Customer Reviews

Motorola W490 Phone (T-Mobile, Phone Only, No Service)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I have always been a fan of motorola phones. I have had Samsung, Nokia, etc. etc. and have always found that something would break after a drop or two.

I always liked the looks of the Razr but found it to be to wide... then the krzr, but found it to be to small. Then came the 490. It carries the same style and design of the razr and krzr but is a in between the two in size.

I wont bore you with the specs of the phone... although I have seen it listed as not having voice dialing when it in fact does.

I have dropped it, kicked it, gotten it wet, you name it and it still works perfectly fine. My only complaint is that the back panel that covers the battery feels flimsy. It is more solid than other phones I have but given how thin it is it feels flimsy. It has popped off a couple of times on some of the harder falls the phone has had but for the most part it is a small complaint.

I love the phone and if the last 6 months are any indication I will have the phone for another year and half.

Side note... in my experiences and those of people I have talked to there is not a single phone provider around that offers free phones that are worth their weight. Every free phone I have seen falls apart or breaks inside of 6-8 months (long enough for them to wash their hands of it.) If you are looking for a phone of quality it will cost $50-100 to do it.

The Moto W490 is a really great phone. Like the other reviewer, I too found the Razr to be too wide and the Krzr too narrow but the W490 is just right! I have the purple one and the backlight behind the keys is a purple color too. It's a very sleek style flip phone, slim and lightweight. Purple is my favorite color so I don't even need to worry about getting a faceplate and losing the sleekness or streamline of the phone. The phone can hold up to a 2gb memory card and the memory card slot is in a very convenient place. Also, the ability to download mp3's and make them ringtones will save a lot of money! I have had a lot of fun with this phone. My only complaint, and it's a small one, is that the ringer isn't loud enough. I have it on max volume but the ring itself is very low. That isn't enough to change my opinion of the phone, though. It gets wonderful reception (even in my 2 story townhouse), the memory options are excellent, the camera works great, the sound quality for both music and calls is great, it's a beautiful phone with a spun metal finish and it's options regarding pictures, music, set up and personlization are wonderful. If you are in the market for a new motorola and need something less than the Razr 2, but more than a Krzr or a Razr V3 this is the phone for you! Go to your local cell phone dealer and play with the demo and you'll see what I mean!

It works, makes phone calls, & makes cool noises.

Icons are poor, useless, & not intuitive, but was able to get almost everything up & running without reading the very thick manual. I have mine set to not show icons & just text.

Does not play WMA files, which is normally a standard feature on any phone with a built in player & all players... Why? Because you can fit 2-4 times more tunes on the same 2GB memory in WMA without them sounding too compressed or scratchy. A software upgrade to play WMA files is a must ASAP if you want people to buy this phone who like a player in a phone.

There is no graphic equalizer or other tone controls for the player. This is a must-have on any player, & is standard on other phones with players.

The speaker is adequate for speaker phone calls, but a bit too quiet for music compared to other phones, but the quality is better than expected for playing music through a phone speaker. An equalizer would help here too. People tweak up the highs & mids a little & tweak down the bass on their music to get a little more volume out of the limited power available for a tiny phone speaker.

You may not hear the ringtones ringing from across a large room unless the room is relatively quiet.

Sound through headphones of my choice sounded good & had plenty of volume. It was too loud on some songs, where the lowest setting was too loud, & the next lowest setting shuts the sound off entirely.

Don't buy a spare battery from the factory or carrier for over 35 bucks. They're only 4 bucks everywhere else. Likewise, don't get their headphones & headphone adapters for 99 bucks. They're 2 bucks everywhere else.

The battery cover in the back is plastic, not metal, like on older Motorolas. So if you change out the memory or battery often, you can expect it to wear out, become too loose & get lost. Invest in scotch tape.

Manipulating, uploading or downloading lots of files to a PC via the USB port is extremely slow compared to most & even older phones, but required no special phone software to do it (Good, because most phone PC software is bloatware, buggy, & can even crash your computer).

Inserting the micro card into a thumb reader to transfer files goes a lot faster. But I wouldn't recommend doing that too often. The slot for the card in the phone is poorly made, & really grinds the little micro card up after repeated removal. I would expect failure of the card or the slot's contacts by pulling it in & out a lot.

The SIMS card is also mounted poorly, right behind the battery. I would suspect a little banging around or dirt getting in to cause the SIMs card mounting or contacts to fail.

These are the only potential flaws I could find in the phone that could cause it to fail prematurely. Other than that & the battery cover, they seem to be solidly built.

The camera & it's quality are way below those in most modern phones, but I do like the low-light feature for taking pix in low light without a flash... taking pix without being obvious. Just make sure your hand is steady, & your subject doesn't move for a second.

Zoom feature is totally useless. It zooms the screen, not the pic. When you upload the zoomed image to a PC, it's actually much tinier than if you used no zoom at all.

Haven't tried recording movies or sound with it because my micro card is always too full of music.

I bought this phone for my wife for Christmas. For the past couple weeks we have been getting an "insert SIM" message on the screen. We have tried reinserting it several times always with the same result. The card worked fine in other phones. They are sending me a replacement phone. (They won't exchange at the stores.)

The frustration is that this is clearly a warranty issue and T-mobile wants to ding me the cost of freight both ways! No ifs, ands, or buts. The supervisor I spoke to towed the company line.

When we first got T-mobile in 2003, they were great. If we had a reasonable complaint they were easy to deal with and responsive. Now they have become the same or worse than everyone else. I don't have a better recommendation. I would cancel today, but they want a $200 per phone cancellation charge. You would think with the number of choices available for cell phones, the customer service aspects would improve?

I was forced to buy this phone. I am always a fan of NOKIA, well, selected NOKIA. I would rather spend hundreds of dollars to buy a cell phone with super-pleasing battery and memory card.
My friends and families often lose me since it is out of power. I need to refill the battery at least twice per day since the very first time I started using this phone. However, I never chat with friends nor send messages. It is just for getting rutine things done. I even rarely call people or pick up the phone. It still BEEPS everyday to remind me that it NEEDS to be recharged...so the real goal to buy this phone is to do the recharging, right?
It can only store 20 pictures. If you encountered some accidents or other emergency events and needed to take pictures, its tiny memory storage would kill you.
DO NOT BUY IT unless you are very fund of leaving your phone at home.

This is my 2nd cell phone ever and I have no issues with it. I've had it for 3 1/2 years and it still works fine. I'm not a complete klutz with phones, but I have dropped it my fair share of times and its pretty banged up, but other than a few dents and scratches, it's held up well. The most amazing thing is that it was closed in a car door (sorry, not "closed", more like "slammed") and it didn't even get a ding.
The back of the phone (the battery cover) slides off a lot when I take it out of my pocket but it's nothing to fuss about. Also, recently I've found that if the battery isn't pushed all the way it, it doesn't register that the SIM card is in and won't let me use the phone until I take the battery out and fix the SIM card. (This happens rarely, but I thought it was worth mentioning)
The cool thing about this phone is that it gives you the option to lock individual applications and not just the whole phone. My friends who have Blackberries and iPhones are jealous of this feature. Say you want to lock your text messages, but not the whole phone, you can go to 'Security' and lock your messages. The same goes for pictures, sounds, settings, and different modes. (and it wont delete your whole phone if you get it wrong). The only annoyance is that whenever you get a text or soemthing, you have to type in the code. But like I said, I've had the phone for 3 1/2 years and it's natural now. Plus its a small price to pay for privacy. I've also found that my message inbox can hold more texts than any of my friends phones. (My inbox will be full at around 500 messages instead of the Envy's 250-300).

Pros:
-Ability to lock individual apps (e.g. text messages, phonebook, pictures, etc.)
-Decent battery life
-Sturdy and pretty indestructable (thus far)
-Great memory for text messages and pictures
-Ability to set voice recordings as alarm or ring tone
-Ability to set individual ringtones for different apps/ people in the phonebook
-Front screen will light up about 2 seconds before the vibration will go off when you get an incoming text or call (it's good when you have it on a surface that makes that loud vibration noise)

Cons:
-Battery covers occassionally falls off when retrieving from pocket
-If battery isn't in correctly, the SIM isn't registered (rarely)
-Does not have time on the front when the phone is open (annoying when you are speaking on the phone with someone and need to check the time)
-No display banner on the inside
-Only 1 set wallpaper for the inside and outside

Overall, this is a very well-built phone, but the software is very very clunky in some key places. If all you want is a phone for talking with great battery life, good sound quality, then this phone is wonderful. (But there are other, cheaper phones out there with even better battery life if you want that...) If you wanted a fancy phone for music and pictures (like I did...) then this isn't the one for you unless you're willing to wait for clunky slow software. I just ordered a Sony TM-506...hopefully it will be just as good for voice quality and battery life, but better for software. We'll see.

Pros:
-Solid Construction. Motorola did a great job here.
-Great battery life. I talk for hours on my unlimited numbers, I'd really believe the ~8 hours talk time it's rated at.
-Good sound quality, both talking on it and using the speakerphone. Voices sound natural, and loud enough.
-Great noise-reduction. When I call people, they can't tell that I'm on a cell phone, or that I'm outside in the wind.
-E-mail is nice, but a little slow to load. It just counts as text messages, so it's cool not to need to buy a full data plan to use e-mail.
-Standard USB charger. When will the other manufacturers get on board with this? It's great to have the phone be compatible with other USB device chargers, and be able to plug easily into the computer for charging and data transfer with a standard USB cable.
-Voice dial works pretty well. It's nice to use with a bluetooth headset.

Cons:
-Flat keyboard. I like separate buttons, not a single metal sheet that has buttons built-in.
-Display is so-so
-Camera is so-so
-The MP3 player is a Java Application. Let me repeat that. The MP3 player is a Java application. This has so many crappy consequences. This means that it takes >60 seconds to start up from when you push the "I want music" button. Once you get there, since it's a Java application, it can't store the names and playlists of your music, so it takes >120 seconds to reload all of your song names, EVEN IF THEY HAVEN'T CHANGED. Also, the music application automatically quits if you subsequently use the camera, web, or even voice dial! So, you have to go through the several minute routine all over again.
-Menus are awkward. It takes 6 menu steps to set the alarm clock (or use most any other feature), and then the alarm still isn't set...two more steps to "Enable" the alarm. How often do I set an alarm that I'm not planning on "enabling"? Also, when you wake up, it disables the alarm, so you have to reset it. I slept in the first few nights I had the phone, because I just assumed that the alarm would go off the next morning if I didn't DISable it.
-Only supports 2gb of microSD memory. In a time where 8gb cards are ~$20, that's a real limitation.
-No headphone jack, and the adapter is bulky. (Can just use bluetooth though...but that can be expensive, and another thing to keep charged.)

If you like listening to people who have their head in a metal pail then this is the phone for you! When the volume is turned all the way up it will never bother anyone near you, but then again you might not hear it either. T-mobile should be embarrassed to carry this phone and I am insulted as a so called valued customer that they would even consider offering it to me. Even my very first analog phone had better sound quality than this poor excuse of a phone. This was my first try at a Motorola product and I must say it left a lasting impression.

Ps. why can't I leave less than one star? isn't it a bit presumptuous that all products sold on Amazon have a 20% approval rating?

i gave it one star, because i could not give it ZERO. I got this phone because i needed an upgrade. I am so mad i got this one, after reading the features i thought it was a good investment, but for my surprise, the phone itself it is not of a good quality. after couple of weeks, a message would come up with " insert SIMS now" and besides that the number 8, would be dialing by itself. since i could not have a conversation, then i tried to hung up and turn it off. for my surprise the phone would not turn off. It is very slow and complicated to use. the only good thing is the variety wall papers and ringtones available. NOTHING ELSE, please do not waste your money.

So, I wanted to upgrade my phone from a Nokia 6133 that I've had for about 8 months. It was doing fine for the most part, but recently, every once in a blue moon, the microphone would go out, and I was told I sounded like I was "underwater". My friends thought it was funny. I sure didn't think it was funny and was quite annoyed when I was trying to say something serious, and yep, all I hear is laughing. Not good. This happened very rarely, and was not the main reason I wanted to upgrade. The main reason was the battery life was quite short on the Nokia (up to 3 hours), and I talk quite a bit.

So, like a good consumer, I did a little research and the w490 seemed like the best deal with the most amount of features for the money. I called good old T-mobile, the phone came, and I absolutely hate it. Correct me if I'm wrong (i'm not) but a phone's main purpose is still to talk, right? Well, I can be heard fine when I talk, but when I am trying to hear you, I am missing quite a bit. The speaker for the ear piece has a much more basey tone to it, and it is not very sensitive, so you better be talking loud, otherwise I'll be saying a bunch oh "Huh's?". The volume control just won't go high enough and if people are talking around me, I can't hear ANYTHING you're saying. I couldn't stand that, and compared to my Nokia, it was about 10 steps backward, definitely not an upgrade and made me appreciate the Nokia so much more. At this point I already decided I was going to return the phone, but here are a few more issues I noticed in the one day I had the phone.

The screen resolution is pretty bad and ugly, not to mention very, very small. The colors are bleak, and it just was not very clear or pleasant to look at. The keypad is kind of small, and when trying to go through menus, I frequently found my fat fingers pressing buttons I did not want to press. I was told that the pictures I sent, compared to my Nokia 6133, also at 1.3 mp, did not come out as clear and were pretty fuzzy.

The phone itself is still kind of big and bulky as well. Final complaint, the supposed battery life of "up to 7.5 hours" talk time or whatever, means exactly that. It means "up to". I probably did not get more than 4 or 5 hours talk time on this phone. Compared to the Nokia, it was still better (at an "up to 3 hours") but not worth the $50 upgrade price.

Just to be a bit more fair, it did have some good points. The phone came loaded with several different ring tones which were decent, and the speaker sounded relatively clear and loud when it rang. There are many options on this phone, and it does have a few capabilities which can be appreciated. For the price, I guess it is a relative bargain, but the fact that I CAN"T HEAR WHAT YOUR SAYING can't make it a bargain enough for me and just an aggravation. And, no, I know what you're thinking.....I'm not 85 years old.... I still have my hearing at 26, thank you very much. I don't know, maybe I got a bad phone or something, but I wasn't going to try my luck again. In the meantime, I'm sending it back and forking over the cash for the Razr 2 v8. Yes, still a Motorola, I know, but I've had Motorola cell phones in the past and have been very happy with them. Even though the razr 2 v8 has supposedly the same "up to" battery life of 8 hours, which is probably no more than my Nokia right now (thats the rumor from people who have had them already), if I can hear you clearly, that alone is worth the extra bucks for me. Thanks, hope that helped you out a little bit ;)