Motorola VE240

A basic phone with a few frills, the Motorola VE240 makes a good, simple voice phone for Cricket and MetroPCS users. Kids on a budget will appreciate its basic MP3 player, and drivers will enjoy its robust Bluetooth support. If you don't know Cricket and MetroPCS, they're wireless carries for our recessionary times. The two carriers sell cheap, unlimited-use wireless service in an increasing number of cities nationwide. Typically, their unlimited plans cost half that of other carriers. The downside is that if you want to use a phone outside a Cricket/MetroPCS metro area (see coverage map below), you pay a high per-minute roaming charge.

The VE240 is a good-looking, easily pocketed candy bar–style phone (4.4 by 1.9 by 0.6 inches, HWD) in black with red and silver accents. It feels a little cheap, but then again, it is cheap. The blue-backlit keys are small but usable; the phone's one physical drawback is a very dim 128-by-128, 1.5-inch LCD screen. On the side of the VE240, you'll find buttons for volume, voice dialing, and activating the speakerphone.

As a voice phone, the VE240 is nothing special, but it gets the job done. Reception was very good: The VE240 connected more calls than the Samsung Messager, and connected calls in fringe areas more quickly than the Nokia 1606. Earpiece and speakerphone sound were okay, though both are of moderate volume and a little muddy. There's almost no in-ear feedback of your voice, which could have helped prevent "cell yell." A transmission from a noisy area came through clearly. Battery life is excellent, at 5 hours 44 minutes of talk time on a single charge.

The VE240 has a standard 2.5mm headset jack for wired headsets, supports both mono and stereo Bluetooth headsets, and has very good built-in Nuance voice recognition. It auto-paired easily with a Motorola H15 Bluetooth headset, and you can trigger voice dialing from the headset. Ringtones are loud, and the vibrating alert, while short in duration, is sharp.

The VE240 comes with several games and has a very basic WAP browser that's essentially unusable on the tiny screen. It supports SMS and MMS messaging but not e-mail or IM. The VE240 does have one interesting extra feature: a music player, albeit a very basic one. It plays only unprotected MP3s, and you have to put the files on a microSD card that fits under the battery, where it is awkward to insert or remove. Once you've popped in the card, though, you can move files on and off the phone using a standard mini USB cable. Our VE240 worked fine with an 8GB SanDisk microSD card. Music sounded good over a wired headset and Motorola S9 HD stereo headphones.

The Motorola VE240 makes a good entry-level phone for Cricket and MetroPCS users, and its Bluetooth and voice dialing support are great for folks with cars. I'd feel safe recommending it over the similar Cricket EZ (which has notorious quality problems) and Samsung Spex. The Samsung MyShot SCH-R430 is perhaps a better general-purpose Cricket or MetroPCS phone, but it's more expensive. Thus, for those on a budget, the VE240 will do.

Spec Data

* Price as Tested: $49.99 - $119.99 List
* Service Provider: MetroPCS, Cricket
* Screen Size: 1.6 inches
* Screen Details: 1.6", 128x128 CSTN LCD screen
* Camera: No
* 802.11x: No
* Bluetooth: Yes
* Web Browser: No
* Network: CDMA
* Bands: 850, 1900
* High-Speed Data: 1xRTT