Motorola E365

Motorola hasn't always been able to dazzle and satisfy us with some of their offerings. Many of their phones are very good however some dont quite cut it. Surprisingly the e365 surpassed all my expectations. Im glad I've got one... But why keep the wonders of this pint sized phone a secret? I just have to give a thorough review of what makes this phone great and what doesn't.

I first laid eyes on my Motorola e365 on an Australian media ...
...why I deserve the new Motorola thinking there was no hope, and two weeks later I recieved a phone call from that website telling me that I'd won the competition. Ah so dreams do come true after all. Thus began my MotoExperience...

When I said thorough I meant thorough so If you need to go to the bathroom, DO SO NOW!! lol. I'll be reviewing the Camera, the colour screen, the ringtones and the list goes on. I'll also be comparing it ... more

Motorola hasn't always been able to dazzle and satisfy us with some of their offerings. Many of their phones are very good however some dont quite cut it. Surprisingly the e365 surpassed all my expectations. Im glad I've got one... But why keep the wonders of this pint sized phone a secret? I just have to give a thorough review of what makes this phone great and what doesn't.

I first laid eyes on my Motorola e365 on an Australian media website, in a Christmas competition, and I thought 'yeah why not ill give it a crack' ('give it a go' in Australian lol). So I SMS'd a response to why I deserve the new Motorola thinking there was no hope, and two weeks later I recieved a phone call from that website telling me that I'd won the competition. Ah so dreams do come true after all. Thus began my MotoExperience...

When I said thorough I meant thorough so If you need to go to the bathroom, DO SO NOW!! lol. I'll be reviewing the Camera, the colour screen, the ringtones and the list goes on. I'll also be comparing it to other handsets that I have had experience with namely the Motorola T720, the Nokia 7250 and the Ericsson T610, so nothing will be sacred.

Design:
Just like sushi the Motorola e365's design is an acquired taste. When I first saw this phone on the web I thought it was not very aesthetically pleasing, however when I held it in my hands for the first time it was really something different. The phone has more or less the same dimensions (width, height and depth) as the SonyEricsson T610 and the Nokia 7250. So its up to industry standards. The voluptious colour screen takes up appoximately half of the entire phone size, just like the T610, this is great for a multimedia phone. I dont care what anyone says but I actually think that this phone is quite stylish, mainly due to its silver and black colourings and 'retro-industrial' look. Of cause everyone knows me as the 'flip phone boy' as I've only ever had clamshell phones (excluding the 7250, biggest mistake ever, it makes me want to vomit in terror lol), but since the e365 was free I didn't complain. So I personally prefer flip phones however this is a perfectly viable answer to all those candy bar style phone lovers. In terms of weight this phone aint no heavy weight but aint no light weight either (about 93 grams). Don't be daunted with its unique looks the more you look at it the more you'll love it, trust me. This phone has character, unlike the SonyEricsson Z200 which is all scank (sorry SonyEricsson but someone had to say it).

Colour Screen:
Simply put, EXTRAORDINARILY FANTASTIC!!! and I'm not exaggerating! This little Motorola has the best screen quality in its class and even when compared with phones that cost twice as much. The Motorola e365 supports over 65000 colours and is really large. The resolution is high (128x160 resolution) and your pictures show up really crisp and bright. In comparison to the 7250 and the T610 it is by far superior. The T610 for example has very 'white' and faded looking colours. Also a great improvement over the Motorola T720 and other Motorolas released before it. However due to the large screen the battery will die quicker and will require more frequent charging, I recommend you the use of the 'Battery Save Mode' which saves about 20-30 per cent of the battery. One really good thing about the screen is that its way better than the t610 in daylight. The t610 is horrible in the sunlight and makes using the phone outdoors a grueling experience, so I welcome the high quality e365 screen.

Battery:
Well Motorola is notorious for short battery lives, and while battery life is improved in the e365 its not improved enough. 150 hrs standby time, but in reality less than this, and 10 hrs 40 mins talk time however its more like 2-3 hrs. So this is one of its major shortcomings. This is also an issue for most 3rd generation mobiles with large colour screens and cameras, so unfortunately you cant really excape the problem just yet. Like I stated above use the 'battery saving mode'. Hint: Actually charge your phone to its maximum the first time before using it, to allow it to achieve peak battery performance, I tend to forget to do this because I'm usually very excited and want to check out all the nifty gizmos.

PhoneBook:
In all 300 entries can be inputed. This is reasonable. The thing that excited me was the Picture Phonebook capability where you can assign photos to your callers and they will come up as their Caller IDs, very cool (also in the 7250 and T610, to be fair LOL). Along with this cool feature you can assign ringtones to differnent groups or users to make them unique and allow you to find out who is calling just by the sound of the ringtone, something that couldn't be done with the Motorola T720, and I welcome this feature. One thing that could have been improved is the ability of multiple entries under the same name ie. 'Cassandra Mobile', 'Cassandra Work' and 'Cassandra Home' should be under one single entry 'Cassandra', however this isnt the case with the e365.

Personalise (Features):
Let me start with the ringtones; they are much better than the Motorola T720. One issue many people had with the T720 ringtones was the fact that the ringtones were very quiet. This is obviously a problem that could have great consequences. So Motorola have seen the error of their ways and have improved the sound capabilities by using a Japanese Yamaha chip which out-performs its european counterparts (used in previous Motorola handsets). So expect crisper and loader polyphonic ringtones on this Motorola. You can also download additional ringtones from the internet (there are 40 preset ringtones in total). The quality of the preset tones varies however there are many better than average ones, in contrary to the Nokia 7250 which has a series of monophonic beeps and sqweeks. When I was doing some research on this phone a couple of days before I received it, many reviews kept saying that there is no ringtone composer, contrary to popular belief there is a ringtone composer included and one can access this through the 'media centre' option under 'new melody'. Furthermore, the ringtone that stands out on this phone is the one called "voice", it consists of a regular short ring and then a woman saying "You have an incoming call", bloody spectacular!!!.
Moving along... Preinstalled wallpapers and screensavers are somewhat dull, however
you can make your own with the photos you take, or alternatively you can pay and download them off the net. However if your a tightwad like yours truly learn to use the camera really well. Due to my tight ways I have spent a while on the WAP interface and found a preinstalled URL that allows me to download an array of polyphonics, wallpapers and screensavers for free, thank you Motorola ;o).

Reception:
This little phone has great reception. Other than the very rare fuzzy noises its reception is just like the Motorola T720. As I have stated in my review for the Motorola T720i "Dont let me sugar coat it" the T720's reception is like being in the same room as the caller, yes it is that clear! In contrary to this we have the SonyEricsson T610 which sadly has poor reception and alot of interference in the form of hissing noises. And since the e365 out-performs the T610 in this department alone it should be the main reason to buy it. I mean mobile phones are primarily for phoning people and talking, forget all the other gizmos.

Built-in Digital Camera:
Its great to see a Motorola phone finally get a built-it digital camera. And its even better when this camera gets rave reviews from many websites rating it better than the T610. For the first ever Motorola intergrated camera phone this is the best we could have asked for. A button on the left of the phone is the photo button. The camera is exceptionally good. And considering that the e365 is far cheaper than the t610, you cant go wrong with this Motorola. As this is pretty much an entry model Motorola camera phone it doesn't have all those cool added features like zoom, special effects and flash (the t610 has only special effects). Yet it does have night mode and shutter sound mode. There is also a reflective mirror next to the lense to make self-portraits less of a hassle and even a lense protector (the only one on the market to do so), better than the lens 'cap' issued with the t610. For a phone with zoom i recommend the Motorola v600 which also has video capabilities. One qwirk that the e365 has is resetting the camera settings everytime that you reboot the phone, this can sometimes be a biatch, however Motorola assures us that this is intentional and is implemented for recieving and viewing photos via MMS from other non-moto handsets which have different camera settings.

SMS:
The iTap method that Motorola uses can be slow for many non-moto users so you'll have to bear with it. However you can send group messages relatively easily. Contrary to many online reviewers who state that the SMS/EMS system on this phone is very slow, I have found it to be much better than the Motorola T720/i. It is important to understand that iTap is the dictionary mode and Tap is the manual mode, iTap is the slow one, Tap is relatively fast.

Additional Features:
SMS, MMS, WAP and GPRS are all enabled on this handset. Making multimedia tasks just that much simpler (and possible). However infrared and bluetooth are not included, so I recommend a data cable to transfer data from your Moto to your PC. But more importantly who uses bluetooth anyway, all it is, is an expensive alternative to handsfree. All the usual suspects make a return, DateBook, Calculator, Currency Converter, VoiceNotes (can actually be sent with MMS now) ect. However there is actually a seperate Alarm Clock on this phone which is great.
Lets not forget the games, mobile games really excite me and are great for entertainment while waiting for mates to show up at university lol. The games on this phone were average. Its missing the original tetris. Bowling is somewhat difficult to get used to. The tetris-like (Magic II) game is enjoyable, however the other games are a little mediocre and some difficult to understand, one of which seems to be an Asian card game, which I have no idea how to play lol. Sadly one cannot download extra games off the web with this phone since it isn't JAVA enabled.
The user interface isnt that slow and for the life of me I have no idea what most reviewers of this product are talking about, truthfully there are some times where the phone loads, but the slowness these people are talking about must be due to the difficult menu layout or something, its very much faster than the T720. The e365 also has a light sensor next to the microphone and senses when there is low light and turns on the backlight, the backlight also being improved over the t720 this time Motorola opted for a very bright blue.

Value for money:
Motorola is sticking to its principle of value for money with the e365. Well this phone rates extremely well in this criterion. The phone is worth $550 (in the almighty Australian dollar) which is really good for a camera phone, considering my Motorola T720 cost me $700 and had less capabilities. The phone out-shines all its rivals in this criterion, it is cheaper than the SonyEricsson T610 and far cheaper than the Nokia 7250! So its a great buy for the tightwad consumer (Like me).

Conclusion:
Well well well who'd have thunk it, Motorola is getting things right (Finally), this phone is great value and has all the features that you could ask for at a super cheap price. The quality of the screen and camera is great for the price that you pay and MMS is really cool. Besides if you buy a Motorola you can go around adding moto infront of all sorts of words motolol.  

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