Motorola Hint QA30

The Motorola Hint QA30 ($249.99 direct) is an unusual-looking texting phone for MetroPCS, Cricket, and Alltel. (I tested the MetroPCS version.) It's got some real pluses, such as threaded text messaging and good media players, but its troublesome phone performance leads me to caution you if you want to use this for heavy calling.

The Hint is odd-looking, but not hideous. Closed, the 4.2-ounce phone is very rectangular, measuring 3.2 by 2.4 by 0.7 inches (HWD). It has a 2.5-inch, 320-by-240-pixel screen, a big cursor pad, and several buttons on the front, including a dedicated music button. Slide the screen up to reveal a small QWERTY keypad with extremely pointy keys, like little mountains—designed to help you type in view of the keyboard's reduced size. There are dedicated messaging, speakerphone, camera, and WAP-browser buttons along the bottom.

This isn't an outstanding voice phone. Its reception isn't quite as good as that on the Samsung Finesse. The earpiece gets quite loud, and there's plenty of side tone (the sound of your own voice piped into the earpiece, which many people like). But transmissions, especially from noisy areas, sounded indistinct and occasionally staticky; the speakerphone has the same problem. One big advantage is that you can send MP3s to your phone via Bluetooth from a PC or Mac and then use them as ringtones, which saves you money. The ringer is loud enough for most situations, and the vibrating alert is both noisy and vibrant. Battery life, at 3 hours 49 minutes, is a bit short.

I tested two Hint units and experienced some serious problems connecting with Bluetooth headsets on both. Both units succeeded in making calls using the Motorola H700 mono and the Plantronics Pulsar 590A stereo headsets, but both failed through the Plantronics Voyager 520, the Plantronics Voyager Pro, the Iqua 603 SUN, and the Altec Lansing Backbeat 503 headsets. If you intend to use a headset, be sure to try it with the Hint in the store before buying it.

The Hint is the best texting phone we've yet seen on MetroPCS. The innovation here is threaded text messaging: It groups your messages into "conversations" so you can see all the chatter you've had with a specific person—this is ideal for heavy texters. The Hint also has an IM program that supports AIM and Windows Live Messenger.

For e-mail, the Hint uses MetroPCS's standard Mail@Metro application. This app is much easier to set up here than it is on the Samsung Finesse—it's designed to be used on a phone with a keyboard—but it supports a very short list of ISPs (plus generic POP/IMAP e-mail). I got it working with a Gmail account and was able to view messages in a simple, text-only format without attachments.

There's no real Web browser on the Hint, just Openwave's WAP browser, which can load a limited set of mobile-formatted Web pages. WAP pages, which load slowly, were hard to read because of a very condensed, poorly designed text font. Although the Hint is a 3G phone, MetroPCS has a 3G network in only two cities, Dallas and Detroit. (If you're getting your Hint from Cricket, by the way, it will work at 3G speeds in most Cricket cities. Cricket uses the same WAP browser and text-messaging software but has its own e-mail app, which we haven't tested.)

MetroPCS somewhat compensates for the lousy browser by including a bunch of fun Internet-based applications. Handmark Pocket Express gives you news stories, weather, stocks, and movie showtimes in a relatively efficient, easy-to-use way. Loopt helps you track your friends via GPS location. And the MetroNavigator GPS navigation software properly generated maps and driving directions.

The Hint makes a pretty good media player. You remove the back cover to pop in a microSD card up to 16GB in capacity (I had no problems with my 16GB SanDisk Mobile Ultra card). The Hint comes with a 256MB card preloaded with three Wyclef Jean songs. The phone doesn't play AAC files—so, nothing from iTunes—but MP3 and WMA files played fine. You can navigate by artist, title, and the usual criteria, but you can't easily transfer playlist data from your PC. Video playback was especially good: MPEG-4 videos at 320-by-240 resolution looked fine, and the phone plays 3GP and WMV videos, too. The 3.5mm headphone jack lets you use any standard pair of wired headphones.

The phone's 2-megapixel camera takes rather soft photos, with some blurring in low light and hypersaturated colors in daylight—it's not the best we've seen. The video mode records somewhat jerky 320-by-240-pixel videos at 12 frames per second. You can store your photos on a memory card or in the phone's 154MB of free RAM.

The Motorola Hint QA30 is just the ticket for messaging fiends who want to take advantage of MetroPCS's unlimited plans, and the strong MP3 and video playback features are nice bonuses. But since the Hint isn't a great voice phone, it's more for folks who text more than they talk. If you're looking for an all-around MetroPCS phone with a keyboard, there is the Samsung Messager SCH-R450, which has much better voice performance but lack the Hint's threaded SMS application and video player

Spec Data

* Price as Tested: $249.99 List
* Service Provider: Alltel, US Cellular, MetroPCS, Cricket
* Operating System: Other
* Screen Size: 2.5 inches
* Screen Details: 320x240, 262k-color TFT LCD display
* Camera: Yes
* Megapixels: 2 MP
* 802.11x: No
* Bluetooth: Yes
* Web Browser: No
* Network: CDMA
* Bands: 850, 1900, 1700
* High-Speed Data: 1xRTT, EVDO Rev 0

Motorola W755 (Verizon)

If you're in the market for a cell phone with the latest bells and whistles that might even replace your MP3 player, then you have to strongly consider the Motorola W755. Today we'll take a good look at it to tell you why.

Introduction

The Motorola W755 has a sleek and high-end style and feel to it. However, you’ll have to get it through Verizon Wireless. If you’re into cell phones, you’ll likely find that the Motorola W755 is similar to the Motorola Razr, which AT&T carries.

The Motorola W755 supports the CMDA 800/1900 network. It’s an EV-DO dual-band and dual-mode cell phone that supports Verizon Wireless’ 3G services. The Motorola W755 is packed with a lot of features. If you’re a business professional, there are features that will benefit you. For example, it allows you to synchronize your data.

On the other hand, if you’re simply a "consumer," you will also find a lot of features that you will love. If you’re a big fan of music, you’ll love being able to access millions of songs and playing them on your phone. The Motorola W755 has something for everybody. So you must read on and learn what this phone has to offer.

The Motorola W755 features a slim design that boasts a 1-inch screen, with a tiny camera lens located above it. The screen displays 96 x 80 pixels and 65,000 colors. As a result, the Motorola W755’s graphics and text are fabulous. You can adjust the brightness, display font size, and the backlighting time.

The cell phone’s dimensions are at 3.9 inches x 1.9 inches x .68 inches. The Motorola W755 is solid, although it has soft-touch material on both the front and back sides. You’ll love the phone’s shiny silver spines and hinge, which is also sturdy as well. You can get the Motorola W755 in two colors―purple or dark slate, which is black.

On the right spine of the Motorola W755, you can use the voice dialing button and a volume rocker. Meanwhile, the Moto smart key is located on the left spine. The Moto smart key serves two purposes. First, it locks the outer controls when the phone is closed. Second, when the phone is open, the Moto smart key initiates the speaker phone. The mini USB port is also located on the left spine, while the 2.5 mm headset jack is located on the right spine. As a form of protection, plastic flaps cover these ports.

If your vision isn’t that great, you’ll find the Motorola W755’s navigation feature very useful. It has large letters and numbers. In addition, a nice backlight illuminates these keys.

Not only is the navigation feature spacious, but it’s designed to be simple to use. It consists of a four-way toggle, with the OK button in the center of it. You can also set up and use the toggle as a shortcut to the four user-defined functions. It also comes with two soft keys, along with the Talk and End/Power control button. In addition, the Motorola W755 features a Clear key, along with camera/camcorder shortcut buttons. Even though these last two buttons are raised above the phone’s surface, you’ll find these controls are still easy to use.

The Motorola W755’s battery power lasts up to 220 minutes. Its standby time lasts up to approximately 390 hours, or about 16 days – not bad!

The Motorola W755 includes a 1.3 mega pixel camera that has a 4x digital zoom. It allows you to take photos in four resolution settings. You can use this zoom to perform some useful functions, including capturing video, self-portrait, and still shots. You can then view both the recorded images and videos on the camera’s 1.9-inch internal display. The camera has other features you’ll find on other cameras, including white balance settings, brightness, self-timer, three-color effects, and others. The camera comes with nine frames and four shutter sounds. However, it doesn’t contain a flash.

There are other features of the Motorola W755 you can take advantage of, such as text, video, and picture messaging. You can also use the VCAST Video feature, which enables you to either stream or download video from your favorite genres, including entertainment, news, sports, and others. The Motorola W755 also comes with the Mobile Web-capable feature that allows you to customize and listen to the current sports, news, weather, and others. If you’re in the mood for games, you can also use this feature to download them. You can also put different wallpapers on your screen, and change display themes and banners, as well as clock formats. The Motorola also comes with a WAP 2.0 wireless Web browser from Verizon so you can download more options and ring tones.

If you’re in the mood for chatting with your friends or family, you can take advantage of the Motorola W755’s IM and chat features. Use the optional VZ Navigator-capable feature to help you find your destination. You can get audible maps and turn-by-turn directions. You can use the phone’s Chaperone child locater service, but you’ll have to purchase it.

If you need to use a calculator, use the one that comes with the Motorola W755. It also comes with a world clock, a notepad, and a voice recorder. Not only can you send and receive email or instant messages, you can also synchronize your data with your laptop.

The Motorola W755 comes with a microSD card memory slot, which supports up to 4 GB, using an optional memory card. You can find the memory port behind the battery. You don’t have to worry about running out of space when it comes to putting in the names, phone numbers, and email addresses of your contacts. The Motorola W755 allows you store up to 1,000 contacts. The cell phone enables you to organize your contacts into caller groups. You can also use one of the 20 polyphonic ring tones.

Do you want to see a picture of your friend or family member? Take advantage of the phone’s photo caller ID feature. Every time your friend or family member calls, a picture of that person will pop up on your screen. The cell phone also has the traditional features, including showing the battery life, time, date, signal strength, and, of course, the caller ID.

As previously stated, if you’re into music, you’ll love the Motorola W755. Verizon Wireless lets you access the VCAST Music service. This service offers over three million songs from various recording artists, including popular and not-so-well-known entertainers. VCAST Music streams music over the air and directs it to your wireless phone.

Other music features that the Motorola W755 offers are different formats for the music player, including WMA V9, MIDI, MP3, AAC, and AMR NB. The cell phone allows you to use Windows Media Player 11 to set up and manage your own playlists. It also comes equipped with stereo Bluetooth wireless technology, and the 2.5 mm headset jack. You can use the controls, which are located on the front of the cell phone, to search for music by track, title, genre, or album. You can also use the external controls to turn on your Bluetooth and also change either your mute calls or ring volume, all without opening up your phone. The touch controls offer vibrating feedback. If you want, you can lock them to prevent their accidental activation.

If you’re looking for accessories for the Motorola W755, you’ll find plenty of them. You can find various Bluetooth headsets that will work with the Motorola W755, such as the H680 Bluetooth Headset, Bluetooth Headset H550 in Black-89100N, and many others. Depending on what your preference is when it comes to headsets, Motorola has the right one for you.

In addition to Bluetooth headsets, Motorola also sells other accessories. If you’re on the go, you should definitely have a car charger. Other car accessories you might want to consider to go with your Motorola W755 are the Bluetooth Hands-free system T605 and the MOTOROKR T505 Bluetooth In-Car Speakerphone with Digital FM Transmitter. The Bluetooth Hands-free system T605 enables you to stream your music wirelessly. The MOTOROKR T505 Bluetooth In-Car Speakerphone with Digital FM Transmitter, on the other hand, plays music and calls over your car’s speakers.

Other accessories that you must have include flash cards. Motorola sells two types of flash cards, which are the 2 GB TransFlash Card – SYN1407A and the 1 GB TransFlash Card – SYN1406A. Get the 1 GB TransFlash Card – SYN1406A so that you can add more memory to your phone.

Visit a local Verizon branch and see the Motorola W755 for yourself. You can also go to Motorola’s website and learn more about what this cell phone has to offer you. If you have purchased the cell phone, visit Motorola’s website anyway. You can download a copy of the User’s Manual, or visit the Frequently Asked Questions section about the product. You can also go to the Owner Support section to learn how you can get help from Motorola in the event you need it.

The Motorola W755 is affordable. It sells between $69.99 and $99.99. You’ll want to go to a Verizon Wireless branch to find out the actual price, since cell phones’ prices change frequently. Unfortunately, you’ll need to sign up for a two-year contract with Verizon Wireless.

Spec Data

* Price as Tested: $119.99 List
* Service Provider: Verizon Wireless
* Screen Size: 1.9 inches
* Screen Details: 176x220, 65K
* Camera: Yes
* Megapixels: 1.3 MP
* Bluetooth: Yes
* Web Browser: Yes
* Network: CDMA
* Bands: 800, 1900
* High-Speed Data: EVDO
* Special Features: Music