I have been a gadget freak from the time I started getting my first pocket money, though that was not enough to buy any decent high tech gadget but I used to lay my hands on whatever best my pocket could have allowed and internet has always been helpful for me to decide what to buy. But times have changed and I have now all the money needed to buy all these wonderful hightech accessories that I can keep at my home, car or carry in my pockets. So I had the money and was looking for a phone that can turn heads. I have been using Nokia 7710 for the last 1 1/2 years, and though initially it drew lots of attention but later on with its brick like size and weight all interest was lost.
Oh I forgot that I was supposed to write about this sexy, sleek(not that sleek anymore) product by Motorola, the all new Motorola V3x. The original Motorola Razr always fascinated me with its style but with its limited onboard memory and no memory slot it was not a practical phone for me. Then came V3i but that also didnt have anything that could have made me change my phone.
But now with Motorola V3X I decided that this is it. One word of caution though its still not available in India. I had to ask a friend in UK to get it for me, which means no warranty in India. Is it worth the risk and money? I have still not been able to decide, though I have been using it for a week. But I would list whatever pros and cons of the phone are, so that it might help you all who decide to go ahead with the phone.
Motorola has tried going the Nokia way with this phone by adding all the standard features in one phone.
Its TFT internal display is one of the better ones amongst the biggies of Mobile brands with 262K colours. It has got a small external display as well which displays the time etc.
It has got a 2 MP camera with a bright LED-not exactly a flash since it does not flash but once you turn on the lights from the camera options menu, it remains on, so it can be used as a torch as well. Though the quality of the camera leaves a lot to desire and cannot be compared with Nokia and does not even remotely come close to Sony Ericsson. Although the camera has got lots of settings and modes which might prove useful in different environments. It has got an internal VGA camera as well for video calling. Video capture is standard and nothing out of ordinary.
Its Digital Audio Player is good as well for playing music files, it supports various formats like AAC+, MPEG4, WMV, WMA, MP3 and Real Video/Audio files. The speaker sound is ok and has got effects like Bass Boost and Spatial Effect. The earphone provided with the phone is good as well though its not comparable with the ones provided with Sony’s walkman series phone.
The phone has got 60 MB of internal memory which might prove good enough for many and it has a slot for transflash memory card which officially supports upto 512 MB. Transflash memory cards are costlier than the normal ones used in Nokia and hence be ready to shell out more than a thousand bucks for a 512 MB card though once added it can be then used as a makeshift MP3 player. Another word of caution playing music drains out the battery too fast and a fully charged battery can play only about 6-7 hours of music before it dies on you. That does not mean battery life is bad though since if you are not using it for playing music then it can go for 2-3 days with normal 1 hour of talking each day and some fiddling around with the phone
It has got advanced speaker-independent voice recognition: state a number/name and be connected without pre-recording. But this is just a gimmick because it cannot really understand the Indian names and you cannot pre-record so that it can match your voice and dial.
Now coming to the style statement, it has been more than a couple of years that Motorola launched the Razr line, and there is not much of excitement or eagerness left for people to look at another sleek looking Motorola. This is certainly not a headturner, by the way its size is 99x53x19.6mm which is around 5.7mm thicker than Moto Razr.
Software support is inadequate with no new themes that you can download yet and it does not come with any game.
So would I recommend this phone? With all its cons I would still say yes because of its price, it cost me around Rs.14500. And the cons looks cons if you compare the phone with phones from other manufacturers which are atleast Rs 6-7k costlier than this. But if you have got the money and are more for features then Sony Ericsson is the recommended brand, with their W800i, K800, W900i being the pick of the phones for better camera quality and music playing capability.
I am attaching a couple of photographs of not the phone but pictures taken from the phone.
Comments are welcome and eagerly awaited.