this isn't a full review, but just some initial thougts on the Motorola V710. These phones have been highly anticpated as the first bluetooth capable phones available from verizon, and have been leaking out to a radio shack near you.
we needed one to test a BREW application we are launching soon, and i was lucky enough to find one at my radio shack down the street. these phones are pretty much coming in and out the door, as any friendly radio shack salesman will tell you, that is, after for some reason needing to collect your address for purchasing a $2 phono plug adaptor.
so, is this the latest and greatest? or just another crappy phone from motorola?
i guess it depends on your perspective. to the belt-clip-wearing-clamshell-toting masses, this will be seen as a great phone. it will become the new standard road warrior phone for those who love verizon clamshells, replacing the LG 6000.
to me, this phone is no big deal. yes it has a 1.2 megapixel camera which can shoot up to 1280x960 (see how that math works) and can also shoot video and play MP3s on an external memory card (not supplied) but aside from the camera, most middle of the road nokia and sony ericssons also have this stuff and more. motorola's UI has always been a bit lacking to me, and i don't think they improved it on the V710.
Don't get me wrong, there's a lot to like here. The screen is really nice and big enough to do some serious viewing/browsing - but because VzW doesn't provision WAP 2 by default with their data plans, i haven't been able to check this out yet.
The bluetooth seems to work well with headsets and bluetooth car kits but i haven't tried to use the phone as a bluetooth modem yet - this would be really cool if i could use the verizon network with my mac on the train. currently i use GPRS from either TMO/AWS and although it works okay, it could be faster.
more tests to come, again these are just some initial thoughts. i was hoping to be amazed at the new motorola - but i think this phone is just okay. not the soviet technology in this decade we're used to seeing from motorola, but still not up to par with nokia and sony ericsson's latest and greatest.
but hey, if you love verizon, and you want to upgrade, get one if you can!
This is a good phone, but I love my nokia :)
http://www.hdtv-info.org
Posted by: Motorola 6208 at August 7, 2004 10:00 PM
On my T610, I can use Bluetooth to transfer pictures from my camera phone to my Mac. Can you do that with the v710? I've heard rumors that you cannot.
Posted by: BarbaraG at August 9, 2004 04:25 PM
those rumors are true. the V710 only supports the Handsfree and Dial-up networking profiles - this is very weak in my opinion.
and to top it off, pixplace, the verizon online photo album has a 1 MB limit! that's like 4 pictures.
Posted by: steve at August 9, 2004 09:10 PM