The new Motorola E398, has been designed as a dual-function mobile phone and music player.
The E398 can play music stored in MP3 format. The sound quality of the E398 is excellent, with 3D (surround sound) stereo speakers and CD quality sound. In fact the E398 is the first phone in the UK market to have surround sound. A stereo headset can also be used with the phone.
Although the internal memory at 5 Mbytes is not huge, MP3 tracks can be stored on the new format TransFlash™ memory cards. TransFlash cards are tiny, and at the time of writing (September 2004) are available in sizes up to 128 Mbytes, although larger sizes will become available in the future. Battery capacity when used as an MP3 player is claimed to be 4.5 hours.
The phone also plays MP3 ringtones, so you can set your favourite track to be your ringtone. You can also compose your own ringtones using Motorola’s MotoMixer™ software. The phone lights up rythmically when the phone rings, which is a cool feature. At night the backlight makes the keypad light up as well as the screen, which looks great and is practical too.
Apart from the music features, the phone is extremely well-featured, more like a business-class phone. The phone has an integrated digital camera with 4x digital zoom and a camera light for taking pictures in low light. The phone is capable of video playback, but not video recording. The screen is of excellent quality, with 65k colours and a high resolution - the same as the Motorola V600. The screen quality is ahead of anything currently made by Nokia. The phone’s connectivity options are excellent with a choice of Bluetooth™ wireless connectivity as well as both USB and serial cables for connection to a PC. Other features include downloadable Java™ games (enhanced by vibration!), a built-in speakerphone, MMS and a picture phonebook. In fact the functionality of the E398 is almost identical to the V600, apart from the extra music features of the E398.
All things considered, the E898 is an exceptionally well-featured phone. It’s attractively styled, compact, with a user-friendly icon-driven user interface, and it’s not heavy when you consider how many features the phone has. The phone is well-built and feels good to hold, with an easy-to use keypad and joystick. We highly recommend this phone for those looking for a combined phone and MP3 player.
Features of the Motorola E398 include:
Display: TFT, 65, 000 colours, 220 x 176 pixels
Integrated digital VGA camera: 640 x 480 resolution, camera light, 4x digital zoom
Video Clip Playback with sound
Bluetooth™ wireless connectivity, plus USB & RS232 PC connectivity
MP3 ringtones & 22-voice polyphonic ringtones
Rhythm Lights
Situational Lights
MOTOMIXER? (Remixable MIDI ringer software)
Downloadable Themes: animated screensavers, wallpapers and ringtones
Exclusive MTV wallpapers, screensavers, video clips and games
Java games with vibration
In-built handsfree speakerphone
SMS (including Group SMS), EMS, MMS
Predictive text: iTap? with T9 emulation
E-mail, Instant Messaging
Voice-activated dialling
Picture phonebook (maximum 2, 000 entries)
Organiser: Calculator, currency converter, date and clock, datebook with reminder alerts, PIM functionality
Internal memory: 5 Mbytes
WAP 2.0, GPRS
Tri Band (900/1800/1900)
Weight: 107g
Size: 108 x 46 x 21 mm
Talktime: 9 hours
Battery standby: 9 days
MP3 battery playtime: 4.5 hours