Design
What does seventy bucks buy you? Well, in mobile terms, any number of
capped plans for a month, or about one-tenth of a decent phone. What you
wouldn't normally expect it to get you is a half-decent phone -- or at
least a phone that looks like it was designed in the last six years.
That's where Motorola's low-cost MOTOFONE is deceptive; it's a thin,
stylish phone with enough features liberally cribbed from Motorola's bag
of design tricks to appeal to most users -- but it's also only one dollar
short of seventy bucks. For some mobile phone users, that's practically
throwaway money.
The other notable thing about the MOTOFONE, from a design perspective, is that it's remarkably thin for a candybar form factor phone. It measures in at 114 by 47 by 9 millimetres with a carrying weight of 70 grams. The keypad is large and easy to use, with simple dial, hang up, contacts and menu buttons surrounding a five-way keypad.
Features
The crux of whether or not the MOTOFONE will appeal to you lies in its
feature set -- or lack thereof. It's a GSM-capable mobile phone, which in
the Australian market is locked to Optus -- and it comes with a
prepaid SIM in the box. It'll do SMS, and you've got a choice of some
very standard monophonic ring tones. That's it, however -- there's no
Bluetooth, GPRS, camera, GPS, 3G, HSDPA or even simple phone games. If
you're incurably addicted to features like this you'll find the MOTOFONE
vexatious in the extreme. Then again, it's a phone, and it works. Why
pay for stuff you don't need or use?
The MOTOFONE features a rather unusual display, for two primary reasons. It uses a black and white electrophoretic display that Motorola brands as ClearVision. The intention with ClearVision is that the display should appear as paper-like as possible, but also with an eye to being viewable in all sorts of lighting conditions, including direct sunlight. The other display oddity is in the font used, which is massive. That's undoubtedly a plus for those with visual difficulties, but the horizontal orientation of the text, which only ever scrolls like a ticker along one line, means that most SMS messages -- and even missed calls and contact details -- scroll along multiple screens, which can make comprehension difficult. If anything, it's a strong incentive to use SMS-speak, if only to enable easily scanned messages.
Performance
In case it hasn't sunk in yet, the MOTOFONE is just a basic phone, and
as a basic phone it works quite well. Call clarity was good in our tests
-- those of a paranoid bent might like to note that the default call
volume is quite loud -- and battery life was fairly solid. Motorola rates
it for up to 450 minutes talk time and up to 270 hours standby time --
largely because when not in use the screen powers down to a simple
digital clock display. In our testing, it lasted around three days heavy
usage before needing recharging. This brought up one of our lesser
concerns about the MOTOFONE, and that's in the fact that it takes quite
a while to recharge. This isn't a concern if you're an overnight
recharger, but it's not possible to do a quick recharge and get anything
but a perfunctory charge into the MOTOFONE.
In order to make sense of the MOTOFONE's icon-based and rather simple menu system, the phone comes with voice prompting for each and every feature in a variety of languages. It's a good way to get to grips with how the phone works -- and how its menu designers think -- but can be quite embarrassing in public situations to have your phone patiently explaining how to send an SMS. It's basically a training tool; once you've worked out the menu structures you'll undoubtedly want to switch the voice prompting off as soon as possible.
SMS was acceptable, but the phone is lacking in one feature we'd say was essential for SMS devotees -- there's no predictive text facility. Admittedly, the huge size of the screen font could make some automatically completed words indiscernible, but it's still something we missed having.
There's no doubting that there's a whole market out there that would hate the MOTOFONE for its lack of high-end features, but that's not the market that Motorola's after with the impressively simple MOTOFONE. For what it is, and what it sets out to be, it succeeds admirably, and comes highly recommended.
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Rob
02/08/2008, 12:10 AM
rating
3/10
Cheap, slim, lightweight and low frills phone that has a number of very annoying quircks that will drive you crazy.
Pros: Very slim. Simple. It makes calls.
Cons: *Several very annoying features. Read below.
*It takes a long time to charge.
*The phone will not accept calls when charging! I have never seen this in a phone. Am I missing something here? This is very annoying as it means if I need to charge it during the day I cannot be reached and since it takes a long time to charge you are basically screwed. So you have to charge overnight
*Also, EVERYTIME after charging, you will need to reset the time and date and turn off Voice prompts. How annoying.
*Texting is pretty much too hard
*Contacts are very difficult to discern with the phones text display.
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Jen1988
18/07/2008, 12:12 PM
rating
9/10
I share a phone plan with my boyfriend, and he ends up some how breaking the fragile phones that he has had before. He is the hardest person to get a hold of when his battery dies from just constantly checking the time, and he hardly ever sends SMS. He needed an indestructible phone that wont cost a week's worth of work, with accessories he didn't use. Great phone for him, but I am a huge on new tech, so I would be miserable with the phone. I like wi-fi, bluetooth, music player, camera, java games, mp4(video) player, e-mail, SMS, MMS, and all the other little extras.
Pros: My boyfriend hates t9 predictions because he doesn't care about spending a minute trying to spell out every word. He is satisfied with the no hassle phone. the battery hasn't died yet!!!
Cons: The phone really isn't for me, unless I needed an emergency phone.
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rharold
22/06/2008, 12:29 PM
rating
9/10
This phone was $39. It looks beautiful. And I have no problems hearing my phone calls. I dont do much texting, I use a camera for pictures and a stereo system and mp3 player for music. I have a wireless laptop for my internet. So all the non-phone features that other phones have, are pointless to me. The screen looks like a tiny slate chalkboard with the writing to match.
Pros: It does what all phones should do, make and receive phone calls clearly. Has a nice ringtone with an island flavor.
Cons: The text information can be a little hard to read because of the short lines and letter image approximation with the display.
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nokia 6233
13/05/2008, 07:53 PM
rating
5/10
Motorola MOTOFONE F3 is just like a calculator. Unfortunately this mobile I has over 2 years. But as time passed i understand its ancient features.
Pros: Nothing but hear a voice.
Cons: Every thing is in cons.
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jfielhauer
17/03/2008, 04:19 AM
rating
9/10
I love my motofone. I don't like all the flashing lights and extra gadgets on other phones that just take up space and eat up the battery. For those of you paying anywhere near $69 or even $80 you're getting screwed. I'm not sure what the conversion rate is but they sell for US $40 on Amazon and I bought mine for US $17 on ebay.
Pros: Tiny, indestructable, good battery life.
Cons: I wish I could turn off the back light to extend the battery life even further.
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b.90t
12/02/2008, 10:01 AM
rating
8/10
About DTMF... After one month of using I just lost it... No banking, no voicemale, etc.
Sollution is simple - power cycle - switch on - switch off - switch on
Ref comment:
stevy
14/05/2007, 01:52 PM
Pros: Travelmate
Cons: DTMF - recovery proc
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mk
07/01/2008, 09:06 PM
rating
10/10
Fantastic phone! SMS is useless in any phone anyway
Pros: Stylish
Battery life
Great reception
Cons: none
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ghmcl
01/01/2008, 04:33 PM
rating
2/10
Bought one as my first mobile so I can claim ignorance, but if I'd known how limited it was I would have purchased something else. I was looking for a basic phone to make calls & send text msgs with, and was sucked in by it's appearance in the store.
If you just want to make & recieve phone calls and NOTHING else, it will be ok. If you are like me and mostly text - AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE.
Even at $80 I felt a bit ripped off, I was shocked to discover that the text size couldn't be changed and mixed case, and just scrolled accross the screen 6 characters at a time, making it difficult to read and compose messages.
If it had a dot-matrix style display with user selectable font size, and a bit more funtionality and memory in things like it's phone book etc, it would be a much better phone.
Personally I was very dissapointed with this phone and am deciding on it's replacement now. It only gets a 2 instead of a 1 because it looks good.
Pros: Thin, stylish, works ok as a phone only.
Cons: Pretty much everything else, texting is hopeless, like typing with a calculator.
Charging is slow, and I don't think the battery life is quite as good as claimed.
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MAT
24/12/2007, 09:37 AM
rating
2/10
Disgusting! Not worth the asking price
Pros: Cheap, and it shows it's price
Cons: *Battery takes years to recharge
*Only available in Australia on Optus
*The screen is only useful for typing numbers
*Impossible to SMS
*No predictive text
*Display scrolls sideways, not up to down.
*Terrible ringtones
*No data capability
*Navigating the menu is horrible complicated
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Stargazer
16/12/2007, 11:12 PM
rating
10/10
I just wanted a phone that didn't have a camera (I HAVE a camera - who needs one in a phone for God's sake ?) to receive/make calls and to message occasionally.
I need a screen that doesn't require glasses to read, buttons I can see, a phone, not an electronic gadget.
This has it all. Thankyou Motorola - the Razr I had is in the bin.
Pros: As listed above.
Cons: As mentioned, the battery takes an age to re-charge, just plug it in on the way to bed, ready for the morning.
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