If I was a tortoise I'd make love to this phone !! (Motorola V3688)

Member Name: mickm9

Product:	Motorola V3688
Date:	28/02/01 (222 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Small, light snd very sexy

Disadvantages: A couple

Excuse the title but it got your attention didn’t it, if you saw the advert you know what I'm on about, if you didnt .... well, you probably think I'm a bit strange !!!

This used to be my “going out” phone as it was small enough to fit in my trouser pocket and had a vibrate alert which meant I never missed a call in a loud pub or club. It was a bit of a pain switching SIM’s though from whatever bulkier handset I was using to the V series as I wouldn’t use the V for work or home for reasons I outline later.

The above ritual however changed when I got my Nokia 8210 which now has my SIM in it constantly as it encompasses all the elements I need from a phone (see my review for further details). This means the V series is now relegated to a substitutes role should the Nokia die on me at inopportune moments, which touch wood it hasn’t yet. Still, its not such a bad sub to have on the bench as they say !!!

Its plus points …… ITS SMALL, in fact when closed it beats the Nokia on overall size although it is a lot thicker and therefore leaves a bigger bump in my trousers. However, it is still a LOT smaller overall than most other phones on the market.

As already mentioned the vibrate facility is a must have funtion for me as I do spend a lot of time in pubs and clubs …. shame on me !!

The “poser” value of flipping the phone open in such places should not be underestimated neither !!

However, where it really scores over the Nokia (at least in my case) is in the battery life with a seemingly never ending battery as opposed to the Nokias ever shrinking one. Then again I might just have been lucky with my batteries or might have a rogue one in my Nokia. It’s difficult to tell where batteries are concerned as usage patterns do play a big part in their lifecycle and performance but I’ll not go into that here as its very boring !!

The a
bove though is where the advantages end. Unfortunately the V series is a bit of a let down as far as text messaging is concerned as the keys are too close together, plus of course the fact that it doesn’t have predictive text messaging means that texting somebody with this is a bit of a labourious job.

The other major disadvantage from my point of view is the navigation menu which is very user unfriendly, obviously this is a personal view but it is a well known feeling within the industry that a high majority of serious mobile users much prefer the Nokia type menus to the Motorola.

Other than that the only other real disadvantage I can think of is the antenna which seems to stick out a lot, this is of course relative to the overall size of the handset and is in fact no bigger than the standard antenna, its just the fact that this phone is so small that the size of the antenna is accentuated.

Oh yeah, it also doesn’t have the functionality of downloading tones so you cant programme in your favourite tune, plus of course you cant change the facia so sorry, no Winnie the Pooh covers for this one !!

In summary this used to be the bees knees till the but the Nokia 8210 has now stolen that accolade, however the spin off from this is of course the price will come down accordingly so you should be able to pick one of these up pretty cheaply before long.

If you do you will not be disappointed, however, if you do have the choice I’d suggest the Nokia, believe me you certainly will not be disappointed with that one !

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