Rating Summary
“Good basic phone- some features dictated by carrier”
- Every day computer user, tech savvy, always online, budget-conscious, cost-conscious, practical, value conscious
- Pros
- Mechanically well-made, Good reception, Flip-phone
- Cons
- Not a 3G phone, Basic features
Motorola - W370 Cell Phone —
I recently upgraded from a Motorola V170 cellphone to the Motorola W370 cellphone. I know that both are pretty basic phones, but I'll admit I'm not a constant cellphone user....I use it as part of the Tracfone service, I pay for service for the year...but this isn't a review of Tracfone, but it does relate to my use of the phone, which I mostly keep for occasional use when I'm not near a land line (which I still maintain). I don't have 3G service, so the Motorola W370 suits my needs very well.
The Motorola W370 phone is similar in some ways to the V170 but has some features that the V170 lacks..some of which are useful...for instance it does have a rudimentary web browser...the tracfone implementation does limit which sites one can visit, but the V170 didn't have this feature...The W370 also allows you to download ringtones and wallpaper (which I don't care about) but the V170 lacked these features (which I guess people like to use to personalize their phone so could be important to them).
The important parts of a phone to me are covered...the voice quality and signal reception have seemed fine to me...the only issue I had when I first got the phone was the user interface puzzled me a bit...I thought I just needed to enter a phone number and press the "call" button to make a call, but it seemed a bit ackward to me how to make calls to me at first...but I've since gotten used to it...also I had to puzzle over some menu items such as how to turn down the keypress volume (don't want to bother others nearby hearing beeps when entering phone numbers)...and I still need to look at the manual on some topics like quick dialing of some of the phone numbers in my dialing directory...but if you use the phone more than I do, you will probably get used to how to do these tasks more quickly than I. Also the phone seems mechanically well-made, though I've not dropped it yet, seems pretty sturdy...it is a flip phone, which seems to be a nice package arrangement. It doesn't have a camera, nor radio (think the W376 one reviewer mentioned has those features), nor bluetooth, so if you need those features you'll want a different model...if not, this is a nice phone to consider. It is a good basic phone for people who want the phone function (although it of course does support texting which I'll admit despite the bad press can come in handy at times).
The Motorola W370 uses a different charger than the V170 (plus different battery)...the W370 has a mini-USB connector which the charger plugs into (supposedly Tracfone doesn't support using the mini-USB to transfer data to another device such as a computer). The battery life seems fine to me.
So...if you just need a cell phone, but don't care about a camera, Bluetooth, 3G, organizer, or downloadable applications, you would probably like this phone.
