Customer Reviews

Motorola V600 Phone (T-Mobile)

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(30)
3 star:		(28)
2 star:		(25)
1 star:		(48)

 

 

Don't buy this phone if you're looking for a toy. This isn't the best camera, or the best mp3 player, or the best ringtone jukebox, although it performs very well on each.

Buy this phone if you are looking for a rock solid reliable communication tool with nice feel and nice looks that also happens to have a decent camera, a rich polyphonic speaker, and an extraordinarily crisp and vibrant screen.

This is a quad band phone. Most phones are single or dual band. If this isn't important to you, you don't need this phone.

This is the most solid and reliable *quad* band phone readily available at a reasonable price, allowing you to make and receive calls on all four international frequencies. If you combine this with a no-roaming charges plan in the USA, then whenever your phone can see any tower, you can place a call. In Europe, you can buy pre-paid sim cards without worrying whether they have towers supporting a USA bandwidth. Saves a ton of money and aggravation versus trying to use your USA phone and USA "International" calling plan.

CONS:

- Does not use the phone book name lookup from the Motorola Mx200 which lets you press the letters of the name only once per key instead of using T9. On this phone, one keypress jumps to the first name starting with the 1st letter on the key, 2nd press of the key jumps to names starting with 2nd letter on the key, and so on.

- Realtime bluetooth phone sync requires separate software purchase. (Or not, since you can download the software from various European Motorola sites.)

- If you buy a custom metal case, check fit-and-finish at a retail mobile store near you. One batch had a 0.5 millimeter gap on the left edge between the case and the phone.

PROS:

- Price has dropped from the $400 intro cost earlier this year.

- The color screen is bright and clear under any conditions.

- Battery life is phenomenal. If you "condition" the new phone by running the battery down fully the first two times before recharging it at all, you will have up to a full week standby if you are in a reasonable digital coverage area. Even in marginal coverage, standby is several days. Talk time is several hours, even on speaker.

- Reception is better in low signal areas than any other phone I've used. Generally, flip phones are a compromise between style and performance. A Nokia brick will place and receive calls where flips show no signal. This phone seems to outperform even the Nokias. This may be thanks to the 4 bands; when other phones have tried the two carriers they can reach, this phone can still try two more.

- Quad band phones are the best choice to combine with a "no-roaming-fees-anywhere-in-continental-USA" plan.

- Swappable metal case, in default satin aluminum, midnight blue, or burgundy. These are easy to swap, and make the phone seem less of an appliance while remaining suitable for the board room.

- Phone book stores all contact points for a name under the same entry, and a simple left-right on the joy-pad selects the default contact point for that name. This means less scrolling in the phone book. Works better with Outlook's multiple numbers per contact than other phones I've used.

- Settings profiles with customizable everything. For folks who may be occasionally on call, there is an amazingly loud Nextel style warble tone you *will* notice even in the pit at a NASCAR race. If for some reason you ignore the tone, it can follow with a reminder every couple minutes till you press a key.

- In a surprising change for Motorola, this phone (and its siblings in the same vX00 line) is packed with "joy" features such as a multi-colored (customizable) indicator light that can be set to a subtle glow or pulse in a range of colors, so even in silent mode, you can tell from acros the room if it's a business call or a personal call.

I've been using this phone since the week it was launched. By way of comparison, I also own a Siemens (tri-band, dual mode, supports *analog* towers not just digital, important in rural USA 2 years ago), a Samsung (triband competitor to this phone with a flash for the camera), a Nokia (latest with the flipout keyboard), a Blackberry, and a Danger Hiptop aka Sidekick.

If limited to one device, I prefer the Sidekick if it will be my only email access for an extended (5+ days) trip in the USA. I prefer this v600 for everything else.

I bought 3 cell phones this month: a Nokia 6800 for me because I thought the pull-out keyboard feature would be great; a Nokia 3100 for my mother; and the Motorola V600 for John.

I programmed all the phones and the Motorola V600 was superior in EVERY WAY. I actually went through all the trouble of doing without a cell phone for 2 wks. (Amazon.com wasn't carrying them then) to exchange my Nokia 6800 for a Motorola V600.

The picture quality on the Nokia 6800 camera was HORRIBLE compared to the V600. The keyboard was more difficult and awkward on the Nokia; the setup and use of the V600 is just so superior!! (I promise you that you will regret choosing the Nokia 6800 once you have tried the V600.)

Usually when you have a connection problem with a phone it is the carrier - but all of the phones worked fine with AT&T. What is frightening is that I really RESEARCHED all the phones and really wanted to read an amazon.com review as I just don't trust other reviews because most of them only print the "good" ones. At Amazon, I know that I'm reading the actual experiences. If I had not bought this phone for John, I never would have discovered it.

The other phones were small and felt awkward. And the Nokia 3100 is so difficult to turn on that my mother literally has had to use the end of a pencil to turn it on! (I couldn't exchange hers as she had used it too much.) But the V600, even though small, feels GREAT! Very comfortable. All the bells and whistles, but with the V600 - you can actually FIND the bells and whistles. I just cannot say enough good things about this phone. I do recommend that you buy one of the leather cases for the V600 when you order the phone to help protect it though.

This phone is by far the best cell phone on the market.
The integrated camera takes surprisingly clear pictures and, unlike the Samsung E715 which I had to return, the images are full-screen when saved as the wallpaper.
The keypad layout is perfect and the phone feels sturdy as if it is built to last.
One feature I have come to appreciate is the ring volume control on the side of the phone. It prevents the user from having scroll through a bunch of menus and setting controls within the phone's software. Great for if you're in a hurry.
The reception is good, however I found the Samsung E715 with the internal antenna to have a stronger signal than the V600.
Also, it only comes with 1 full-length game and the other two are very short demos.
Everything else regarding this phone is flawless and if you don't like something about it, chances are you can fix it because everything is very customizable.
Amazon says that the phone does not contain a PIM, alarm or Internet Browser, but it actually DOES contain all three features.

I recently got a V600 phone as an upgrade of my V300 phone, both of which I use on the T-Mobile network. I am really delighted.

The main problem I had with the V300 was limited earpiece volume which made it hard to hear a call in a noisy enviroment. The V600 is much better in that department. Given the extremely long battery life in use and on standby, the clear menu, the unbelievable reception, the briliant color screen, and Bluetooth, the V600 is a terrific phone.

I have been a Motorola man ever since I first got a mobile phone 10 years ago and on 4 carriers (Verizon, Nextel, T-Mobile, and, for a week, Cingular) and I can tell you that this series (300,400,600) is the best yet. However, the carrier is key: I tried a V600 on Cingular and it did not work anywhere near as well as it did on T-Mobile. If the network is mediocre, at best, like Cingular and AT&T, even the best phone does not perform as well as it can on a good one like T-Mobile. Obviously, I am a T-Mobile fan for a number of reasons and the V600 is the best way to take advantage of what that network has to offer. I know that T-Mobile is still limited geographically in the US to major cities, but it is expanding and, importantly, can be used all over the world.

The new V600 from Motorola finally arrived. It has all the functions of a typical power cell phone these days: built-in digital camera, color screens, and lots of bells & whistles. But I have to say its styling is more attractive than most of the plain-vanilla silver phones from Asian manufacturers. Also, it's solidly built and feels sturdy. Reception is great, although I'm still not thrilled with T-Mobile's coverage here in the Northeast.

What really excites me about the phone is the inclusion of Bluetooth and its quad-band capability. The latter means it'll get more coverage in the future as the new frequency is being implemented here in the U.S. (Does't make a difference overseas.) Bluetooth means I can finally use a wireless headset, and also hook up to my PDA and Fujitsu laptop.

Even though this is available only for T-Mobile, it's one of the very best phones on the market today.

I'm kicking myself for not doing enough research before buying this phone. Bought this V600 and a V300 on impulse based on 1) the VERY low prices, and 2) good customer satisfaction reports from Consumer Reports for T-Mobile: second only to Verizon. But I made a huge assumption that all GSM networks are created equal, so although I was switching from AT&T/Cingular's GSM network to T-Mobile's GSM network, I figured network coverage would be the same. Also, since Amazon advertises this as a "Quad Band" GSM phone I assumed it would be able to roam everywhere that there was ANY GSM signal. WRONG! First problem: T-Mobile only supports the 1900 MHz band in the US. The phone is actually only a Tri-band, and the missing fourth band is the 850 MHz band that is growing rapidly in the USA, especially in rural areas. So a couple of days after getting the phone I had the frustrating experience of driving for several hours in a rural area of Texas where my wife was easily conversing on her AT&T wireless V180 quad band phone, while my GSM phone had no service at all. Got home that night and started the research I should have done in the first place, to find out that T-Mobile has very limited roaming beyond major cities and interstates, and appears not to be positioned to support the 850 MHz band, which in addition to being the future of rural GSM, apparently has better reception characteristics everywhere (like penetrating deeper into buildings). So now I'm really ticked, but frankly it was just too much hassle to consider returning the phones, getting new AT&T/Cingular phones, and hoping to somehow port my phone number to the new carrier. Luckily I'm only committed to one year, so I can jump to Cingular if T-Mobile hasn't decided to support broader roaming by then.

On the good side, T-Mobile lived up to its reputation for good customer service. Pleasant and knowledgable CSR handled consolidation of my two Amazon purchased phones into one family plan, and the porting of my old AT&T wireless phone number to the new phone(took less than 12 hours). And the phone itself has been great. So if you don't care about roaming, this phone might be perfect for you.

Also, I learned how to enable the 850 MHz band of the phone with some "Seem editing" tools available widely on the internet, making the phone a "Quad Band" again (and you can make the V300 a quad band too!) -- but that doesn't really do any good unless T-Mobile starts supporting roaming onto the 850 MHz networks.

I've had this phone for about a little over two months now, and I absolutely love this phone. My reception is pretty good; I get signal in my kitchen [I could never get signal there w/AT&T, although I did have great signal everywhere else.] The sound quality is good, and the speakerphone is loud and clear, the camera takes okay-quality pics -- I'd rate the camera 4 out of 5. I'd give it a 5 IF it had a flash function. The phone itself it beautiful and sleek. I really enjoy the event lights, they're cute. The one thing I don't get is how people constantly complain that you have to make a separate entry for every person and their multiple numbers. You don't -- obviously some people don't bother reading the manual. -__-"" Being a longtime Nokia user, it did take some time to get used to the reversed call/end buttons. There's a lot of personalizations on the V600 also: the left and right soft keys, the smart key, the 4-way navigational key, color themes. A downside though, is that the games included in this phone kinda suck: one game and two demos. For the price of this phone, Moto should have given us all 3 full games. But that's not too big of a deal. If you're used to T9 texting, iTap takes a little getting used to. Overall a very nice phone.

I've been using GSM phones for about 15 years in Europe.
I moved to the US last year and not knowing anything about US service providers, I decided to go for AT&T... what a disastre (great national coverage - worst customer service I've ever dealt with - terrible international coverage). So I decided to change and tried T-Mobile (just felt right - perfect so far)and got the V600 mainly for its multi-band capabilities through Amazon. It's by far the best phone I've ever had. Easy to use, perfect camera for phone to phone or e-mail use. Great battery life. Perfect national coverage aswell as in Asia and all over Europe (speak for T-Mobile and the phone). I bought a protective cover as the phone surface scratches easily.
The perfect phone for people who travel all over the place.

It is not a very good cell phone. I actually get to work with dozens of different cell phones every year and this one, as much as I'd like to recommend it because it a US manufacturer and a very well constructed device, is just not very good as a phone. It drops call easily, fails to receive calls reliably, changes ring modes spontaneously, and the operating system is not very pragmatic. For example, the called number history and received call history are each limited to ten numbers, sure it can download and play video wonderfully, but to limit the call history to 10 calls is short-sighted as I personally find that allocation of memory a little more useful. Similarly, the camera is well done, and the bluetooth is a nice feature, but the menu system cannot be navigated with just the directional arrows, expect to have to use no less than 7 buttons while driving to call someone back.

This phone is among the best I've owned. The color screen is fantastic, but I truly like the technology features this phone has built in; things like BlueTooth support which I use all the time to sync my calendar with my PC and for my wireless headset. The camera works great, though I think there are higher resolution camera phones out there now if that's important to you. Call quality has been top-notch, and the battery life is among the best I've experienced with any phone. The software is sometimes slow to respond (imagine a PC that needs a little more RAM to speed things up, and you'll know what I mean), but its not enough of an issue for me to affect my overall rating of the phone. Size/form factor is also perfect for me. If you're new to Motorola phones, I've never liked the way they organize their phone book entries, but this is something you simply have to live with when you buy a Motorola phone. I admit I haven't had the opportunity to use this phone in another country's GSM network, but its nice to know the phone has the flexibilty should I need to jet off to Europe for work! All in all, its a phone I highly recommend.