Overview Compatible with T-Mobile cell phone service, the Motorola V300 features an Internet browser, integrated VGA digital camera, MMS text messaging, and more, all displayed on a large, high-resolution 176 x 220 pixel, 65,000 color screen. The V300's clamshell design also provides a 96 x 32 pixel, two line external screen, which displays caller ID, date, time, and various status icons (including text message waiting, voice message waiting, battery and signal strength, and voice and message mail, among others) without users having to open the phone. There's even a blue backlight for nighttime viewing.
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| Assign pictures to everyone in your phonebook and have photo caller id every time your phone rings |
Calling Features Used simply as a phone, the V300 features a compelling, ergonomic design and a 4-way scroll key for easy menu navigation. Primary calling features include speech recognition, which allows users to speak a pre-saved name, number, or function and the phone will call it up automatically; as well as an integrated speakerphone, auto redial notification, call forwarding, call waiting, hold, alternate line/dual name, turbo dial keys (2-9), ringer/vibrate suppress, multiple call timers, multiple key answer, vibrate mode, memory for last numbers dialed and received, and a phone book of up to 1000 entries, including Personal Information Manager (PIM) functionality with picture caller ID.
Messaging and Internet
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| The V300 has instant messaging with real-time chat. |
Mobile messaging features are fairly standard: via MMS, users can send, edit, forward, and receive image and text messages to and from compatible phones or PCs. Images and ring tones received via MMS can be saved in phone's handy image gallery. There's also instant messaging capability, conventional email, and built-in iTAP software, which provides predictive text assistance. The V300 supports TTY functionality for the hearing impaired.
The V300's built-in Microbrowser also gives users wireless Mobile Internet access to directions, stock quotes, airline information, entertainment, and more. Users can also download MP3 polyphonic ring tones, wallpapers, and other applications and games. Two games, Bejeweled and Prince of Persia, are included with the phone.
Organizer
Organizer features include a 1000 contact phone book with photo caller ID, a date book, and Mobile Phone Tools compatibility, which (combined with software that is sold separately) lets users create, edit, and synchronize date book and phonebook entries with your PC.
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| The V300 can use polyphonic Mp3s for ringtones--use one of the 21 pre-loaded sounds, or make your own with the online mixer. |
Fun and Games For fun, the V300's integrated digital camera includes zoom and brightness adjustment functions, as well as 5 MB of memory for picture storage or for saving wallpapers, screensavers, ring tones, and games downloaded from the Internet. Ringtones are supported by a 22 KHz polyphonic speaker with 24 chord capability. Users can also assign different tones for different callers saved the V300's phonebook, and for messages, faxes, and reminders.
Vital Statistics
The Motorola V300's security features include call restrictions, keypad lock, phone lock, application lock, and new password capability. The phone weighs 4.3 ounces and measures 3.5 x 1.93 x 1 inches. Its Lithium Ion batteries are rated at up to 390 hours talk time, and up to 200 hours standby time.
1 I Love My V300
I've never had an issue with this phone. With T-Mobile, yes. With the v300, no. It's great. It's reliable. It charges just fine (very quickly actually) and it holds a charge forever (at least when you get it. Afterall, all batteries die eventually). It's also managed to survive being dropped about a hundred times (When choosing between dropping the phone and dropping my toddler, the phone always loses).
Anyway, I don't know why the reviews for the v300 seem so negative. The phone is great in my opinion, as are its cousins. I have several friends with v550 from Cingular, and they have had no problems with that phone either.
T-Mobile is a whole other issue. I've had some complaints about their servers dropping my MMS messages, in other words, my picture messages sometimes vanish without ever reaching their destination, but that would remain true with any camera phone they issue, so it can't really be used agains this phone in particular.
All in all, I say if you like T-Mobile (I still do after 2 years, despite the few glitches I've had), then this phone is a great buy as long as you don't need bluetooth. If you do, you'll have to spend an extra hundred bucks or so on a v600 instead.
2 Good Phone At An Okay Price
Thus far, I've had no major problems with using this phone like other people have had. However, even though I send and receive all my messages (voicemail, text, e-mail, etc.) okay, I did occasionally have a problem with sending text messages and the receiving party not getting them; that's the only problem I've had with this phone so far. The camera feature is fair, in my opinion, because of the overall visual quality of the pictures taken with the phone (the pictures have a somewhat "grainy" appearance to them). In short, the V300 is a good phone to buy if it's your first phone and you don't want to pay a lot of money for a simple camera phone with text and internet capabilities. However, I must say that the keys on this phone are small (which is great for me since my hands are small), so I personally don't recommend buying this phone if you have large hands.
3 Junk
Terrible phone. Was just freeze up and go blank or flashing screen wouldn't let me do anything. Had to set it up perfectly to get it to charge and then it took forever cause I would have to keep adjusting the charge plug. Second week I had it, I wasn't able to send or recieve and calls or txt msgs and had to get it fixed. All around garbage.
4 Couldn't pay me to use this phone
The fact that I am on my third V300, simply because the phone company only sends you a completely different model of phone after the THIRD one breaks. Actually.... I'm on my third, and after 2 calls to my phone company complaining about this phone (having a combination of the problems of the 2 previously owned) I have decided to wait until the "upgrade" for lack of patience trying to describe why this phone is a POS.
5 POS!
This phone was garbage! AT random times my screen would just go blank and freeze and then come on a minute later. Everyone in my family has this phone (4 people) and we have had to get 3 family members new phones. Mine would say Unable to Charge when i tried to charge it. My dad's phone had about a 50% chance of dropping the phonecall when he was on the phone and my sister's backlight for her screen broke so she couldn't see her screen in the dark. I am giving the review two stars because (one star) they did replace our junky phones (with more junky V300s) and the second star, you can lock up your apps, pics, etc. The screen is legit, the camera is aight, the degree of customization is respectable, but you get what you pay for. If youre checking out T-Mobile phones, hit up the Sidekick II! $50 back in rebates for a phone that is ten times as good as the V300. But stay away from all of these triplet motorolas, everyone i know has issues with them, they are slow and defective!
6 Poor design
I got this phone because I was tired of SprintPCS customer service, the battery in my old phone lasted only a couple of hours, and also wanted to try GSM. Well, the phone stays on for about 3 days if I do not use it too much, so I am quite happy with that, and the customer service is nicer, they promptly unlocked the phone at my request after I had it for 3 months. I didn't notice any difference between CDMA and GSM though. But the phone itself leaves much to be desired.
The controls are extremely uncomfortable. The "smart" button is just an annoyance, the volume control button is activated almost every time the phone moves in my pocket or when I pick it up. The interface is not convinient even with the customizations -- it takes too many pushes on the buttons to do what you want. Instead of saying "You have voicemail" the phone says "you have a message". When you check the message, it tells you "dial 123 to check you voice mail". (Bad joke, Motorola.) The phone has numerous useless features, and it is SLOW! Seriously, it feels as if you are working on a computer while it is checking the hard drive for viruses. When dialing a number, sometimes I need to wait for half a second or more before it beeps to confirm I pressed it. Voice dialing is also not as good as on my previous Samsung. Picture quality is horrible. You can't expect much from such a small lens, but still, it is horrible. Judging by the kinds of customization this phone offers and the features stressed in the phone description I assume it was designed primarily for the teenagers.
Overall, it is not too bad a phone for the price: -$100 after rebates, but I am very disappointed with Motorola. I quess my next phone will be a Samsung again, or something else.
7 a few annoying problems
Well i've had this phone for about 10 months and i probably would NOT get it again if given the choice. I wanted a camera phone and was initially very excited about this model.... it was new at the time and seemed to have great reviews overall. I'll cut to the chance with the problems: FIRST, the volume level on this phone's handset isnt great. Max volume is "7" and it's not very loud at all. Try talking to someone in a very crowded place and it'll be very frustrating. You actually get much louder volume when using a headset. SECOND: my boyfriend has verizon and for whatever reason, whether it's my phone or his or our service or a combination of the two... whever he's on his cell phone and i'm on mine, i have a VERY difficult time hearing him - i'm constantly saying "what did you say" and he winds up calling me on my home phone and i can hear him just fine. The only time i can actually hear him loud and clear is when he's speaking loud and directly into his mic on his handset - which is very uncomfortable and annoying. This is extremely frustrating and he claims its my phone because i can hear him fine from my home phone and no one else he speaks with has a problem hearing him - just me. THIRD: the exterior buttons on the phone are a problem. When the phone is in my purse, i have on occassion turned off my ringer and set it to vibrate without realizing it - thereby missing calls.....because if the button gets pressed it can change your settings - this can happen easily without you realizing it when it's being carried in your pocket or purse. FOURTH: the camera really takes crappy pics - grainy and in less than perfect light, forget it - in a slightly dim room you'll never get a shot.... you need daylight to get anything worth sending and even then the detail will stink. FIFTH: i have had the phone just go blank and i'll have to remove the battery and put it back in again to "reset" it - it's usually after i try to go into a particular mode too soon after being in a different mode - almost like the phone was still processing the first info and got overloaded and shut down. I have NEVER had a call drop though as some other reviewers have claimed. I think my phone does time out after several hours - i have stayed on the phone with my boyfriend all night while we were sleeping (we're so romantic.. lol) and i always wake up with the call dropped after a few hours - ..... no bif deal though. Lastly, the speaker phone isnt very sensitive. If you were in your car and had the phone on your lap its fine but you cant walk around the room or go 20 feet away and talk.... ESPECIALLY if you are both using your speaker phone functions - forget it. Although i dont like their styling as much, i have found nokia phones to be a LOT BETTER with the issues i have mentioned than motorola.
8 Lasted just long enough for the warranty to expire
I don't usually write reviews, but this is a special case.
My husband and I each got a v300 when we signed up with T-Mobile just over a year ago. We didn't have too many problems with the phones during that time and were pretty happy with them overall. The screen on one of them froze a couple of times, the ring-style buttons on the sides were a pain, the photos came out grainy...but you expect a glitch or two with most technological products, right?
We were excited when we completed our contracts and were no longer locked in for any certain length of time--just month-to-month service, which we thought was fairly decent. Occasional dropped calls and spotty service when travelling were our only minor gripes.
Well, we only got to enjoy our freedom for a couple of months. This morning, after being plugged into the charger all night, my husband's phone said "invalid battery" on the screen. It hadn't charged at all. When I put in a different battery, it still said the same thing. I called T-Mobile and described the problem and the CS person said this was a known problem that had only occurred in about 100 of these phones. She told me she would see if they could replace it even though it was outside of the one-year warranty period.
It turned out that she could only replace it if we paid $70 and signed up for another year of service. Either that or pay to upgrade to another phone. I said no deal, disconnect us.
The disconnect person said she could send us a free low-end phone, again tying us to a one-year contract. Not good enough, I'm afraid.
So we will very shortly be without cell phone service and I am left searching for another carrier and facing another lengthy contract. Maybe we'll go with Cingular so that we can M2M with other family members.
I'm very disappointed with T-Mobile and with this phone. An expensive cell phone should last more than just over a year, especially since we are VERY careful and gentle with all our gadgets. And I think a known defect like this should be treated more like a recall, not just a standard warranty issue.
I'm leaving 2 stars instead of 1 only because my phone still works, at least for the present. Goodbye, T-Mobile.
9 Nine weeks, no rebate
Mailed in my rebate and all the attending forms in early February. The status on the online rebate center has shown in-process forever. Cmon, 9 weeks? While it's too early to say I'm getting ripped off, this extended time frame doesn't bode well for the people Amazon chooses to do their rebate processing. Think twice before you bite on the rebate lure.
The phone, with T-Mobile service is okay. Half of the calls will be dropped about 10 minutes in, and the battery life is nowhere near as stated. The phone itself seems to be pretty good, although the keypad layout could be more aesthetically pleasing and the keys a tad larger. To do it all over again, I would have bought the v600 for the bluetooth, but the rebates offered on this one at the time were too good to pass up. But the rebates don't matter if you never receive the money promised!
10 what a disapointment
I bought the motorola v300 phone because it said it was a triband. It may be but you can only use it in the states with tmobile. Im in the military and I had to go back stateside and activate it and when I returned overseas,(where I spend most of my career) it doesnt work. i have a phone I bought almost 3yrs ago in Italy and although it is alot bigger and it doesnt have all the new features and all the gadgets....it works all over the world when I put a different chip in. The phone I bought is motorola and it is for a network called "TIM" which is over here in Italy...it still works all over the world. I have even gone to another country and before I bought a chip for that country...it picked up a network as soon as I turned the phone on in the airport. The T-Mobile Motorola V300 is a ripoff.
11 Dont regret it
i always wanted this phone. i finally bought it few months ago and i took really care of my phone..well kinda i dropped the phone alot and it still works fine...well not really i just have a problem with the camera..i try to use sometimes and it often says Busy try again. but other than that its fine..i can hear from the other end and they can hear me fine. it also looks good too. i like the blue on the phone..but this phone is getting pretty old so i dont think ill be keeping this phone any longer..
12 It WAS a good phone...
When I bought this phone 11 months ago it was one of the most advanced phones I had ever had, so my excitement helped me to ignore little bugs such as the cover screen freezing up (I frequently have to cut my phone on and off to make it work), the camera's sometimes grainy quality (I have ONE crystal clear picture), and the way I would miss a few calls due to my ringer switching from "vibe and ring" to "silent" in my pocket or purse. When I did miss calls from the same person, I could only see the last call and couldn't verify if they had called me earlier (which does tend to cause conflict when you really need to prove if someone called you or not). There are times when my phone doesn't even ring, it just comes up "missed call." Sometimes it doesn't tell me it has a missed call at all and I'll only find out if I happen to check my messages--and that's if the person leaves a message at all (I almost lost a few friends over this because I thought they were lying to me when they claimed to have called me, and me being the stubborn person I am I wouldn't bother to call them). The ringtones have a nice quality but mostly sound like rejected pop tunes, with the exception of a few. The predownloaded "free" games are mildly entertaining for the first two plays or so, but heaven forbid if you get too good at it--Motorola cuts the game off after roughly 3-5 minutes and prompts you to buy the Full Version. I'm not even going to mention how my service seems to fluctuate in the same area (like my room), or when I travel to my friend's dorm up north we have to sit in the Motorola/T-Mobile/anything but Verizon section by the open window. So all quirks aside, I loved my phone until about a few months ago, when I realized I could no longer hear anybody on the other end and nobody could hear me unless I use speakerphone or a headset. I now have to wrap my headset around my phone at all times, or else in the time I spend rummaging around for it (or trying to activate speakerphone, which only works AFTER you answer the phone) the person hangs up unless they know how jacked up my phone is. I wish I had the money to buy a new phone because I'm tired of everyone telling me to get a new one! After reading other customer reviews I can see that these later problems probably would have still occurred even i I hadn't dropped my phone one too many times. Another problem that bugs me is the 3 way conference calling--it can only be activated AFTER the phone call connects, much like the speakerphone. It's very awkward when you volunteer to call someone for someone else, then when they answer the phone you have to tell them to hold on so you can connect--by that time they think you're some loon and hangs up. So basically, if you want a flashy cameraphone then this is a decent one to have, but keep it in a good holder to protect it when it drops. I also had a Motorola c333 and I've noticed that electronically, Motorola products deteriorate quicker than any other cell phone I've had. They're good for the first few months but give them time and they'll show their true colors.
13 Don't buy it...you'll be sorry.
If you would have asked me about six months ago how I felt about my phone, I would have told you that I LOVED it. But that was six months ago. About four months ago I started having problems with my phone that just can't be overlooked. It started dropping my calls after about 15-20 minutes. After a little while, I called T-Mobile to see what they could do about it. They were really helpful at first and sent me a "new" refurbished phone. After about a week, the same problem started happening with the "new" phone. The saga continues... I went through 3 phones, 2 SIM cards, and 2 batteries. AND even after all that, T-Mobile wanted to send me ANOTHER refurbished V300! I argued with the customer service people (who ought to change their name to customer disservice) several times before they agreed to send me a brand new Samsung e315.
After my experience with this phone, I feel safe to say that a majority of the people that are happy with their phones now will have problems with it in the future. It took about 10 months before my phone started dropping my calls. But after it started, there was no stopping it. I consistently lost every phone call after about 12 minutes on ALL three phones.
Additionally, this phone has poor picture quality and there were several times I couldn't hear the person on the other line when I received calls.
The features of this phone are nice, but it doesn't function well at all. The V300 will turn faithful Motorola and T-Mobile customers away from their services. I've had T-mobile for a little over a year and this is my 10th Motorola I've had, and I won't be a returning customer. I'm very unsatisfied with my experience. I wouldn't recommend this phone to anybody.
14 Drops calls all the time!
In Norfolk, Virginia, I get dropped calls every 10-15 minutes.
I live a mile from the heart of downtown Norfolk.
The phone has nice features. The Camera works great.
But a phone is for calling people and my dropped calls hinder my ability to talk.
15 FREE ON TMOBILE SITE
YOU CAN GET THIS PHONE FOR FREE IF YOU GO TO THE TMOBILE SITE AND BECOME A CUSTOMER!!
16 Save your money
I got this phone 9 months ago, I started having the charging problems in month 3, by month 6 the phone would just shut down and come back up for no apparent reason, in month 9 it started doing it in the middle of phone calls. I got a MPx220 this month, I love it despite the mixed reviews. Its perfect for work, the only problem is that Cingular customer service is not very knowledgble about the data plan you need. Be sure to tell them you need Xpress mail, NOT media net if you plan to use it to get your work Outlook email on your phone.
17 Spectacular phone!
I see a lot of negative reviews here. I read a lot of them and it almost convinced me not to get this phone, but I got a good deal, and couldn't find another phone that didn't actually cost $400+ that didn't have a lot of bad reviews also. Seriously now, I now recommend you should discount most of the negative reviews, I guess usually only people with bad experiences bother to write one. So here I am, trying to balance hundreds of terrible reviews with my experience. I have had this phone with Tmobile for a month now. Not a single dropped call. With my Sprint Samsung phone, it wouldn't run more than 5 minutes without a drop. The sound quality is stunning. People are much louder than on my Sprint phone also, I turn the volume down and can actually HEAR what people are saying. The external speaker is AMAZING. I never expected to be able to listen to MIDI and MP3 ringtones with such clarity, I assumed it would sound tinny and small--but no, very good range. The display is top-notch. Absolutely the best phone performance, quality, and featureset I could have ever expected to get. My ONLY complaint is that the phone directory lists a name for every phone number, so if you enter Joe and assign three numbers to that name, say, home, cell, and work, then when you scroll through the phonebook, you see three lines, Joe, Joe, Joe. On my sprint phone, you would see one Joe, select him, then use the left and right buttons to scroll through his three different numbers. Not so here, you have to just squint to see the little bitty icon that's supposed to denote which number this Joe is. That needs improvement, but outside of that minor annoyance, this is one of the greatest phones around.
I can't imagine what the deal is with all of the negative reviews, especially the ones that criticize the speaker quality or reception. And as far as the charging issue, those folks must not have been pressing the little release button on the charger to disconnect it from the phone. It has a spring-locking mechanism that makes connecting the charger foolproof--but if you just yank it out without pressing the button, I can see how you might break it so that it wouldn't connect well later--but on the other hand, if you throw it down on the driveway then run over it with your car, it might drop calls and start sounding poor then also. Then they write a review ripping the quality. The charger design is not at all at fault, again I compare to my Sprint phone (with which I had no charger problems) this charger connection design is far superior, mechanically.
18 Longevity issues
I really like this phone. The organizer, speech recognition and other features are really good. I like the camera, association of images and sounds, the organizer, etc. But, after about 9 months, the speaker in the clam shell started working intermittently, so i needed to put it on speakerphone to hear people. I know of a few other folks who have had similar issues with the clam shell construction. I had a new phone sent to me from the carrier and now I'm back in action, but be forewarned about the wear and tear issue.
19 I got it because it was blue...
I have had this phone for almost a year. I haven't had any problems with it at all and my T-mobile service has been great. I have been thinking about going for a device that is easier to send text messages on.
20 Third time is a charm
I purchased this phone from Amazon.com with a contract from T-Mobile.
After 1 year I am on my third V300. This phone has given me nothing but problems. Principally, as others have stated, the charge connector is of extremely poor design. Basically after a few months I would not be able to recharge the phone because of the connection. My first phone did this and so did my replacement. My third phone has lasted a little more than a month but I am not sure how long it will go for.
T-Mobile seriously dropped the ball on this because they took FOREVER to send me a replacement. Also, they have a loaner program while you are waiting for your phone but it maxes out at 2 weeks (it took over a month for me to receive a phone). They claim that the postal service lost it (which is possible) but in any event the whole process was terrible. When I spoke to the T-Mobile reps at two different locations I asked if others were having similar problems. Both of them admitted that they have had many warranty defects with the charging ports of the V300.
In the end, I am getting a new phone with a new provider. I am going to stay very far away from Motorolas until they resolve their charging issues.
21 Not good phone, I could only recommend it to people I hate
This phone seems like a really good idea with some great features.
ON PAPER.
In practice, this thing is ridiculously frustrating to own. The v300 is equipped with a less-then-adequate CPU which means the phone is often lagging several steps behind the user. You can be pushing buttons, but button presses often don't register for up to a second, which means you end up doing things you don't intend.
Now the worst part of this phone and probably the single worst thing about every current phone Motorola makes. The charging port is seriously the most poorly designed connector on the history of man. I have gone through 4 of these phones because of the same issue. The charging port is very, very fragile and I often have to sit there with the charger for 20 minutes (and that's NOT an exaggeration) trying to get the bloody thing to charge. I don't know how many times I got so sick of trying to charge it, I go out with only one battery bar remaining only to hear the phone beep at me loudly every few minutes to notify me of it's dying battery. After a while, that beeping feels like I was stabbed in the gut with the phone and every few minutes, someone pours salt into the wound, just to remind me about how absolutely terrible a choice I made in buying this thing.
Stay away from it. Resist it's sexy curves and attractive blue color. As a matter of fact, stay away from Motorola phones in general until they fix this issue with the charging port. I guarantee it is the #1 complaint with there current line of phones.
For the price, the Sony/Erricson t610 is a much less frustrating solution.
22 A great phone but probably bad service
I am sorry to see such bad reviews for this phone because I bought it over a month ago and it has been great so far. However, the service i'm using is not T-Mobile so maybe it's the wireless provider.
The things I love about this phone are the relatively good picture quality, ability to download stuff,animations for text messaging and the recall feature when your call doesn't get through. I like all the features though. Plus it's real easy to find the applications you want to use. So far I haven't had a problem with the screen or ring tones.
The bad thing about is that it's hard to change the face when you're tired of seeing blue all the time. Plus, so many people are buying this phone I'm seeing it everywhere I go!
23 Average
The look, the feel, and better yet it's from Motorola.
At first, this phone looked amazing, it had a great feeling blue cover, it was comfortable, it had great sound, it was wonderful. After a month, I started to get tired of the same blue cover, so I decided to buy myself a new cover. I went to the TMOBILE stands at the mall to have them put it on for me because I didn't trust the people I bought my cover from. Turns out that the employees at the stands don't know what they are doing and they couldn't help me. So I had to get the person I bought it from do it for me. Let me tell you, the contruction is not solid. it may be from my case, but this has never happened to me on any other phone before. The flip doesn't go back all the way, leaving it uncomfortable while on it and it gets hard to see. I occasionally give it a little nudge so it can go farther back but it feels as if it will snap off. I'm afraid to push it farther.
I've had it now for about 4 months, and nothing major has gone wrong yet. The sound quality is pretty good, except TMOBILE has bad reception. Out of nowhere my phone will just hang up, and I won't know if it was me or the person I was talking. I now know that it's because of my service. This isn't really the phone itself, but they only offer the V300 at TMOBILE, so if you were planning on going this direction, I would stop.
This phone does have its perks. It comes with amazing features such as: built in camera, speakerphone, downloadable graphics ringtones and games, MotoMixer, and many other great features. This phone is average in my opinion. There is nothing spectacular about it, but it isn't bad. I say, if you are just looking for a regular flip phone, this will probably be the one for you. If you want something more high-tech, i'd go for the V600, it looks a lot more professional.
24 The service SUCKS and I'm switching from TMobile
When I first got this phone, I loved it. But, then a couple of months down the road..it started to act up. The first reason I had to replace it was because all of a sudden..the battery wouldn't charge. Nothing was wrong with the battery itself..so I got a replacement phone. Then..the service went out on the first replacement phone. It was dropping calls every 2 minutes and in some places..I didn't get any service at all. My brother had a small emergency when our parents were out of town and I didn't know for an HOUR. If it had been a life or death emergency, I would have been HIGHLY upset. So, I got another replacement phone. I have now moved to NYC..and in my apartment..I get one bar of service! This is unacceptable. I've been having problems with TMobile and their phones for too long. I've been with them since they were Voicestream and they are dying to keep me..but I'm switching to Nextel or Verizon THIS week.
Save your money..don't get this phone and dare I say..don't go with TMobile!!
25 Worst Signal & A piece of junk for the speaker.
I bought this phone 8 months ago. I have been dealing with problems of this phone since then. However, I have never made a big complain to T-mobile rather than calling for tech support help as I wanted to give it a try and used it for a certain period of time before judging it. Obviously, there is no improvement.
The phone keeps dropping the call every 15-40 or 60-75 minutes or so. Lately, it does its job very well dropping 90% of my calls within every 15-40 minutes. My other 2 friends have the same phone and they have this problem also.
The speaker's quality of the phone is very inconsistent. Someday, it worked just fine, someday, I had to yelling at my friends asking them to repeat the stuffs since I couldn't hear them and was wondering whether they were still with me (or we got cut off again!)
The speaker phone function is not any better either. The person at the other end always has difficulties hearing me.
This phone definitely is defective. For sure, when the phone has been in the vibrate mode and then, I plug the charger into the phone, the ringing mode always automatically switches to the LOUD mode. (Before I discover this defect, I have had to wake up at the middle of the night because of the LOUD ringer after plugging the charger in before going to bed.)
I am going to T-mobile within this week to finally make a real complain about the phone. [...]
26 T-Mobile knows this model is defective.
My phone calls never last more than 25 minutes, like many other reviewers. They always drop between 15 and 25 minutes. I am surprised to hear that even T-mobile accepts the fact that this model is defective, not just my single phone. They told me that Motorola is working on the problem but do not know when the resolution will be available, which means it is of no use to exchange with same model because I will keep getting defective ones and, meanwhile, my warranty will run out.
I don't think I was out of line to ask them to exchange my current phone with another model at this point. I was even willing to accept cheaper ones.
However, they won't exchage my phone even with the free phones (that are listed on their website.) They told me that I will have to pay for the retail price for the free phones and even start new contract.
Yes, Motorola's product is defective but T-mobile is responsible for the phone and 1 year warranty. I am very disappointed with T-mobile. I am heading to Better Business Bureau for sure.
27 Low quality, ruined my expectations
I bought this phone about 8 months ago thinking that anything made by a reputable company like Motorola would be of the upmost quality. Wow, I was soooo wrong! Before owning a Moto, the only phones I had ever owned were from Nokia. They were great phones that lasted a long time and.....just plain worked. The V300 speaker volume was awful. I never knew when I was going to be able to hear the person I was talking to. Some days the volume was high enough, other days I couldn't hear the other person at all. I tried everything to figure out what the problem was, including looking through the manual and calling tech. support (from my home phone!), but nothing worked. So, they sent me another one....same problem all over again. PLUS, half the time the phone wouldn't ring when people called me, and the vibrate function simply didn't work well. With Nokia, when you put your phone on silent, the vibrate function is strong enough to get your attention. With the v300, I never noticed the vibrate function unless the phone was actually in my hands.
All in all, worst phone I've ever had...and I ended up going back to Nokia with a 6610. I'm now reminded why I should have never switched to Motorola to begin with.
28 Everything you heard is true...
I am also a victim of the "no sound" syndrome of the V300. Conversations over the speakerphone is just not right! I just received my third phone, and I'm ready to send it back.
T-Mobile did all they could to solve the problem, except for their no exchange policy (they don't offer trade ins.) Based on my conversation with the sales rep and the Amazon reviews on this site, I'm very surprised this phone is still on the market- and it still seems like "bad batches" of phones are being sent out!
Save yourself some time and embarrasment. Don't bother with this one.
29 Disappointing phone
I haven't had the total breakdowns that other reviewers have described, but my phone also often misses a call and simultaneously receives the message just fine.
More annoying is that it is almost impossible to keep this phone quiet. Even on silent, it still beeps loudly every time one of the exposed buttons on the outside is touched. Which is just about constantly. The key volume switch has no effect on those keys.
The other serious fault is speaker volume. Even on max the volume is not nearly loud enough to hear over street noise when walking nor road noise when driving or riding. The camera is not worth the extra cost for the cable and software that should have been included in the original purchase package. I was otherwise satisfied with the phones features, size, weight and battery life, all of which were an improvement on my LG 510. The biggest improvement over the LG 510 was ringer volume; the V300 has a really LOUD ring. But the LG had a much better/louder speaker.
I was very satisfied with Amazon as a seller and I like T-Mobile as a service provider. Connections within urban areas and on interstates (except I-86) are clearer than Verizon. But rural areas often have no coverage at all.
30 decent phone but outdated technology
so i have had my v300 for aoubt a year and a half and i thought that people should know what they are getting.
the phone in general is great for calls, etc. but if u want to get into the features...
VGA camera- its vga.. u cant expect good quality or anything even near it. u need picture-perfect(no pun intended) lighting conditions to take a picture that doesnt end up blurred or distorted.
speakerphone- moto might not have the best phones but they sure do know how to make a speakerphone
OS- laggy. retarding. not convient. the worst feature is the phonebook which lags even without displaying the pictures. but a close second is the alarm which requires manual reset everytime u turn it off. and the 5mb memory is too small for anything. i txt a lot so i usually have to tell my friends to wait before sending me a message so i can clean up my messages and delete unwanted pics/ringtones.
but then again the phone serves its purpose as a phone. when i bought it, it was around 50 dollars which i guess wouldnt be unreasonable but given the current price of -dollars i guess its a bargain.
31 The fun phone
i love the motorola v300 it is the best phone i had with t-mobile sp far it is a good phone i was able to get ringtones,games.and wallpapers this phone is the best the only thing I don't like is the vibrate/ring which vibrates and then rings all my phones had ring and vibrate at the same time this is phone is great i love this phone
32 SUCKS!!! BUT customer service is amazing...
OK... sooo i just got off the house phone with t-mobile... They are sending me my 3rd V300 due to problems... My first V300 within 3 months lost all sound out of the earpiece... bassically i had to have the phone on speaker all the time... Then they sent me a second one... Within another 3 months the same thing happened to this one... THATS TWO PHONES IN A ROW THAT THE EARPIECE WENT OUT!!! BUT!!! T-mobile has replaced the phone both times with little hasle and no cost out of my pocket... A+++ for customer service!!!
33 You will be sorry-don't do it! Just say no to the V300!
I bought this phone in Dec. 2004. In Feb. 2005 the battery stopped holding a charge so Tmobile sent me a new battery. That stopped working a week later so they sent me a new phone.
I noticed the new (could be refurbished they said) phone seemed "tighter...even the batteries fit better.
Three weeks later the phone stopped working. They wanted to replace it with the same model. I said no. So I cancelled and stopped the autowithdrawal at the bank and will not pay the cancellation fee. Ever.
Tmobile is great. The V300 sucks. Anyone interested in starting a class action lawsuit against Motorola and this phone email me watchtower77@gmail.com.
34 think again!!!!!
I love T-mobile it's the best.. i wanted and up grade on my old flip so i went with the V3oo it sucks it's the worst...screen goes black...the camera isn't clear at all.... it's just not simple and it's way to complicated for my taste... so take my advice n re-think before buying this phone.
35 Love it so far
After intensive reserch and window shopping, I finally decided on this with T-mobile, getting my minutes doubled with a bit less money than what I had with AT&T/Cingular. Pics from Camera are surprisingly good. A plus for me is that the Mobile PhoneTools and USB cable I bought for V60i also worked for this phone allowing me to transfer numbers within two seconds from the old phone, make my own wallpaper with any pic from computer and make ringtones from any mp3 songs or CD track with the free Ringtone Ripper.
Pros:
1. Loud Speakerphone
2. Bright, big, high resolution display screen
3. MP3 ringtones and wallpapers from computer
4. Decent camera
5. Sleek nice-feel exterior
6. Auto-updated time
Cons:
1. Phone book (whoever went backwards from the StarTec to come up with one entry per number should be prosecuted.)
36 A Step Backward
I've had this phone for a year, with T-Mobile. Reception is good in San Diego & NYC Metro area, where I've used it most. The phone is starting to show problems with the flip. Occassionally the screen is black when you open it, or blacks-out when you press a key. Pressing the earpiece too hard to the ear also sometimes blanks the screen and/or drops the call. Most annoying is the one number per name contact list, and the lookup by only the first letter. I've had Moto's Startec (best phone), Timeport, now this. As they add features, they seem to lose others. Also owned Ericsson and Samsung (S105). I've just ordered a Nokia 6600 and am hoping it will be better.
37 warning: do not buy this phone
I bought Motorola V300 on June 2004. There isn't a t-mobile network where I live, but in general I have full reception using borrow ATT or Enstein network. I can't complaint about T-mobile since I'm very satisfied with its customer care center.
After about three months using this phone, it suddenly stopped working. It keeps blinking on and off everytime I flip it open. I can't press button since everytime it blinks the phone would refresh to the home screen. I bought the phone at amazon and had difficult time asking replacement from them. I asked around local phone repair service center and despite Motorola insistence none of them are affiliate with Motorola of which they refused to fix my phone. I searched the Motorola site and found a repair center in Texas. I sent the phone to the repair center for them to fix. Naturally, they deleted all my contact information which I hadn't able to save because of the blinking problem. After a few weeks, they sent my phone back. It was the same phone as before. The blinking problem was solved. But as soon as I used it, it wouldn't work again. There is another problem, no voice. I can't hear neither incoming or outgoing voice. It was frustrated since I expected that they should check the phone functionality before sent it back to me. All the while, I have been borrow someone else phone or go about without any phone at all.
I'm avoiding any Motorola product forever.
38 So-so phone
I've had the V300 for more than a year now, and I think this sums it up:
PROs:
* Keypad and menu are user-friendly
* Speakerphone and three-way conference capabilities
* Encased in a non-slip material
* Durable
* Ringtones are nice
CONs:
* You open the phone to answer, and it keeps ringing for one or two more times before it finally connects.
* Heavy
* When calls drop, sometimes it just keeps ringing and you can't stop it for the love of sweet Jesus
* It shows received calls as missed calls
* Calls drop (often), but it doesn't tell you till way later in the "conversation."
* The camera isn't that great
As for reception, I think that has more to do with T-Mobile's general suckiness than the phone itself (I think). But all the talk about the charger is incorrect. It does take 2 seconds to show that it's charging, but so? And I've never heard of the volume dropping out, or it switching to silent by it's lonesome.
I've been around the world with this phone, and have generally abused it. It has survived.
39 Dropping calls after 10 minutes
I have noticed that v300 drops calls after 10 minutes. Called the T-mobile helpdesk which offered to replace the phone.
It seems to be a known issue for T-mobile.
40 The worst phone I've ever had
The Motorola V300 is the worst cellular phone I've had, and I've had quite a few. The phone will drop a call and then start ringing without there being an incoming call. It doesn't charge worth a dang and this is my third phone since purchasing it in April of 2004. I've only had this last one for a week and it's doing exactly the same thing! The other day it took me 30 minutes just to get the phone to turn back on. The dropped calls are ridiculous. I finally lost it with T-Mobile and insisted that they give me another model. Hopefully I'll have more success with this one. Motorola dropped the ball on this phone and this experience has given me a very negative opinion of Motorola. I will never buy another phone made by Motorola.
41 Great phone great value.
Had this phone for almost a year. Almost no complaints. Has all the necessary functions, although rather useless camera. Recommmend.
42 This phone sucks!!!!
I got this phone less than three months ago. The antenna has broken, it drops calls, and worst of all, it rings without any sound or vibration. It's never on silent or vibrate. I hate this phone so much. The camera quality is even bad compared to the samsung phones offered by Sprint PCS.
43 Fabulous little phone!
I have service through T-Mobile, and so far, super service and a great working phone. The camera phone works great for me and I think the pictures are very good quality. The reason I got this phone is that it is a flip phone. For some reason, the Sony-Ericsson cell I had previously (an "open-face" phone) would never unlock my keys in time for me to answer a call, so I stopped locking them. Well, I made lots of calls un-intentionally, so I thought a flip-phone would be great (and I am pretty quick about whipping that puppy open). I have had the phone for about 7 months now, and it looks as good as the day I first got it. The buttons are a good size for me, and I LOVE the speakerphone feature. It is a small phone, so it doesn't take a lot of room. The one thing that is annoying, which other buyers have noticed, is a tendency to reset itself. My phone doesn't reset itself, but it has switched to silent mode a couple of times, and I never use silent mode. I have had TMobile service for 2 or 3 years now, and I am pretty happy with it. My calls get through, I don't recall losing any calls, and I love the coverage.
44 when it works, it's okay
I have had to replace my V300 twice now. I haven't even had it a year! Basically the phone looses the ability to hold a signal. One day out of now where, it will just not be able to pick up a signal stronger than a bar or two and will constantly drop calls. The second time it happened my phone started echoing for about two weeks before the strength issue started. It's very frustrating to have to keep getting replacements -- which are just basically refurbs. Motosucko!
45 LIke the Style? Go for it. Decent Performance.
I've owned this phone for over 1/2 a year. No major problems at all-- I honestly have never had "Volume spontaneously shuts itself off" or "Spontaneously resets to silent or vibrate" or "go anywhere from no bars to full bars on my signal without moving"... I don't know, I feel some of these comments might have resulted from bad care, however I always put my in my bookbag, and I'm sure it gets bumped around too. The only problem i CAN agree on is that "Charger connection is a terrible design does not fit well, and has to be manipulated to begin charging", but all I do is just push the plug in a little bit and hold for 2 seconds. It works.
My overall satisfaction with phone (1-10): 7
PROS:
1. Camera phone!
2. Stores lots pics (I have at least 40 pics and that only takes up 1/2 of my pic memeory)
3. Scratch resistant faceplate/battery cover
4. I like the voice recording feature... I don't know why, it's not like I actually record anything useful, but I think it's another cool feature. It also has MP3 ringtones.
CONS:
1. This is my first camera phone, but I noticed that it's not as fast as my old v60 in terms of the buttons responding, especially when you flip through pictures. (But of course, v60 wasn't a color phone nor was it a camera, so it had less to process.)
This relative "slowness" also applies to when you flip the phone open. Sometimes it may take a second for the screen to pop on.
2. Size--it's not that small (I would have preferred my old v60 with Verizon if they weren't so expensive--so I had to switch).
(I actually didn't pick out this phone myself, my sister got a combined plan with me so she picked it out.)
3. Even though the faceplate is scratch resistant, you can't switch it by yourself (well apparently you need a T9 screwdriver or soemthing). So you'd have to buy the screwdriver and figure out how to install a new faceplate. (Again, I'm mostly comparing this to my old v60, which did not need tools to switch faceplates).
4. Light-up buttons aren't clear-- some of the buttoms are dimmer than the others. Also, when you first get the phone, the buttoms seem weird b/c they are not all the same size-- if you've ever seen one you know what I'm talking about. But you'll get use to both things I just mentioned.
Overall, I think this phone is a decent phone for anyone who likes its size and style. I wish it was a little smaller, but I can deal with it. Can't really comment on reception b/c it's the first time I've used this service, but I think it's pretty decent--never got cut off where I should've had reception at least. All I can say it, if you're not paying monstrous amounts for this phone and you like the style, go for it.
46 It's not that bad...
I am not saying that the people that have written a review here are wrong. I had some problems, mostly beacuse my company sold me a phone that had been returned to them because it was broken! I was so p****d off, but since I had read some of the reviews here I didn't think to much of the earlier problems. I quickly got a new phone (no previous owners!) and since then it has been working perfect.
I like the camera (though that wasn't the main reason for buying it). I am having fun with the cool little personal features...and it works fine.
By the way, my main reason for buying the v300 - It's small and it's blue ! :o)
47 worst cell phone ever
Was a fun gadget at first but started developing problems after about six months. Spontaneously resets to silent or vibrate, so you miss tons of calls. Shows calls that you answered as "missed" after you hang up. Charger connection is a terrible design does not fit well, and has to be manipulated to begin charging (This was true from day one). Number of missed calls and number of pending messages indicator is always wrong. Volume spontaneously shuts itself off and you can't hear your caller. I've nursed this phone along for about 18 months now and its headed out to the scrap heap. I won't be stopping by a motorola store on my way back.
48 Bad phone!!!
I bought this phone after researching it quite a bit and looking at user reviews. It seemed like a good phone, it had a great price on Amazon, and I really loved the idea of the mp3 ringtones. However, this phone stinks. It can go anywhere from no bars to full bars on my signal without moving - sitting in the exact same spot. For no reason, the phone will suddenly lose all signal and HANG. I can't do anything but shut if off and turn it back on, and then proceed to call back the person I was talking to with plenty of apologies at hand. Think twice before buying this phone.
49 A crappy phone...with surprisingly fun options.
I have had this phone for just under six months and I just had t-mobile send me the 4th replacement...that means this will be my 5th phone in 6 months. The phone has various problems.
* The phone often does not ring, but will show the missed call immediately.
* Similar to the complaints from others, my screen will often go black without explanation. This does not always mean the phone is off, as the screen may reappear after opening and closing a couple times.
* The phone I currently have (until the next replacement) has the most annoying metallic buzzing sound in the background of every call.
* I can not store custom ring tones without storing the phone number on the phone, therefore I have to make changes before transferring the SIM to each new phone.
* The pictures always seem blurry (they were great on the original V300 I bought)
* The date book is a pain to use
Despite all the problems and hassles that exchanging the phone cause, the phone is fun. The custom ring tones you can download sound great. The left side button allows me to quickly not answer a call if in a meeting (or if I just want to avoid the call).
Overall, I deeply disappointed with my Motorola phone, but am very impressed with t-mobile customer service. I will remain with t-mobile but am actively researching other phones.
50 he isn't totally corect
I have had t mobile HI for 4 years, some of which has been letting our contract go. finally, after beggiin and threatening to leave, they gave us a "deal" on these phones, which was 4 years after getting our original phones from them, of which we had onl;y recently started having problems. I love this phone, but, within 6 weeks the screen just died anbd all capability died with it. T-mobile grudgingly sent a replacment, which died (dsame screen issue) within a week. Next one has been fine. I do not beleive anyone who says its a "care" issue--ours hav all been treated the same, so it is odd that two new of this particular model; died with bad screen in weeks of use, but our others lasted 4 years!!!
51 Great......
Overall this phone really can't be beat. I have had it over a year and dropped it in swiming pool. Dried it out and it kept going.I drop it at least 2 times each day. Pictures are fun and not bad quality. The only draw back to it is that it DOES reset itself (reboots)at least once a day. Other then that it's great.
52 Dont expect too much from this phone
i bought this phone for free on thet-mobil site and it's kinna big and heavy and it works great ... but who care as long as i got it for free.
53 bad phone
This phone has great features and all but I don't know if it's amazon phones or what. Within 20 days from getting this phone the front screen went blank on us. So we got a replacement. three weeks after that, the large front screen went blank and the keypad did not work. So we called and got our last replacement from amazon, u can only exchange three times. I ask the guy and he said all the phones are brand new. Well we don't abuse our phone at all. We use it just to call home when one of us are out. Never dropped it or anything. It just dies on u. Well the third replacement after a month went blank on us and the keypad don't work. So know we are stuck with a nonworking phone. So becareful when you order this phone.
54 Cant take care of your phone?
Ive had T-mobile for 2 years and had the v300 for a year now. All of these reviews about dropping calls in full signal and the phone rebooting itself must be a result of poor handling, because my v300 has only dropped 2 calls, and that was when there was no signal.
I use my phone a lot, I talk on it about 5 hours a day and I have had zero problems. So before you talk about haw crappy this phone is, look at how well youve been taking care of it.
55 My experice
I have been using this phone for more than 5 months now & I am rather happy with this phone. The only thing I would love to see in this is a longer battery life as even a fully charged bettery gets dead at evenings if the phone is used extensively during the daytime. Apart from that, everything works fine for me.
56 Great Phone!
I use it all of the time. Everything from email to Web browsing included!
57 reboots when trying to answer calls
Ive had the phone for almost a year. the interface is bloated, settings are not easily found, there are just too many places for things to hide.
the camera is passable in daylight. the phone was working OK, but lately it has a tendancy to reboot at inopportune times. such as when typing a text message, or when flipping open to answer a call.
in addition, lately i cannot hear very well from the earpiece. i used to have to turn some people down when talking to them, but now sometimes i can barely hear at all.
i will not be buying a motorola phone again in the near future.
58 My V300 was also defective
I bought 2 of these phones, one for me and one for my wife. Her's was fine. Mine would reboot about 1/2 the time when I tried to answer an incoming call. I took it in for service. After three weeks it was fixed, and I am satisfied with it.
59 Freakin' sweet phone...but not perfect
I must admit that I'm rather happy with the performance of my phone. Most complaints that I would have are in the realm of T-Mobile's service, not the phone. It's got a great setup, good options and good funcitonality for the most part. The keys have been the only thing to really bother me on any level. Sometimes, you can punch buttons on the side while its in your pocket and change the ringer style. Sometimes, the upper navigational keys have also acted a little squirrelly. On the whole though, it's been a great little phone.
60 Good Phone
I have had the Moto V300 for about a year now. Has been a good phone except for a few problems. My first phone had to be replaced because AOL IM wouldn't work.
Pros:
* Phone features are good
* Easy to use and funtional PhoneBook and Calendar
* Nice SpeakerPhone
* Voice dialing
Cons:
* Very poor battery life (I have to charge my ph every 3 days even if moderately used)
* No way to activate speakerphone without opening the shell
* Speaker goes dead sometimes when I dial out - and I have to restart the phone to fix it.
* Have problems charging at times (could be a problem with just my charger/phone).
* No IR or bluetooth
Overall, I am happy with the phone. The V600 adds bluetooth to the V300 - and is worth the 25$ or so you pay more (at Amazon) compared to V300.
61 yet another V300 review
This is my first Motorola phone. All my previous phones were Nokias. I preferred Nokia phones because of their user friendly menus and outstanding battery-life. My only reason for switching to Motorola was to try a flip phone for once. I checked the user reviews, and V300 seemed like a good choice. Well, after a couple of months I have decided to write my on review. The pros and cons are below. In my opinion the biggest problem of this phone is its extremely short battery life. If you are using a Nokia, when you see that you got only one bar on your battery-meter, you know that you got -at least- half a day. But with V300, when you see that last bar, you better hurry because this phone dies on you like a fish out of water.
PROs:
- Screen resolution is good with vivid colors.
- Looks nice.
- The VGA camera (even with x4 zoom) works fine.
- The speaker is of high quality.
- It is relatively cheap.
CONs:
- The battery life is way too short.
- Lacks bluetooth.
- The design of the keypad is really bad.
- Sometimes the phone responds a bit slowly (especially when you are trying to scrool up or down in the phonebook.)
62 A very HOT phone from Motorola
I am on a 2nd replacement phone in less than 30 days .
The first had a keypad problem. The 6 key would not get pressed at the first attempt.Had to be pressed at different angle to get it right.
The second phone used to get Heated up like anything while charging. Further it used to drain any fully charged battery.
in minutes and heat up completely. Really HOT !
Should I say a pretty HOT phone from Motorola !!!
Please dont buy this phone.
The Odds of you getting a defective V300 are pretty much high.
Rgds
V300ictim
63 What?
I am so surprised with my phone. I got it today 2:00PM, and I found right away no one can call me. Soon, the soft keys are not working (the upper right and left) at all!. This is driving me nuts. This is not finished; now I can not call anyone (the phone keeps calling but does not connect) and can not use the camera (it says: busy,please try again). I don't what is wrong. Want to cry.
64 Works great at first
Pros
- Good quality speaker phone. The other side hear it clearly and this side also hear it clearly. Had it on while driving and my wife on the other side could hear the tire noise.
- Has many good options to play around with. Txt messaging, camara, etc.
- Sounds clear but a little low on max vol.
- Good resolution screen (for a cell phone)
- Data cable from Moto works perfectly with the phone. Easy to maneuver and download/upload from/to the phone.
- Can call T-mobile within 3 months of Activation to unlock the phone to work with other non T-mobile Sim card.
- T-mobile customer care is easy to deal with and sending me a new replacement phone.
Cons
- Weird buttons. The number keypad has small circle and long ones. They're a little too small for normal fingers.
- Can't vibrate + Ring at the same time. One or the other.
- Can't pick up the phone using the speaker phone. Have to pick up the phone first, then turn on the speaker phone. (B/c mine is busted, my reason is below)
I was playing around with the network settings and now my phone is screwed (Not sure if b/c I was playing around with it or what). Even when I put it back to the original settings. My phone now has signal, but a lot lower then before. I was @ T-mobile store and I had no signal while the sample phones signal were full (was a working sample phone b/c I tested by dialing a number and it was accually calling). At some spot that I used to have full signal, now I has little to no signal.
Reason for me giving this phone 2 stars is b/c so many ppl has similar problems to mine. I still think Motorola is good to deal with but this 1 in particular isn't good.
65 Started out alright. Now having problems.
Physically the phone looks great and does what it should, but lately I am having more problems. When using AIM it locks up and you have to remove the battery and reset the phone. Also the camera pics are starting to become fuzzy if there is low lighting. Also there are other covers available for it, but you have to VOID the warrentee to change the covers. One thing I do like about this phone is that I haven't had any dropped calls. I live in a highly urban area and with the previous phone (Samsung) I was having dropped calls constantly, and sometimes when on a call I had to stand perfectly still or risk dropping the call. The V300 has not been like that at all.
66 Worst phone ever
I am now on my 4th Motorola V300, and this is only because I spent $300's on it and T-Mobile will not substitute another phone for replacement. This is my main reason why I will be leaving T-mobile. This phone has far inferior service to all other major manufacturers (LG, Nokia, Samsung) with the same service (same sim card). The tech support people have told me before they know it has inferior service. It also has short circuited killing it and the battery. And lastly the ear piece does not work so that the phone is unusable except on speakerphone or handsfree headset.
This is not happening on overused or abused phones. My phone is unscratched, never been dropped, and is still in like-new condition.
I am also not the only one I know who has had this trouble with the phone. Business associate's of mine, son, is also on his fifth Motorola V300 and he has Cingular.
To anyone looking at phones, look away from Motorola and this phone.
Thinking about the next model? The V600 has been discontinued because it is so buggy. However T-Mobile still has lots of them to try and replace your broken ones with. This is the situation with my mothers.
I recommend staying away from Motorola.
When I switch to Verizon I will be getting a Samsung or LG.
67 Great phone!!
This phone is an outstanding buy!
I particularly like the vibe then ring option. It really gets your attention. The phone is small and fairly light. The picture quality is very good. It has a multitude of options and might even be able to replace your PDA.
All in all well worth the investment.
68 Excellent Buy for me: Motorola V300 Phone (T-Mobile)
I paid for standard shipping; my product was mailed 2-day priority, in perfect condition.
69 Dont expect it to last...
I bought this unit in February of 04. Since about August, I have started having major problems with it. One of these is the speaker going out on it. Now, the only way to talk to someone is to use the speakerphone or use a handsfree cable. Another problem I have found is that the unit will periodically reset itself. I may press the button to open up a text message, hit send to answer a call, or do absolutely nothing at all. On top of that, T-Mobile has horrible coverage and customer service. So just be advised...
70 Phone is great but amazon.com sucks...
I ordered the phone on Dec 29, 2004 by looking on amazon.com that they promised free delivery in 2 days for cell phones. I really had some urgent need. But phone arrived on Jan 5, 2005. It was totally useless as my need was beofe that.
So just be creful about amazon.com as they do not deliver it on time.
Phone is excellent, T-mobil service in my area, NH, is good too.
Amazon.com do not deliver item on time.... though they say so..
71 Not Disappointing......at first.
I picked this phone because it looked cute, and seemed to have good features: camera phone, color screen. However, I soon came to realize it lacks many helpful features.
You have to enter seperate phonebook entries for somebody's work, cell, or home phone. and that gets to be a pain.
The camera is of very low quality
Personally, I wish it had a sound option of vibrate and a ring tone. but those are featured seperately. The buttons on the side change the ring styles, but it sometimes changes it unexpectedly inside your purse or pocket.
If you're looking for a light weight camera, this is not very heavy, but not exactly light.
I recommend samsung phones, which i wish i had looked at before i purchased this phone
72 lame
We bought this phone June 2004 for a graduation present.
In October, it broke and we got a new one.
Now, it's January 2005 and we are getting *another* new one because it broke *again.*
Seriously, I hate this phone. It's cute and whatnot, but it lacks in quality.
73 Decent phone..lacks one very useful feature in LG phones
I just got this phone yesterday, to replace my lg 5250 with sprint service (often problems with dropped calls, messages & voicemails coming 1-2 days late, customer service of not much help, etc..).
The main reason I am writing a review this soon is because of one feature it lacks. I am able to put only one number with one name in the phonebook. This is a major limitation to me where most of my contacts have a work number, a home number, a cell phone, and a beeper. This means I have to put in their names 4 times and assign the numbers, as opposed to assigning the nubmers under one name with my old LG phone
I was somewhat surprised that I did not see this in the reviews before. Otherwise, I think this is a decent phone.
74 Worst phone i ever used. Don't buy it.
I bought this phone in July 2004. Within 2 months, it started giving me problems. It freezes.. and restart. It disconnects the call automatically even though signals are full. Can not connect with computer. I can't rely on this phone if i am making important call. Would not recommend it to my worst enemy.
Dont buy it. There are plenty of better phone available in market. I m just waiting for 1 yr of contact to complete.
75 Better than I expected. Ecellent product
I compared this phone with Samsung E315 side by side in a shopping mall with glass roof. Under sunshine, Motorola V300's display still looks vivid while Samsung's is harder to view. But Samsung E315 is lighter and the keypads are larger. I finally picked Motorola V300 considering of its functions, vivid color display, good customer review and the possibility to be unlocked and used in Asia and other countries. When the package was opened, I fell in love with this phone immediately, so did my teenager son. It's a big improvement comparing to my precious phones from Nokia (the old fashion 3360?) and Siemens (S56). To list some of them:
(1) Color display and sound quality are excellent. The ringtone is loud. The speaker phone works great even in the noisy shopping mall. Excellent reception.
(2) User-friendly menu. It took my son less than ten minutes to custimize the setup and play the games.
(3) Free T-zone. You can download games, wallpapers, etc with small fees.
(4) Easy to use voice recorder. I can record my car location in the parking lot of a shopping mall.
(5) Digital camera works great. Adjustable zoom and brightness.
(6) Very good battery life. I have it on daytime only and it lasts for at least four days.
(7) I changed the setting to hide my ID.
(8) You can also set it in auto-answer mode when driving(called car setting). No button pressis necessary.
(9) It's compatiable with regular 2.5mm headsets used for home cordless phones. You don't have to use the small earbud included with the package.
Overall, it's a solid, up-to-date, and fun phone. Much better than I expected. I like it so much and ordered additional three for our family. I wish they had different faceplate colors and bigger letters on the buttons.
76 Sounds Good /Feels Fine
The v300 is a versitile phone with alot of great add-ons. The camera is fun and the address book is not bad either. I havent had a dropped call yet nor have I had any major problems.
The only real complaint I have is that prepaid doent get the "T-Spots" service so i can download rings...but oh well.
This is a good phone as far as I am concerned.
77 Horrible Phone......Great Camera
Too bad Moto didn't make the V300 a dedicated camera, because that's about where the good part ends. Oh, it has the nice colors, ring tones and all the other warm fuzzies.
Problem is, I can't hear the person on the other end, nor can they hear me. It's like talking into two cans with a string. Putting my ear to the phone, the volume is way too low. Put the earphone in, the volume is too high and fuzzy. Turn the volume down, and I can't hear again. Don't get me started on the Speaker phone. It's basically like a CB radio with bad reception.
Just as bad is the dropped calls. It drops calls where my Samsung S105 NEVER did. It even drops calls outside.
Defective phone? Nope. I got one for my wife too. Her's does the same thing.
If you want neat and cool, this is a great unit. If you actually want to have conversations that you can hear, and that don't unexpectedly end all the time, run as fast as you can AWAY from this dog! This was my first and last Motorola. I will NEVER buy another one.
78 High Priced Phone with Low Performance
I fell in love with this phone because of it's striking blue color and great features. I was so excited about having speakerphone, but whenever i didn't use the speakerphone I couldn't hear the person on the other end and it became very aggravating. It takes forever to answer the phone, almost 5 seconds. (By the time you answer the phone, the person on the other end is gone.) Camera is not that great!!
79 Hell No Moto
Okay, since I got my first cell phone (5 years ago) this phone is the one that gave me the most problems. Some of the things that I really like about this phone is the 2nd spaker (speaker phone) which it was good for the Hi-Fi Ringers. Very rich-color screen and the fact that you can send a message to multiple numbers at once. The first V300 I got kept on giving me a blank screen and reseting while I was on T-Zones or if I was typing a text message or if I received 3 or more text messages at a time. Also when you open the phone to answer if you have it set to answer with the SEND key sometimes it would take up to 5 seconds for the key to respond (Embarassing when your at the store and your Snoop Dogg "Drop It Like It's Hot" ringer keeps on playing and you have the phone open and everyone is looking at you all weird). Well, I had the phone exchaged and that one when you would open the phone the screen would take at least 3 secods to fully display and the left soft key would get stuck. The third exchange would reset every time I change one Phone entry to SIM card. I had 50 contacts so I had to go through that 50 times. I really like this phone but now since I had 2 exchange it 3 times in less then 90 days now they are going to send me a brand new Samsung E315, we'll see how that goes.
80 Awesome looks, poor performance
I tend to search and search before I settle on a new phone. In my searching I came across this phone. The looks are wonderful and it was everything I wanted. It has a decent camera, it's a flip phone, color screen, and it even has AIM, a big plus for me. So I bought it. Spent a mini-fortune on it too. Then the problems started. My screen would blank out on me while I'm in the middle of something. I would just get a bright white screen that would turn to black. Eventually, it would load itself back up but opening and closing the phone did nothing to help it. It was a major frustration. Worked with TMobile and they got me a new phone. First time I dropped it, the END button popped off. And despite having a new handset, battery, and charger, it still had the same issue. Then I started losing sound. The people on the other end could hear everything I was saying but I heard nothing. Extremely aggravating. I loved this phone for the most part but the problems it had just didn't make it worth keeping.
81 Hey all, nice phone
the ringers were a little campy, but I downloaded stuff from muwap.us and they give amazon users 10% off, which makes the annual thing $8 or 9 now.
82 Slow!
The phone is okay. I dont like its directory. It duplicates names. Its very slow otherwise to load, to call etc. Wouldn't recommend it.
83 AwEsoMe seLecTion!!
I encourage every one who wants a cell phone to go out and get this one. It is an awesome selection, i've had it for a month and a half now and it is great! It has great reception and sound quality and it has never dropped any of my calls. I mean it has a camera, has caller id, color screen and has a lot of cool downloadable ringers, games, etc. And you can change the faceplate if you want like I did (interchangeable plates are extra though). But this is one of the best buys you can get so go out and get it for yourself or for one of your siblings for chRisTmas and make them hapPy! Hope my review was helpful!
84 Excellent phone with a variety of features
This is an excellent phone with great features. Only thing lacking is blue-tooth and infra-red connectivity. Other than that, it has all the features you would need.
85 A phone with lots of room for improvement
I will not hash over the things that many other wrote in their reviews, but mainly will focus on the problems that I've had with this phone over the course of 1 year that I've had it.
1) Battery life is not nearly as good as advertised - lasts about 8 hours - but I admit to be using the phone often and need to swap batteries (have an extra one in the charger) because the wire charger would not charge the phone! (another story altogether) However, my cranky old Samsung (a generation prior to e415) used to last 2 full days on an extended battery with same or greater amt of use.
2) Familiar problem - phone's earpiece is too quiet.
3) Software's pure crap - the phonebook is not only not intuitive, it would save phone numbers under different people's names! No, not my mistake - checked this several times, and then spoke to a sales rep who said that this does indeed occur with this phone.
4) Poor reception - the said Samsung had a much better reception in buildings. And it wasn't Sprint service either - T-mobile and Sprint are equivalently bad.
5) Setup - very panful to readjust setup options/ringers.
Overall, I don't like this phone at all. Very poor fundamentals - but it looks cool and has a (very useless, but still cool) camera.
And, judging by Motorolas of my friends (Nextel models aside), I don't think I want to own another Motorola product. When's the new Treo coming out again...?
86 Awesome new toy
The Motorola V300 is a fun and functional addition to my everyday travels. It has so many features it's hard to describe them all. I really like being able to check my email from anywhere at anytime. I also like the downloadable song snippets that I can set as ringtones. I love that it has talk, text and paging capabilities. The camera is really fun, though the pics are not the best quality. I also love the built-in datebook, it has made my PDA obsolete.
87 This Phone Is The Best Phone!
I have this phone for just one week.
I have to tell you that this phone has free ringtones, wallpapers, games and so on. I have to tell you, get this phone before The New Year in 2005!
This phone also has Caller I.D.
Do you like my review?
88 Good looking but poor quality
I did a lot of research before upgrading my dead Samsung phone. I really liked the look and features of the Motorola V300, such as speaker phone, camera with 4x zoom, color display, and I love the cobalt blue soft material the outer shell is made with.
When I got it home I found that my camrea didn't work. It would stretch and blur the photos, totally distorting the image. Neither text nor picture messages would send. The delay on ANYTHING you try on the phone is several seconds. The call and end buttons were on the *wrong side* which is just a personal irritation. When you press any button chances are it wouldn't 'take' and it would have to be pressed again pretty hard for the phone to get the command.
On the plus side the speaker phone was crystal clear, great bright screen, and again I love the exterior.
I played for two weeks and sent the phone back. Overall I just don't like what Motorola had to offer, and I will be returning to Nokia or Samsung.
89 Irritable
I would have given this phone 3 or 4 stars, but like everyone is saying, this phone drops my calls A LOT!! I have had this phone for almost a year now and NOW I hate it! It is SO hard to have a decent conversation when it keeps dropping your calls so frequently. I've noticed when it drops my calls that the signal strength is there, but what else could it be if it's not the signal? The area I'm in has full signal so, the only thing I can think of is the phone itself. My roommate, his brother, and I have this same phone and we ALL have problems with it. I have now gotten a new phone, along with my roommate and his brother.
So, I say to those who have recently picked this phone up: BEWARE...you may like it now, but just when you're in the middle of that important conversation, it'll drop...and drop again! I think that those who like it now is because they've only had it for a couple of weeks or a few months...but I've had this phone for quite some time and it is extremely FRUSTRATING AND IRRITABLE!!!
90 Great look, good intentions...bad phone.
I used to own a nokia phone that had great reception. When I switched to the Motorola v300, I frequently had dropped calls or reception that was so bad it was simply impossible to converse. Both phones were with the same phone service and in the same area, so the only variable in the equation was the motorola v300. Then it developed an odd sound problem where even though the volume level would show that it was turned up to the maximum level, the sound coming through the earpiece was barely audible, forcing me to put the call through the speaker phone in order to hear it. And because you can't turn on the speakerphone until the call is connected, it was very difficult to make calls, since the earpiece volume was so low, I often couldn't hear the other person answer (or I could tell that they had answered, but not have been able to hear what they said.) The last straw was when I took the phone off the charger with the phone saying "charge complete", put it in my pocket, and within 4 hours withdrew the phone to find that its battery was so weak it had powered down and shut off. It did this to me twice in one week. I had had enough. The camera is a cute toy, but is nowhere near cool enough to put up with all the other problems. I am currently using a "loaner phone" while I wait for a new (refurbished) motorola v300 to be sent to me. If I have problems with the replacement phone, I'm going to find a reliable flip phone to take its place. Even if this phone had twice as many features, if it doesn't allow me to make and recieve calls...what good is it?
91 high priced for what
Motorola just can't seem to keep up with what is happening in the cellular world, the only thing they do know is high price for a phone that just doesn't seem to stand up to cheaper phones. I've owned Motorola phones for years and each year as the new phones come out I see other cheaper phones with much more to offer. I alway thought that since my phone was a Motorola and cost more it just had to be better. That was wrong thinking, I've now traded in my Molorola phone for one thats about a third of the cost yet has better service and offers so much more. Come on Molorola your phone just doesn't have what it takes to carry the price tag you have on it. I would look into cheaper phones until Motorola gets with the program and brings the price down where it belongs. Larry Hobson- Author- The Day Of The Rose
92 Survived the wash and dryer! Recommended but be aware-
My V300 went through the washer and dryer before being discovered in the pocket of my pants. I was sure it was dead. After letting it dry out for a couple days the phone works flawlessly!
However, after the wash the battery does not hold a charge long, so I need to replace it.
It fits well in my pocket, (enough to forget it is there and throw in the wash). I like the flip open hinge, it seems sturdy, the buttons are comfortable and still responsive, after using it about a year.
The "PC connection kit" is an extra cost (~$40 when I purchased it), and using this software to transfer pictures off the phone is SLOW and painfully confusing process. Transferring MP3 files for ringtones is difficult at best, and the file format required takes up a huge amount of the phones precious 6 megs of memory. I am a computer engineer and fix computers for a living so, if it is difficult for me, I can't imagine other people doing it on a regular basis.
The motorola cable connections to the phone (for charging and transferring information) are awkward and, feel like something is going to break just before the tab clicks in.
The menu navigation on this phone is B-A-D. Getting something done is like pulling a stuffed animal from one of those claw machines - it takes a few tries. I miss the simplicity of my old Nokia phonebook, notes, calendar, and reminder. The beautiful color screen is no help, I still miss my black and white Nokia for organization.
It was a few weeks before I figured out how to change menu defaults, and as shipped the phone defaults make it hard to avoid going to the internet - which is a big extra charge for my plan.
Changing ring styles is so difficult I never do it. I spent a good half hour customizing three ring profiles that I'm still not completely sure are setup right.
It is nice to know I have a camera if anything spectacular ever happens. It takes so long to whip out and take a picture after pressing the "Capture" button, most "Kodak moments" are long passed. I was in a car accident, and took pictures for insurance purposes, and its so frustrating moving pictures off of it, I never went to the effort. It was minor the insurance company didn't need them.
The phone still receives four stars for its durability, surviving the wash, and decent signal quality. It is JUST a phone after all, and it is simple to dial and answer. When you get down to it, the rest is fluff really. Combined with the plan I got, it really did not cost me much at all.
If my life revolved around using the advanced features of this phone, I would be extremely frustrated.
93 Not a great phone
I did not have good luck with this phone. I liked the features that it had, but I did not like how the phone would always lock up on me. I would have to pull the battery in order to get the phone to reset. When I would place a call on hold and take another (2nd) incoming call, I had a hard time getting my original call back. It would say.... "operation failed". I would try my old phone, and have no problems with switching back and fourth between calls. My screen would get wierd on my at times. When I would open the phone, sometime it would not recognize that I opened it, or it would take a few seconds. I am not impressed with this phone. I only had the phone 6 months.
94 good
ring volume does not go loud enough. vibrate is weak.
good display on outside and when opened. small. didn't break when dropped--so far. good battery. camera quality good. displayes number on outside of phone when calling. silent on phone option is good.
95 Good phone
I've used this phone for international calls in France and Brazil it worked perfectly fine!!! The cost of the calls was pretty reasonable too, the best among all the cell phone carriers.
96 bad service by T-mobile
The phone is great! but the service provided by T-mobile is horrible! I kept having drop calls! Calling to other service is worst! every 10 mins I get a drop call! All my friends using T-mobile is experiencing this. To keep customers they should improve the service.
97 Just the cons..
I like the over all features of the phone but I have had problems.
1. Mine might be the only one this has happened to but the silver finish started to come off from the first week to the point now where it is completely gone. Moto and T-Mo states that it is normal wear and tear and refuse to replace it.
2. After about 20 min. it drops the call no matter how strong the cell site is. (I had the same problem with my V60).
3. The connector pins Moto uses to charge the phone weakens and causes the phone not to charge (the V60 also had this problem since it is the same connector). Spreading the pins back out on the phone side with a needle repaired it.
4. Once the battery is low, the phone beeps til you charge it so you choices are charge it, or turn it off.
5. The belt holster that comes with it, falls off your belt easier than most.
Since it drops calls like the last Moto phone I had, I think I will choose another manufacturer next time.
98 Great phone, when it works
I should have known that there would be problems when it turned itself on/off twice during the first week that I owned it. I thought maybe it was due to using the camera too much (excessive demand on the memory possibly). I didn't want to believe that my new phone would be causing problems all ready.
Since then:
-frequently the ringer simply decides not to work (it vibrates, just no sound). It may ring for one call, and two minutes later, not a peep. I've spent several days without it working, and then suddenly it works again. Turning the phone off, or removing the battery has no effect.
-sometime it freezes, forcing me to remove the battery
-sometimes it turns itself on/off while I am on the phone
I am currently waiting for a replacement phone from T-Mobile. When I took the phone in, the woman at the t-mobile store was very helpful, and quickly ordered me a new phone. She also informed me that these type of problems were fairly common with this phone. She couldn't even tell what the odds were of the replacement working ok...
I hope the replacement works, I actually really like the phone otherwise.
99 Cool phone and great alarm clock but t-mobile service sucks
I was having a Samsung 225 before this one, I definitely liked v300 much much better than my old one. The reception with t-mobile is pretty good, battery life is much better, camera is awesome. But the most amazing feature which was not listed on amazon.com when I purchased it was its Alarm Clock. Alarm clock works like MS Outlook Calendar, it has a snooze feature and u can snooze it, for geeky people like me this is what I need and I am using it more often as alarm clock or meeting reminder than cell-phone
I have experienced drop calls after exact 11 mins on weekends (as mostly thats when I use my phone) at my home after 5 months of service and t-mobile had told me its a problem with the area I am in and they are building "towers" which I suspect is not the case. What I fail to understand is why this happens only sometimes and not always and I dont agree with the other users that this is a Motorola V300 problem. t-mobile customer service is very fast in responding to issues but they r very pathetic in understanding the root cause of problem, I strongly feel that it has something to do with more users per switch and they have so much of load that they are not able to handle so many calls at a time.
I have successfully used V300 to make calls lasting more than 1 -2 hrs and there doesnt seems to be any issue with the handset, its t-mobile which is screwed up!! I am just waiting for 1 yr contract to be over to switch my plan and till then I have no option but to live with t-(not)mobile.
2 stars for the handset, 0 to t-(not)mobile!!!
100 Be Warned
Overall this is a good phone for your VERY BASIC cell phone user. Camera, Flip, Large Display, Great Menu, and Awesome Ring-Tone capabilities are top on the list. But, for those who truly want a full-featured, quality cell phone and plan to ACTUALLY USE features like the integrated Speakerphone, Vibrating Ring, or Data Cable options then be warned this phone is sub-par.
- My first and biggest complaint by far is with the Speakerphone. Once it's activated it's loud as hell and works flawlessly but you actually have to wait for your call to connect and then wait an additional 4-5 seconds into the conversation for the speakerphone option to become available to you. That's right you CANNOT simply turn on the Speakerphone before you dial the number or immediately upon answering a call. This makes the phone totally impractical for situations in which you really need the speakerphone capability. Who wants to wait 5 seconds into a conversation to be able to activate something as simple as the speakerphone? Also with this phone the speakerphone is almost a necessity in many situations because the standard ear speaker is really rather quiet even when on full volume.
- Second, the Vibrating Ring is almost totally imperceptible when worn on a belt and completely unnoticeable when worn in a shirt, slacks, or coat pocket. The only way to use the vibra-ring effectively is if you are wearing the phone in the pocket of tight fitting clothing like jeans pockets for example. This of course makes the vibrating ring an almost useless option. I have had 4 other cell phones with built-in vibrating rings and this is by far the worst. In fact all the other 4 actually rung like earthquakes in comparison.
- Third, the Data Cable connectivity and software is very poor. The software fails to recognize the presence of the cell phone at least 2 out of every 3 connect attempts to the computer. Once recognized you MUST continually refresh the phone to keep it from going into hibernation in order for it to maintain a connection with your computer.
- Fourth, the A/C power cable is very frail. Mine broke within 4 months of buying the phone. The compact design of the phone necessitates a very compact power connector and the 3 leads on the end of the connector are simply too small and fragile to withstand being plugged and unplugged into the phone every night over a period of time.
Conclusion; power users should stay away from this phone. I understand how hard and time consuming it can be to find a phone that incorporates features like speakerphone, camera, vibrating ring, and data cable connectivity all in one phone, but if you find this one you'd be best to just keep looking. It has all the features but they are almost totally useless in practical situations.
