a revolution in cellphones but it is a big step in the evolution. When phone makers start making specialist devices for the masses to send data then you know that the mobile Internet is likely to make a big impact on our lives.

Summary: