Motorola A630 Phone (T-Mobile)
Four stars if it's free, three stars if I had to pay retail.
I agree with one of the reviewers about 3.5 stars on the phone. I like the compact design, the Sidekick is way too big. I've had it for about a month and bought the new HS850 bluetooth and both work well together. Unlike one review said, there is a zoom on the camera, you use the volume buttons. The camera itself is ok. The QWERTY keyboard is really useful for email and text messaging, although sometimes I do miss the T9 function. I could text message with T9 with one hand, without looking and while driving. Can't really do that with this phone...guess that's a good thing! The speakerphone is adequate, and does not require optional equipment like another reviewer wrote. The battery life is short as compared to my previous phone, Sanyo 4900. Standby, without doing anything iwth the phone, may be about 100-120 hrs or so. But with normal use, you're gonna most likely charge this phone every 3rd day, and with heavy use, every other day. One thing I did notice, and is quite annoying...is that accessing my yahoo email through T-zone, the phone won't let me type in the first letter in lowercase. I know I'm supposed to hit the shift button to switch it, but the phone keeps beeping and doesn't allow me to do so. Tech support doesn't seem to know what's going on. This is important since passwords are case sensitive. So make the first letter of the password a cap? Sure, I thought I outsmarted the phone, then realized that when accessing Yahoo Messenger, it won't let you cap the first letter! If anyone knows how to circumvent this, I'd like to know. And don't tell me how your phone works if it's not an A630. One of the tech people tried to tell me to hit the # key. That doesn't do anything when you're using an A630!!! <br />The option to save your phone contacts on the simcard, OR on the phone can be confusing at first. I also wish there was a faster way to get bluetooth connection instead of having to run through the menus. I'm sure there's a way to do so, I just haven't figured it out yet. <br />Overall, I'm satisfied with the phone since it was free after rebate. You won't find a better deal at the local stores. I do notice that the T-mobile connection in Dallas, TX area is not as good as my old Sprint connection, which is quite disappointing. But at least it's only a year contract!