Customer Reviews

Motorola PEBL U6 Unlocked Phone with Camera and Bluetooth--International Version with No Warranty (Graphite Black)

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

Motorola was floundering in the cell phone market until they came out with the RAZR. Worldwide, it made a fashion and technological statement, which catapulted the manufacturer from a dismal afterthought to a leader in the cell phone market. Then they released a candy bar equivalent (SLVR), and then improved on the RAZR's lines with the stylish clamshell PEBL. This review is for the Motorola PEBL.

After using the PEBL for a few days, the first thing that impressed me was the sound quality. Recently, I have played with Sony/Ericson, PalmOne, Nokia and Samsung phones, and must say the Motorola sounds best. First of all, the volume in the earpiece is loud enough for me to hear while walking on a busy New York city street, with cars, trucks and buses all creating a deafening noise. Second, the volume control button is well placed to allow you to easily adjust the level. Third, and best of all, the phone is intelligent enough to filter out much of the loud background noise, so that the person you're speaking with can hear you without struggling to make out what you're saying. I have found that Nokia is good at this too, while Palm, Samsung and Sony/Ericson phones don't do this well at all, with Sony ironically at the back of the pack. Also noteworthy is the speakerphone. While it's not as loud as an office phone's speaker, it is plenty loud, for example, to participate in a conference call while driving. And with the background noise reduction virtues of this phone, I was impressed. Also, it has voice recognition - based solely on the spelling of your contacts, the phone will recognize what you're saying and be able to voice-dial.

It may seem odd to make such a fuss over sound quality in an age of smart phones, but as a designer recently explained to me: form should follow function. So let the PEBL first and foremost be a good phone. Then you can add the bells and whistles later. Attention to this principle is what earned the PEBL five stars from me.

A note about carriers: GSM is worldwide, so you can use your phone overseas as well as in the USA. However, this limits you in the states to Tmobile and Cingular. Having used both, I feel that Tmobile sounds better, but Cingular has better coverage. It's a tradeoff. Both carriers offer a 7 or 14 day "trial" period during which you can test the network's performance. I recommend use that trial, and don't hesitate to bounce back and forth while keeping your number.

I have four major pros for the PEBL:

1. Motorola is pioneering the cell phone market by making all of their latest models "quad-band" GSM, which means the phone will work well in the USA (850/1900 Mhz) as well as the rest of the world (900/1800 Mhz). Most GSM phones are Tri-Band (850/1800/1900) so while they'll work great here, but performance abroad will be touch and go, with the phone performing poorly indoors. None of the others (Nokia, Ericson, Samsung etc.) offer quad-band GSM as a standard, and until Motorola's recent offerings, you could only find Quad-Band phones in massive PDA smart phones.

2. Battery life: All cell phones give estimates in standby time and talk time. But the realistic factor is how long will this thing last between charges for the average person? My answer: 3 to 4 days. With moderate use (about 10 calls a day, totaling between 30 and 45 minutes), I needed to charge the phone after the 3rd day.

3. USB port: the phone's connection to the world is via a standard mini-USB port. The charger fits this, or you can plug it into your computer with a standard USB to mini-USB cable. This is the same cable that connects most digital cameras or certain mp3 players (at least the ones that don't use overpriced proprietary cables). Chances are you already have one of these cables and if you plug it into your PC, two things will happen: the phone will start to charge from the USB, and the PC will detect a new device. Download the drivers from Motorola (if you didn't get the CD with your phone). In addition to phone drivers, there is a "Phone Tools" application that lets you to synchronize your contact list and calendar with Outlook, or you can simply backup the phone's contents. You can synchronize your photos, ringtones and SMS messages as well. Here's the best part: the phone is also a modem. Make sure you have a data plan before connecting to the internet, and you no longer need a hot spot. GPRS will give you a little more than 2x the speed of dialup, EDGE will take it up to about 4x.

4. The phone has an alarm built in. In fact it has several, and you can name them, and if you turn the phone off at night, the alarm will still work, and ask you if you want to turn the phone on when you silence it.

Other noteworthy items: the screen is good, the camera produces reasonable images and videos, and there is enough memory to snap over 100 shots at the phone's highest resolution. That is a nice touch.

And now, three Cons:

1. For the longest time, I have not cared much for the Motorola contact management interface. Nearly all phones now allow you to have multiple numbers / addresses per contact, but Motorola hasn't caught on yet. If you have a contact with multiple phone numbers, that contact will exist multiple times. This makes dialing slower with Motorola phones because you'll have to scroll through a longer contact list; searching for numbers is not nearly as intuitive as with Nokia or other phone brands.

2. The phone allows you to assign custom ring tones for certain members of the address book; however, for contacts with a custom ringtone, the phone doesn't differentiate between calls and text messages, so if a contact with a custom tone sends a text, the phone might play an entire minute-long song rather than a quick beep beep, which can be annoying in the middle of the night. Just avoid using custom contact/ring tone assignments and you'll avoid that problem.

3. The shiny dialing surface and screen will pick up grease from your face and require regular cleaning if you want to avoid your phone looking "icky".

In conclusion, I was happily surprised with the PEBL. It is a very sexy phone, and it sounds great. It is the perfect phone for the audiophile, or for a person who wants a device that just works without having to cope with all the secondary bells and whistles phones have these days. Historically, Motorola was known for producing good hardware - a virtue that is clearly stated with the PEBL. If you intend to use all the fancy features of modern cell phones (SMS, MMS, etc) - in other words if you plan to use the software features, expect them to be less intuitive than with other brands of phones. As much as Motorola is known for producing excellent hardware, their menus and navigation can be bewildering at times. I think they should get the folks who designed the hardware to redesign the software interface. Then, the Moto range would dominate. In the end, it's a good phone, it's solid, it's small and light enough to fit in comfortablty your pocket, and above all it works.

I just got the PEBL and I love it. I had been waiting for its release for several months and it was well worth it. Many of the ticky-tack features that I didn't like in the Motorola RAZR have been corrected here. While not as thin as a RAZR, the PEBL is lightweight. The black cover has a rubberized feel and the oval shape means that it sits comfortably in your hand. The hinged mechanism to open the phone is great - and one of its most distinctive features: One flick of the thumb and the phone gently flips open. The sound quality is great, from video clips to HiFi ringers to speaker phone. It's loud and clear. The camera and video features are decent. Overall, it operates like any other Motorola - the menus are standard. If it bugged you that the Call and End buttons were flipped right to left in the T722 models, Motorola has returned to its senses and placed the Call button on the left and end on the right side. As for fingerprints, they do show up on the cover and key face. The PEBL is still no v60, but it comes pretty close. If nothing else, it definitely has the Wow factor.

I have had the PEBL for two weeks now and it really is as slick as everyone says. Bluetooth and very good battery life are two of the pluses. However, as other reviewers have cited, there are flaws:

- The directional button is already missing paint in a few places from the screen sliding past it when the phone is opened. If I am seeing paint missing after only two weeks, I shudder to think what will happen after a few months.
- The inside is definitely prone to getting dirty with fingerprints.
- The magnets require you to keep the phone away from your credit cards as well as items such as your computer.
- The first PEBL I received rang only intermittently. Sometimes it would ring and others it woudnt do anything. In these cases, I would only know that calls had been missed once the voice mail indicator showed. The replacement phone I received now rings with every every call.
- Connecting to the Bluetooth headset requires a sequence of six or so steps and therefore must be done before turning on your car if you are going to talk while driving. No way can I connect the headset while paying attention to the road. I have always used corded headsets prior to this and I find this to be annoying.
- It took a few tries to get the hang of the voice commands. I would say "name dial" and it would keep asking me to repeat the command or tell me that the command could not be found. However, then I noticed that there is a beep after which you say the command. As long as you wait for the beep, the voice commands work fine.
- The phone opens when dropped.

In summary, if you want a very cool looking, eye catching phone than the PEBL is for you. However, if you are someone who does not care about the appearance of the phone, I would recommend looking at other models because all of the problems with the PEBL make it only about looks.

Hmmm? What can I say about the phone that everyone seems to want?

The Motorola PEBL phone itself, is indubitably eye-catching. It offers exceptional operation & premium features.

The PEBL is one of the most charming phones. Shaped like a river stone, it's attired in basic black & is nicely accessorized by a shiny metal hinge. I especially liked the oval shape, the rounded edges, and the rubbery textured feel of the casing is pretty nifty. It's very compact (3.4" x 1.9" x 0.8"; 3.8 ounces), and it has weight when it's in your hand.

As for features... The phone book holds 1,000 contacts, each of which can take six phone numbers, an e-mail address, a postal address, and a birth date. I like that you can place photos with contacts for caller ID that are viewed on the internal screen. Contacts can be assigned one of 12 polyphonic or MP3's. I also appreciate the camera, vibrate mode, a one-minute voice recorder, voice dialing, calculator, calendar, alarm clock, text & multimedia messaging, PC syncing (my favorite!!), instant messaging ( with Yahoo, AOL, and/or ICQ), and a Web browser. You can personalize the PEBL with a variety of wallpapers, themes, menu styles, color skins, screensavers, and message tones. You can always download more depending on your service provider.

Ok, now the bad. The PEBL has a low-resolution camera (whaaa), and a strange magnetic flip that is awkward to open with your thumb. The flip opens when dropped and can demagnetize credit cards.

Would I buy the PEBL again? Yes. Would I recommend it to others? Sure. Who couldn't say 'yes' to such a looker?!!?!

This phone is a delight to hold and a pleasure to feel. It's unusual shape makes it stand out from other phones. Very STYLISH !

But, has very limited in built memory of 5 MB which can not be extended. Camera quality is not much to talk about. It weighs much more than Razr V3.

It takes some time to get used to the flip mechanism and there is a real danger of phone falling off your hand when you try it for the first few times.

I have had this phone for two months now and it is the best one I have owned,I have had three razr's and many other so called cutting edge phones even the V3i and none are as good as this,as for the pebl it is simple to open unless you are a butter fingered fool,and as for the finish wearing off on the keypad well mine is just fine.The phone is made better than the flimsey Razr is,you want a quality phone that works as well as it looks get this phone,you want cheap made buy something else.

With the unique design, seems like this could have been a really cool phone, but some of the problems I experience, make it fall short.

GOOD

Looks damn cool and not many people have it.
The automatic flip open looks cool and is convienent. I really like this option.
Fits easily in your pocket.
Rubberish coating makes it easy to grip.
Lazor etched keypad doesn't wear out.

Uh... not much else for me!

BAD

The action of sliding the top down causes physical wear and tear on the phone. I've only had the phone a few months and am not someone with the phone glued to my head; however, the metallic coating over the bottom directional button is already worn off from rubbing against the screen. The screen has a permanent imprint of the directional pad on the screen from the sliding as well as a quarter inch scratch caused my the screen sliding over the center directional button.

Not sure if this is related or not to the above problem, but I'm slowly loosing the bottom of the screen. Not the physical screen itself, but the image. It's tricky to describe but it reminds me of when you scan a picture and abruptly pull the picture from the scanner right at the end. Right now, I've lost 2/8" inch of visibilty on the bottom of the screen.

As someone else mentioned, the automatic opening works by pulling down the top with your thumb and then letting go. Essentially, the phone pops open while it's resting on your hand. For a moment, you are not really holding the phone at all. More the once, the phone has popped out of my hand when opening.

Impossible to read the screen in sunlight.

It is difficult to read time accurately on the analog clock. There is no option to change it to digital.

Camera quality is poor.

When my bluetooth headset is enabled, I cannot change the ringer or ringer volume.

I cannot get the phone to send text messages. I had the same problem with my Razor.

If this where a $100 phone, no problems. But for this price... not worth it. You're really just spending your money on the cool look and flippy thing.

1. I will have to say first the design is very nice and small I wanted a small phone so I did like this phones size and it does look sexy
2. Great screen color.
3. Decent navigation through the phone
4 Picture quality is average could be a bit better my friends nokia 6101 takes better photos.
5. Great phone ringer sound quality and battery is very good 2 days with use
6. Speaker phone so-so the speaker is on the back so its a pain to listen and talk to at the same time.
7. the keys are a little cramped have to get used to using them and they are shinny yes they get smudged all the time.
8. The reception for me was average sometimes spotty cutting in and out of conversations at times.
9. The other big problem was that if your keep this phone in your pocket or put pressure on the clam design the keys begin to etch themselves into the screen so you can see the outline of the keys from being in the closed position so do not put a lot of pressure on the clam when closed because over time you will see this problem.
Overall I think its a decent phone but for the $250 I think it should be cheaper
I paid $150 with contract upgrade dont really think it was worth that much $50-$100 would have been better

I loved this phone. It was the best purchase I ever made. For four months.
Now it randomly turns off (despite being fully charged) sometimes in the middle of calls. Often, when I flip it open, the screen is crazy (cut in half or bright green or only showing part of the functions). When it started to do this it was a lot worse, now it's mellowed out a bit (only happens a couple times a week instead of multiple times a day).
Apparently this is a problem with all PEBLs, hence the discontinuation. A woman in front of me in line at the store asked me whether or not I had the same problems with the phone blacking out as she did. A week later mine started up. I've also heard bad things about the RAZR too, so I don't think I'll be purchasing a Motorola phone again, despite how cute and trendy they are.
I loved all the features when they worked. I could sync up my calendar and contacts with my mac with bluetooth (altough iCal and the calendar program don't work fantastically together), and the quality of the photos is great. Also, I really like T-Mobile, their prices and their costumer service. They are always really polite and I can even get them to be casual with me (I'm big on customer service people not being like robots) and very helpful when I have questions. My upgrade time is here, so I'm going to get a new phone with them.

This phone is great and durable. Has every feature that the razor has but won't break if you drop it. The automatic flip open feature is great as well. I recommend both this phone and the seller.