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Member since:05.12.2005
Reviews:119
Members who trust:89
I bought this phone second hand (in next to new condition, hardly used [now I know why]) from Ebay, paying a fraction of the RRP, and I am still severely disappointed. (It also isn't the phone I thought I was buying as the auction just listed it as the L6 model) I had next to no expectations going into it, all I wanted a quick, cheap replacement Motorola after my Razr suddenly went out of action. It does have a handful of good points, but you'll quickly see how the negatives outweigh the positive.
Size: The L6i is a very sleek and slim phone. At just 12mm thick its possible to pat your pocket and not realise its there. On the other hand, it is about 10cm long. In my opinion this is too long. I like to carry my phone in my back pocket. If you lay it horizontally, you get a square ass! And if you stand it vertically, it risks falling out because it's that long. Likewise in front pockets, it just digs into you, no matter what angle you put it at, as soon as you sit down.
The screen is quite large, but again because of the overall size of the phone it looks relatively small. The screen is 128 by 160 pixels and 3cm by 3.5cm
Once you have got the hang of the stupidly organised menus, it's easy to change the backlight brightness and contrast of the screen. When I first got this phone (as I mentioned, second hand) it was slightly faulty, in that the backlight never went out. Obviously this ate horribly at the battery life and I had to charge it at least twice everyday. One day it just decided to work again!
Battery: The battery in this phone is the same as in several other Motorola's (the BC50). This is quite convenient in that it'd be easy to find a replacement battery
The phone seems to have several battery level issues. The indicator is supposed to go 3bars-green, 2bars-green, 1bar-orange, no bars-red, then flashing red for critical. This phone jumps from 2bars to critical, with nothing in between! Also, if I turn it off with 2bars, and then on again it goes down to critically low instantly.
The charger is the mini-usb kind that comes with a number of Motorola phones. This is also the same connection that is used to charge the phone
Charging: This phone will not charge from a computer.
While it is plugged into the computer, for synchronising and transfer of pictures etc, it claims to be full battery, but as soon as you unplug it, the battery indicator changes back to whatever it was before. Phones before this one (ie supposedly less technologically up-to-date) were all capable of charging from a computer, if they were the kind that connected to it. Why this one doesn't, I don't know.
Menus: All Motorola's seem to have the same basic menus, and when you've used one you can work them all. The L6i seems to be the exception and the menu is the most un-user friendly I have ever come across. It took me days to find features I wanted (or to find that they didn't exist) and the instructions proved equally useless.
When I first started using this phone I was almost on the verge of thinking that some other software had been put on it, not for the L6i, and I didn't believe such 'old' features could possibly be missing from an up-to-date phone! Things I wanted to do that this phone can't, yet almost all Motorola's before it could: re-program the 'home' keys (I'll come onto why in a minute), reorganise the menu screen, and change the message tone.
Camera: Some sites claim the L6i was meant to come with a video recorder. This is a lie; it does not. It has a basic VGA 3x optical zoom that the older Motorola phones have. Its not an especially good camera anyway, and the settings on the L6i are appalling. There is no way to completely turn off the shutter noise that comes when you take a photo. Even if the whole phone is set to silent, the camera still makes a noise!
A convenient, and yet not so at the same time, feature for the camera is that the button on the right side of the phone activates the camera. This is nice for taking a quick photo without going through all the menus, but it also means you end up with endless photos of the inside of bags and pockets if you don't lock the keypad.
Multimedia: This is not an mp3 compatible phone. Again, I don't know why. Phones before it were mp3 players, and phones after it are mp3 players, but Motorola, in their infinite wisdom, decided not to put an mp3 player in this phone. This means you are pretty much limited to the ring tones already on the phone, and can't upload your own.
Tones: Speaking of ring tones … As far as I can see (and I've searched everywhere!) there is no way of changing the message tone on this phone. You either have nothing (when phone is silent), or their tone with or without a vibrate. To me this is very annoying! I like to have my message tone as a simple beep. It's enough that I hear it without disturbing the world around me.
You also can't have different volume settings for the different tone modes. This is kind of annoying, and it takes several clicks to get to the volume settings, so if you want it on extra quite, you have to go do that manually, rather than selecting a pre-programmed quiet option.
The 'home keys': The 'home keys' was something that I previously liked a lot, and I liked that they were programmable. In essence, the home keys mean that with just one press of a button you can dive deep within the menus, making things much easier if there is something you regularly use - for example, on my old phone I set the left key to be alarm clock, as its several clicks to find it in the menu, but something I used regularly. This phone can not reprogram the home keys.
'Up' is to compose new text message, this is nice. I do like the convenience in that, as, as I'll come to, there isn't any other 'messages' button on the front of the phone.
'Right' is to the 'Fun and Media Box'. This is basically where all the pictures and tones, and games are stored. It seems somewhat unnecessary to have this as a home key, unless of course all you want to do on your mobile is play games…
'Down' is address book, as it is on quite a few phones, and does prove useful.
'Left' goes to the 'mode' page where you can decide whether you want Ring, Silent, Vibrate, Vibe & Ring, or Vibe then ring. The * key can also be used for this, as holding it down switches between Vibe and Ring. This is good for quickly changing modes, except that ht options are only Vibe, or Ring. Something that irritates me every single time is that when you change the mode, the phone plays you a sound/vibration. This just seems so pointless - just because I switched to Vibe, doesn't mean I want it to vibrate in my hand right now!
Other buttons on the front of the phone are 'Mail' and 'I-Mode'. WARNING: do not confuse 'mail' with text messages. Mail is something different, almost like email I think, and it also includes MMS under the Mail key. When I first opened my phone I thought Mail was messaging, sent a 'mail' message, it cost me a fortune and the recipient couldn't read it any way!
Okay I just right now learnt something! For the past few days there has been an 'e' on the top of my screen, and I didn't know what it was supposed to be notifying me about. Apparently I had a new Mail message and I just read it, and now the 'e' is gone!
'I-Mode' mainly seems to be Internet. I haven't used it that much as its expensive. Through the I-Mode buttons you get to a menu of I-menu, mail, sms, bookmarks, web page, saved pages, and settings. Almost stupidly, the top one, I-menu, is a paying option, so if you knock you phone in your bag all you have to do is hit two keys, and you're online, spending! Because of this I found it quite convenient that there is an 'I-mode lock' function, where you need a pin to start the paying services. Thankfully, this is one of the easier things to find in the unhelpful menus (Menu> I-mode> lock)
Games: The phone does come with a nice selection of games (all run using Java which can be slow to initialise but once it's running its fine), that are actually somewhat enjoyable to play. The top one on the list - 'Final Fight', is one that you can join the 'network' and play with others, but again this is expensive. It is possible to play by yourself though, just be sure to click the right button. Other games are Block breaker and Solitaire. The Solitaire option is much more than just regular Solitaire and actually is four different versions of the game that you can play. Block Breaker is the classic game where you bounce a ball back and forth trying to hit the blocks and in turn break then.
Messaging: So you've found the right menu now, you're in text messages, not mail messages, typing is a pain in the behind! If you have long and strong nails, then its fine, but if you are typing with you thumb tip it's a nightmare. The button to change between manual input and predictive text is right above the 2/abc key. Its all too easy to accidentally knock it in the middle of the word, not realise, look at the screen and just see gobble-de-gook because its changed to/from predictive text!
The predictive text itself doesn't seem as 'smart' as on other Motorola phones. On my old Razr, where a certain key combination spells more than one word, it would remember the one you used last, and that would be the first option. On this phone, it seems almost fixed in the order, and some words aren't even words, eg I type the keys for 'that's' and every time I get 'thcup' - that's not a word! Every time I change it to 'that's' but it never remembers!
Signal Reception: Okay this is a good feature. Very rarely have I seen it claim to have no signal, even in areas where other people (both on the same network or different) get nothing at all.
Blue tooth: This is also quite nice and simple to use. You can go through the menus, but it takes a while to find where its located (Office tools!) or there is a button on the left side of the phone that takes you straight there. The speed is quite good, but the phone lets it down with too small a memory to accept much. I had to delete every single photo on the phone before it would let me receive an mp3 track, which I then found it couldn't play anyway!
The Phone Cover: The outer plastic casing on my phone seems quite flimsy. When the mini-usb is plugged in, you can actually twist it slightly! Not only is this one day going to damage the socket, but also bends the back cover. The back cover is too thin and too lightweight I think. It also doesn't clip securely into place well enough. A number of times this phone has fallen off my desk onto a carpeted floor, and rather than just bouncing slightly like many phones would do, this one actually falls apart - I'm talking the back off, the battery out, one time the sim card even fell out - after a three foot drop! To me that just isn't acceptable, a phone should be solid and robust!
The L6i lacks many features that the L6 (and the whole Motorola family before it!) had, but claims it makes up for them in other areas. This isn't so and the whole phone is just a let down. If I had the money, I'd be buying a replacement already.
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I'm sorry liz, but this isn't a review for the L6!
I have the phone, and a lot of the features you've described don't exist and things that you say cant be changed can be...
I hate to put this into the 'off-topic' category but your review really isnt't correct!
quan 26.11.2006 12:15
I`ll stick to nokia then!
Sal4Mike 23.11.2006 23:43
So you don't like it then?? lol Not surprising! Save your pennies that you earn from Ciao then you can buy a new one!! Good informative review. tc x Sal x
Nov 19th, 2006
exceptional by (4%):
very helpful by (91%):
helpful by (2%):
off topic by (2%):
