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12 out of 15 people found this review helpful
1.0 stars
"Weak entry by Motorola"
Pros: Bluetooth technology. Good call quality. Bright screen.
Cons: Lack of Bluetooth support. Battery life is terrible. Quality of phone is subpar.
Summary: When I first purchased this phone, it was the most advanced in Verizon's line-up (save the PDA/Smart phones). I was excited about the Bluetooth. I was excited about having a camera of megapixel quality. I thought I had made a wonderful purchase. I was wrong.
Quality:
The biggest disappointment was how quickly this phone started having issues on me. Granted, I am extremely hard on my phones, however, the V-710 did not last me a full year. The camera and antenna both broke on me near the end of its usable life. The screen also developed 'scratch areas' where it seems like it was vunerable to any kind of abrasion. This resulted in eight or so discs of scratched areas on the screen. Never had that happen with a phone before. Lastly, the hinge was designed in such a way that part of it rubs against the casing, thus there is an area on the hinge that is nothing but scraped plastic. Simply not a well built phone.
Call Quality:
Good enough in the beginning. As time wore on, I began to have much more difficultly having folks understand what I was saying and connecting in general.
Camera:
This phone's camera is a joke. Unless you are in the brightest of light, you get a grainy, dark, fuzzy image. My girlfriend's mobile sports a camera not even rated at 1 megapixel and it takes vastly superior pictures. I guess that is one argument for megapixels not meaning much in terms of quality.
Bluetooth:
Why Motorola decide to include this feature (beyond suckering saps like myself into buying it and in order to sell the paltry set of add on equipment) is a mystery. First off, Verizon's data network, outside of with PDA/Smart phones, is relatively infintile. Thus, if you expect to use it to connect a PDA or laptop to the Net, don't. And forget about syncing it in order to update your contacts list too. It doesn't do it. All you can really do with it is use a wireless hands-free headset. It works well with this, but hardly becomes worth it due to the poor battery life. Speaking of...
Battery Life:
Sucks. Plain and simple, this beast draws much too much power in standby mode, meaning that you have to charge it almost every night with moderate usage. Towards the end, the bloody thing wouldn't last from morning till early evening. Not that its battery should last forever, but weak usage time couple with how quickly it lost the ability to sustain a full charge is unacceptable in such an expensive phone.
Interface:
If all Motorolas share this type of menu design, you won't find me using one ever again. To say it is confusing is to be much too kind. Simple tasks, like setting the backlight timer, are buried in non-intuitive areas. Contacts take up a speed-dial number whether you want them to or not. So if you have a number you rarely call, you still have to give it a number between 02 and 99. Oh, and each number for the same person constitutes a separate number complete with its own speed-dial. Needless to say, the contacts area becomes a bit unwieldy. Text messaging was a bit off too, with the predictive text function often putting exactly the wrong word in. Somehow, it seemed less intelligent than similar systems I've used in the past.
Other Apps:
5 alarms. That is the only significant add-on application that I found useful. The rest is stuff I use my PDA for and have little use for a mobile phone's truncated offerings.
Included Accesories:
Nothing to speak of. Wall charger and belt clip. That's all you get for what was originally a $400 phone.
Overall:
This is possible the worst mobile I've ever owned. It is a classic example of Verizon supporting sub-standard units on their network, the prime reason I decided to dump them. I hadn't owned a Motorola since the days of the original flip phone and, based on this experience, doubt I will anytime in the foreseeable future. Your money would be better spent on a different phone (and different service provider). You have been warned...
- 4 replies to this review
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First off, this is my 3rd replacement of this phone in less than two years. I wish that the next three months goes by quickly so my company will issue a new phone instead of replacing it with this model.
I have always been a fan of Motorola phones since the "classic" brick style phones and they have always been extremely reliable if nothing else. This phone has had poor battery life throughout the times I have used it. I am constantly on the phone for business and I have to charge the phone during downtime or else it won't make it through an entire day.
It also developed circular scratches on the inside screen, seemingly out of nowhere and the top of the phone is severely scratched from simply opening and closing the phone for normal use.
This is not a good phone to have if you have lots of contacts stored. As anth77 mentioned, they get out of hand when you try to keep someone's office number and cell phone together. Instead of storing multiple contacts under one name, it only allows you to create a new contact with a different icon to designate home, office, cell, etc. Not too convienent when you have over 250 contacts in your phone with multiple phone numbers.
Overall, it did have good call quality and the signal strength was very strong in many places throughout the country. I don't really care about the locked features on this phone due to the Verizon monopoly, I just want a phone that makes calls!
After a couple of months of heavy use, this phone just dies. Something happens to it and it will no longer charge...out of nowhere. Like I said, 90 more days and I will be parting ways with this not-so-great Motorola 710. -
I am no techy, but I do know good voice quality when I hear it, and I am not hearing it with my Motorola 710. Within a month of purchase I exchanged the phone for a different unit because of dropped calls and choppy voice quality. The second phone was no better. I ended up not getting the rebate on the phone because I was afraid to cut the UPC off the box for fear of needing the intact box for yet another exchange.
In fact, I did take it back a second time after calling Verizon's 1-800 customer service number and being told that those phones had had problems and I should take it back to the store where I got it and switch to a different brand. When I repeated that advice to the manager at the store, he refused to believe there could be anything wrong with my phone (of course, it did not exhibit the problem while I was inside the store). I ended up getting a software upgrade, which helped a little for a while, but soon it was back to it's choppy voice quality and many dropped calls.
Yes, the camera sucks! The picture quality is unbelievably bad... somewhat fuzzy images with little color definition.
Another annoyance is the battery charger (used frequently since the battery life is short). After a few months the connection between the charger and the phone gets very positional, and if it isnt positioned just right, it will not make the necessary connection to actually charge the phone.
All in all, I give this phone a big thumbs down. -
Unfortunatelly I purchased this phone a week ago and I was starting to suspect all this problems. Battery charge is terrible, camera is real murky and bluetooth support is only for the headset. I'm gonna try hacking the phone to enable full bluetooh support. Definetly I would not buy these phone if I were you.
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My phone can last two plus days without charging. You can change the view in the menu so a contact only shows up once. I agree the camera is poor, but it is a very good MP3 player also. The speaker phone is also very good, plus the voice dialing feature is outstanding. You must really abuse your phone to have it act like that for you.
Where to buy
Motorola V710 (Alltel Wireless):
$11.64
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Amazon.com Marketplace
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$11.64 | Yes |
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