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The 1,000-contact phone book has room in each entry for six phone numbers, a street address, an e-mail address, a birth date, and a nickname (the SIM cards add 250 more names). You can organize callers into groups, pair them with one of 50 polyphonic ring tones or alert sounds, and assign them a photo for caller ID. Keep in mind, though, that the phone has no camera and the image won't show up on the external display. Basic features include a vibrate mode; text and multimedia messaging; AOL, Yahoo, and ICQ instant messaging; a calculator; a datebook; an alarm clock; voice dialing; a wireless backup service for your contacts; and voice memo recording. On the higher end, the V195 offers a speakerphone, a mini-USB port, Motorola's user-friendly Screen3 technology Web browsing (see our V557 review for more information), and Bluetooth. The latter feature is an especially nice addition to a phone without a camera, particularly as more businesses are restricting camera phones on their premises.
You can personalize the V195 with a variety of wallpapers, color styles, screensavers, greetings, and alert sounds. If you'd like more options, you can download them via the WAP 2 wireless Web browser. You can also buy more ring tones from T-Mobile, use your personal MP3 files, or create your own tones on the phone. The V195 comes with demo versions of three Java (J2ME) games (Bejeweled, Midnight Pool, and Pinball). Total memory on the phone is 10MB of shared space.
We tested the quad-band, dual-mode (GSM 850/900/1800/1900; GPRS) V195 world phone in San Francisco using T-Mobile service. Call quality was good overall, though we noticed some static from time to time. It was quite random, so it never got too annoying, but it's worth noting nonetheless. Callers reported the same conditions on their end, but volume on both sides was quite loud. Speakerphone calls were about the same as were calls made over the Plantronics Explorer 320 Bluetooth headset.
The V195 has a rated talk time of 3.4 hours and a promised standby time of 11.5 days. In our tests, we eked out a respectable 4.25 hours of talk time. According to FCC radiation tests, the Motorola V195 has a digital SAR rating of 1.6 watts per kilogram (the highest amount allowable).
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