Phone?s HARAKIRI and T-Mobile nightmare (Motorola V300)

Member Name: marcellen

Product:	Motorola V300
Date:	04/03/04 (4146 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: battery autonomy, intelligent ITAP dictionary, reception quality

Disadvantages: very bad software, switching off/on by itself, only two games

I will start this review first with the POSITIVE things:

* good camera (all modern phones have non-professional camera, but the one provided in the V300 is enough for most people)
* battery autonomy (after one months of charging it quite often, now I charge it every 5-6 days)
* "soft feel touch" (good feeling of quality),
* robust feeling when opening and closing the phone (shell phones seem normally very fragile),
* reception quality is very good (better than my previous Nokia 7110 which was already very good),
* very intelligent ITAP dictionary (helps a lot in writing faster and is better than T9 logic of Nokia phones).

I will focus now on the long list of NEGATIVE experiences, reporting some problems that I submitted to the customer support. They answered very fast to these questions, but I guess that they didn't have many chances to actually solve these problems.

* T-Mobile software (banner, music and logo)
* Switching off/on by itself
* Network operator settings management
* Melodies management
* Low battery alert
* SMS memory


-> The problem that most disappointed me, the T-MOBILE SOFTWARE in general <-

At the moment the only place where you can buy the V300 is from a T-Mobile shop, or whatever other shop which is basically reselling a T-Mobile phone. These phones are called "branded" phones, because they have additional features according to the phone operator from which they are coming. You will get a T-Mobile V300 also if you pay the full price to have an unlocked phone, without contract with a T-Mobile SIM card.
You would think that it?s not a big issu
e, but in reality what they are selling you is not the regular V300 advertised in the Motorola website, but a "T-Mobile Motorola V300". You will realize that the use of other SIM is yes allowed (to send/receive phone calls, SMS, surf internet) but not welcome, just like if in Microsoft Windows you install a different browser than Internet Explorer.

The V300 is full of T-Mobile gadgets that you can?t delete: for example a T-Mobile melody while switching on and off the phone, "t-zones" logo appearing during the internet connections also with other providers, and dozen of links trying to connect in various ways to "t-zones" servers. In Motorola?s slang these links are called "banners", and just like in the internet environment, they are trying to invite you to leave what you where doing and to connect to the "mother" T-Mobile.
You find these banners everywhere in the phone, for example within the melodies, the games, the wallpapers and the screensavers. This means that you will click on them believing that you are loading a game from the phone, but in reality you are starting to pay to T-Mobile!! And there is no warning message to tell you that the next operations are not for free, but are at the owner?s expense!! If you don?t have a T-Mobile card, these attempts to connect are useless and expensive: the phone attempts to connect, starts to pay, and then realizes that you don?t have a T-Mobile card (too late!!!).
I tried to prevent the phone from accessing these banners but even blocking all the WAP access features from the "security->lock application", the phone is still free to access these features. So you can?t block these banners.
And what is worse, you can?t even delete them, because "they are part of the ori
ginal T-Mobile software" (just like Internet Explorer and Windows). Part of the phone?s features are useless, because these banners are not working. They will just stay in your phone, on top of every page (so that they are more visible, and you can hit them easily by mistake), and remain there inactive. But at least they will contribute to your phone operator?s incomes, because every time you hit them you will pay immediately.

Even if it seems incredible, Motorola doesn?t offer neutral software for people who don?t want the T-Mobile brand version. And what is worse, nothing is mentioned in the official Motorola and T-Mobile websites.


-> HARAKIRI (software mistakes)

The phone is turning of by itself from time to time (that?s what I called HARAKIRI) even if the battery is full. After I turn it on again, I see that the battery has three lines, and the phone is working normally.
Answer from Motorola was to try to turn off the "battery save mode" (what is this mode, does it turn off automatically the phone to save battery ?!! ). By the way, in the instructions manual it?s nothing written about this option.
One time the display of the V300 remained blocked in its screenshot after snoozing the alarm clock. In that occasion I couldn't do anything with the phone, the keypad was not working.
Sometimes it happens also that the phone is switching off and on by itself when I?m in a WAP session. It?s a strange problem, because I don?t have to put again the PIN code, but anyway the phone call is interrupted and I have to connect to the server again (spending more money). It happened also while making a browser update through an SMS.


-> NETWORK
OPERATOR SETTINGS <-

I downloaded some network operator settings (excellent service from Motorola website). I'm using regularly three SIM cards (due to my work, I need different cards for different countries), and I quickly reached the maximum number of settings that I can store on the phone. Counting three settings for operator (MMS, WAP-CSD and WAP-GPRS), if you have many SIM cards it's easy to reach the maximum. This can happen for example if you give the mobile to your girlfriend, or if one day you want to change operator.

The problem is that you can't replace the settings arrived via SMS, because beside these settings it's a small symbol of a padlock, that means that you can't delete them. And if you have already the maximum, the phone is refusing new ones or modification to the old ones.
Answer from Motorola is that you have to reset the phone (losing the address book, photos, melodies, games and so on, that cost a fortune in terms of time and money). Or send the phone to them and they will cancel the settings for you (but not for free, as they clarified).


-> RINGTONE management <-

I downloaded a polyphonic melody that I can listen to, and is correctly appearing in the "downloads" menu. But the same song is not appearing as an available ringtone from the "change ringtone" menu in the settings. Other songs that I downloaded from the same website are instead appearing both as downloaded items and as available ringtones, so I don?t understand what is the problem with this song. I tried to bypass this problem from the "downloads" menu: I can "apply this song as ringtone", but whe
n I receive a telephone call and this ringtone is selected, no sound is coming from the phone. Answer from Motorola was to download melodies only from Motorola's website (!!!!)
Additionally, Motorola changed once more the logic for composing a song directly from the phone. I think that including all Motorolas, there are at least five completely different ways for input of new melodies. This means that you can?t use most of the melodies listed in websites for do-it-yourself composers. Once more, the best way is to pay and directly download a melody from internet.


-> SWITCHING ON/OFF MUSIC <-

The music while turning on and off is from the T-Mobile TV spot (very loud and ugly in my opinion). You would want to set another music because you don?t care about T-Mobile and you don?t want to hear this jingle every single day, or eventually you don?t want to have any start music at all, not to disturb your neighbors. Well, it?s impossible, because it?s part of the original software (official answer).


-> LOW BATTERY ALERT <-

The phone makes a loud noise when the battery is low. So far so good, other phones wait till the very last minute to do it. The problem is that the V300 will make this alter also if you set the phone to mute !! This means that when you are at the cinema or during a conference, the V300 will give you the nice feeling of being undesired from the others. You may want to turn off the phone then, and here comes the most stupid of all the stupid things !! The phone will continue to make this alert even if you turned it off !!! If it has low battery it will continue with this sound all night long !! Think about it if you are in a train, and want to sleep
or you are in a meeting and you can?t plug it to a battery charger !!
The only way to stop the sound is to put it to charge or (if you don?t have the charger with you), to open the cover and take off the battery. Who programmed this sound alert ?


-> SMS memory <-

I also noticed that you can?t save SMS. If take away your SIM card, put a new one from a friend, and then put again yours, all the messages that you had on that card are definitely GONE !! They are no-where.


-> CONCLUSION <-

Basically it?s a phone with a good hardware and good basic calling functions. This shows a step in the correct direction from the old fragile Motorolas.

B U T: it?s costing 300 EUR, not 100 EUR , it has only TWO games and a firmware that MUST be improved in reliability and cleverness. If you don?t have a T-Mobile card, part of the phone?s features are wasted.
Being only youth and software problems, I'm confident that Motorola can do something quickly, including something for the mobiles already sold. For example they could offer a service to register their product in their website, where according to the serial number they could inform us about software updates or possible product recalls.

I think that all the users should have the right to choose if they want the T-Mobile branded phone or not. If Motorola advertises a non-branded phone in their website, then they should sell exactly what they promise.

A further remark: T-Mobile probably thinks that their customers are so proud of having sounds and images from their beloved company that they will like to show them to everybody. For example, concerning the switching on/off loud music, the customers w
ill be so happy to hear every single day this T-Mobile melody, that they will never want to change it (because anyway, they are part of the original software and they can?t be changed).
Do they really think that the customers are so stupid and crazy about T-Mobile marketing gadgets?
I?m not sure if the V525 is having similar problems with Vodafone, but my personal opinion is that there is a tendency to bind the user with a phone operator for the rest of his life (or at least of the phone?s life). And this is happening using some tricks learned in the PC software business.

Summary: