In this age of smartphones, Motorola W377 is a rather archaic phone and if you are buying for status, you won't even be reading this.

I bought this Motorola phone almost 3 years ago cheaply from eBay as an emergency phone. "Emergency" because I had lost my mobile and needed a quick replacement, just for texts and calls. And that's exactly what I got: texts and calls. The phone has a camera, but I don't think it's any good and am not interested in using it anyway. It supports web access, but I have never used it on this phone either. What I usually love and value in mobiles is a good calendar or some sort of organiser. This Motorola has a basic calendar which allows adding tasks and meetings (and setting alarms for them, of course), but for me it is far too basic and inconvenient to use. No notes, detailed entries, birthdays, etc.

Interestingly, there is one function on this phone that I found useful on quite a few occasions. It's the lantern. When you select it, the screen just goes bright white and can illuminate the space around. It's not a torch of course, but can help you to get home sometimes.

Umm... What else in terms of functionality? The phone supports multiple alarms, which is useful, but they can only be set to work once, daily or on working days, so you cannot set the alarm for Monday and Wednesday every week, for example.

The phone supports several pre-installed games that will not cause any excitement unless you are stuck on an uninhabited island for 10 years. It's Football, Sudoku, and Tetris. I find Sudoku hard to play on the screen, it's best in newspapers, I think. Tetris is not bad, but nothing special (and some key functions are just inconvenient). Football... Don't think I've ever launched it at all.

Another function probably worth mentioning is the stopwatch. It just can be helpful sometimes. But then again, even my previous phone had much more to offer (unit and currency converters, countdown, and more).

One thing I usually find annoying about Motorola phones is the menu organisation. W377 is no exception. To reset the time you first need to turn off the automatic time update and only then will you find the "Set time and date" option on the list. If you've lost your manual or forgot this trick, such a simple thing as resetting the phone clock can drive you mad.

Speaking about the physical characteristics of this phone, I would mention that I have no complaints about its battery life (although with my humble phone usage, I probably cannot have such complaints by default). This W377 looked really nice when it was (almost) new, but years of use and life in my bag have left their mark and in places the phone revealed its true colour behind the lovely pink. It seemed much louder than my old phone and yet sometimes I don't hear it when out and about in the noisy streets.

On the whole, this phone is nothing special, but nothing terrible either. It is cheap and does its main "phony" job (I mean texts and calls). I wouldn't say I am unhappy with it, nor am I excited. I am prepared to keep it as long as it lasts. That's the rule. No upgrades until it's lost or broken.