It's soooo small!!! (Motorola V50)

Member Name: ceri-anne

Product:	Motorola V50
Date:	25/08/01 (1498 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Small, Compact

Disadvantages: Menu software

I upgraded my phone (yet again!) in March this year and knew exactly which phone I was going to get! I loved the Motorola V50 as soon as I saw it. It is so small and compact.

I have always had Ericsson phones in the past (my last phone was a T10) so I was a little concerned about going for a different manufacturer but I have been impressed with Motorola so far).There are however some bad points about the V50.

Firstly, the screen being covered is great if like me you are a bit clumsy. It does mean that the screen is protected and so are the keys (without having to use that really annoying key lock). But there is also a problem with this. It may seem obvious now but I didn't think about it at the time. You cannot see the screen without opening it up. So? I hear you cry! Well, it means that every time you leave your phone, when you come back to it you have to open it to see if you're missed a call or received a text message. You also have to do this when you want to check the time which can be irritating.

There is also a feature on the phone whereby you can set it to answer a call when you open it so do you don't have to press any buttons. This does indeed look very cool if you're a bit of a poser but it also means that you have no idea who's calling until you're answered!I very soon disabled this (within the first day I think!)

The phone itself is very reliable. I am told that Motorola is the best manufacturer when it comes to coverage and signal strength. I can definitely agree. It has NEVER let me down. Ericsson is supposed to be the second best and I did used to have problems with my signal so I think Motorola really are in a league of their own here.

The only thing that does worry me about Motorola is that the software they use could definitely be better. It is very hard to get where you want to be. It seems that there are about 5 levels of menu for everything. This does apply to other models of
Motorola aswell. They have got around this a bit with the V50 by adding a Quick Access Menu where you can put your 9 favourite items such as Phonebook, Read Messages etc. This has come in handy!

Apart from that everything else is great. The battery seems to last much longer than most.(Officially it is 200 minutes of talk time and an amazing 115 hours of standby time! That's nearly 5 days!)

The predictive text is excellent whereas when I have used Nokia phones I find that it is more of a hinderence. Most people I know who have Nokia's have turned this feature off.

The other features on the V50 include:

Voice activation :
I don't tend to use this cos I feel stupid shouting at my phone but it does work!

Ringtone Composer:
Not as good as others I have used. The motorola has a very high squeaky tone so tunes often don't sound like you want them to.

Vibracall:
Better than other phones I have seen. It is really quiet.

WAP:
Where would I be without this now?! Really easy to use.

Alarms:
Brilliant. You can set up to 5 alarms to go off once, daily etc.

So...it's small, it looks good, it's reliable so if you can put up with menu system it's a wonderful phone. I can highly recommend it!

Summary: