Motorola Tattoo i860 - black (Nextel)

Reviewed by

Kent German

on 12/21/2004

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As Nextel's first camera phone, the i860 has several imaging options. You can take pictures in five resolutions (640x480, 320x240, 176x122, 160x120, and 128x96) and choose from two quality settings and two shutter sounds, though there's no silent option. There's also a 4X zoom, a flash, and a self-timer. Picture quality wasn't the best we've seen, but it'll do the trick for quick shots. The video option takes up to 10 seconds of footage with sound, but there's no editing option when shooting. When finished with your picture or videos, you can upload them to Nextel's Web site or save them to the phone's 2.5MB of memory; a nice touch, a meter conveniently keeps track of how much space you have left. You also can send media to an e-mail address, but only other i860 users can receive pictures on their phones via a multimedia message--not the most convenient arrangement. Also, videos can't be sent wirelessly at all.

The i860 had average photo quality for a camera phone.

You can personalize the i860 through a variety of wallpaper, themes, and sounds, and you can download more options and MP3 ring tones from Nextel's site. As for gaming, the handset comes with demo versions of Boulder Dash, ESPN Bassmaster, and Space Invaders; you can buy the full versions from Nextel's site.

We tested the Nextel i860 (iDEN 800) in San Francisco using Nextel's service. Audio quality was quite good, with commendable clarity and volume. On their end, callers said they could rarely tell we were using a cell phone. Calls using the speakerphone were marginally patchier, but we could live with it.

Battery life was average. We managed 3.2 hours of talk time, compared with the promised time of 2.75 hours. Standby time didn't fare as well; we fell a half day short of the rated (and already paltry) time of 2.7 days. According to the FCC, the i860 has a digital SAR rating of 0.93 watt per kilogram.