Motorola V551 / V330 / V547 / V555 / V557
Average Ratings
best phone I've had the privilege of using
I've had my phone, the Motorola v551, for almost a year now. I absolutely love the phone. With the lifetime timer at almost 7000 hours, I must say this phone is very durable. With some minor scratches from me dropping the phone, there are no major flaws. I love the clamshell design of the phone. It folds up nicely and fits snugly in my pocket. The monochromatic external screen is large and clear enough for me to check the time whenever I need to. The phone has excellent reception compared to my mom's Samsung. The phone has pretty much the same features as most other phones. Text and multimedia messaging is about the same as any other phone. The v551 has a camera which is handy to take pictures of random, spontaneous things. There's also a video camera so you can record priceless moments that go on everyday. The v551 has speakerphone, but I don't really use it that much. It's a quad band world phone meaning I can use it all around the world because it supports the 4 GSM bands. The feature I love the most about this phone is bluetooth. I can easily transfer pictures, ringtones, and contacts to and from my phone. Along with a wireless bluetooth headset, I can drive handsfree without worrying about getting tangled up in a cord. If you use bluetooth a lot the battery life isn't that great. Without bluetooth usage I can go three days without needing to charge my phone. It's no real problem though because I charge my phone every night. The call quality is superb. I have no problems hearing my friends and my friends have no problems hearing me. Overall this is the best phone I've ever had the privilege of using. It has the essentials for me which are text messaging, camera, video camera, bluetooth, and most importantly of all I can make calls on it.
Motorola V551 Data Connector/Power Issues
I have had this phone for six months and feel
that a very important engineering issue exists with this phone. The data connector
and battery charger port on this phone uses
spring loaded pin contacts against gold plated pads. Over time the pads get lint on them and the spring pins no longer provide a good contact. This results in poor battery charging (or no battery charging) and failed data transfers. Motorola should have used a different style connector ( side contact slide pins with self cleaning action) or provided a trap door on the bottom of the phone to keep dust and lint out. The sign that things are going south is that you have to reinsert the charger over and over and fiddle with it to get the phone to charge and the same thing will occur when using a usb.data cable accessory. The only way I can keep my V551 running is to use a safety pin to scrape the gold plated pads to keep them clean. My next phone will not have this poor data and power connector on it.
Quite a good phone, but not perfect
I bought the phone from Cingular; I'm in N. Virginia and am using MediaNet.
I chose the V551 because the RAZR did not fit comfortably in my hand, but I wanted the most fully featured phone I could find.
PROS:
Phone has every feature you can think of.
Comfortable shape and weight for my big hands
Bluetooth connectivity to Apple Powerbook is flawless: iSync, Internet connect, and photo transfer all worked on the first try.
Shortcut feature can be used to overcome menu disorganization.
Speaker phone is useable.
True worldphone supporting all four GSM bands (one of the few phones that does)
CONS:
Menu organization is not great (but not as bad as you may have heard - I am usually able to find what I want.)
The top level of menu choices are mostly cingular related services, only 1-2 of which I use.
Camera is not much use.
NOT PLAYED WITH YET:
Voice commands - I don't have any real use for this.
V551- Has deteriated over time
I have had this phone for about 8 months after I had to switch to the Cingular network from the AT&T one. I can say that my review of this phone is different now than when I first had it.
Pros:
Fits comfortably in the hand and buttons are easy to use.
Better battery life than old LG flip phone. Needs to be charged about every 3 days after moderate use.
Clear reception and strong signal most places in the NYC metro area.
Good volume on hearing calls (not speakerphone).
Cons:
Phone is slow to repsond to commands. Has gotten slower over the past few months.
Menu structure of phone stinks so it is difficult to configure even after using phone for months since the layout is not intuitive. Because of the poor menu layout you may accidentally use media time as you press the wrong buttons.
Phone freezes about once every 3-4 weeks now requiring the need to remove and reinstall the battery (this did not occur for the first few months I had the phone).
Ring tones are not that loud so you sometimes miss calls if you are in a noisy place.
Speaker phone requires car windows closed, A/C off, and radio off to hear anything.
If you put phone in pants pocket the side buttons seem to get pressed causing battery drain.
This is an ok phone but if I had my choice again I would get something from Nokia, even if it was not a flip phone.
PLAYA PHONE
I HAVE HAD THIS PHONE FOR ABOUT 4 MONTHS AND I DID HAVE TO GET IT REPLACED BUT THE FIRST ONE I DID BUY FROM A CO-WORKER. I AM USUALLY STUCK ON NOKIA BUT DECIDED TO TRY THE V551. IT IS ALL AROUND A PRETTY GOOD PHONE. TAKES GREAT PICTURES AND VIDEOS. SPEAKERPHONE IS LOUD AND CLEAR. TAKES THE BEST RINGTONES. AND IS USER FRIENDLY.
Great Phone.
Only real let down is the battery. Lasts for a fair amount of time. When you go to charge it takes about 3 1/2 hours to recieve a complete charge.
Other than that,
-the EDGE network is great
-Bluetooth is wonderful
-and always have 5 bars reception in Central TX
Poor phone
i got this phone by a multiple exchange done with tmobile. i used to have the a630 but that phone also a lot of problems. this V330 was good for about a month until it start to freeze on me, turn off by itself and reboot it self back up, it will vibrate for like 2 minutes and the only way to stop it is to take out the battery. i am very unhappy with Motorola's right now.
Never Drop a motorola Phone you'll Regret it all the time!!!!
I own a v551 and the phone is cool
Cons
Video capture
Speaker phone haven't brought a bluetooth headset for when Im driving I'll wait for christmas when they're cheaper
Small
Cons
Bad reception
Super Super sensitive to any wrong doing
Bad customer service 'Cingular"
easy way to change ring styles
Previously I owned a sanyo 5300 but went to cingular and brought this phone this was the baddest idea I made I dropped one day My screen freezes and when a incoming call come in it cuts itself off so I called Cingular so they sent me another v551 now with my new v551 I dropped this phone on a step in my house I can hear out my phone 50% of the time it makes scary noises when I have my phone near a TV or a radio and when I can't hear people say I sound like Im talking 20 feet away and often hang up on me!! I miss my sanyo phone were I can drop the phone and only get a scrath were my Motorola my phone acts like a spoiled child when I drop it.
Also when a got my new v551 my old phone didn't have vibering this new one do. Thats so weird.
There are still good things about it Im calling cingular to get me a nokia or a lg phone no more Motorola ever!!!!!!
Not for me...
Okay, I've used everything from the old analog CDMA phones top of the line GSM phones. Basically, the problem that I had w/ this phone is that I'm a geek, and it simply did not do what I wanted it to. The camera was mediocre at best. The video was also below what I feel is even good. The most I got from video was MAYBE 6-8 seconds. I also had a problem with dropped calls. I work in a great service area, phone would receive full signal and suddenly it would drop a call or read "no service" when everyone else's was okay.
Pro's and cons outlined below:
PRO'S...
- Bluetooth
- Real ringers
- Camera
- Flip
CONS...
- Dropped calls
- Monochrome display on outside
- Battery life
Again, this phone is okay, just wasn't for me. The 1st was replaced, the 2nd was better, but still had some dropped calls that was not service related. I sold this phone and bought a more appropriate phone...Audiovox SMT5600...awesome!
