Motorola W156

So a couple of years has passed since I bought my last mobile phone .

Usually I am the sort of person who buys a phone on a small budget,I'll pay between £40-£60 and then I'll keep that phone until it ceases to work anymore ,which on average seems to be about 2 &1/2 years for some reason. (perhaps there is some kind of self destruct timer inbuilt to phones as my phone seemed to be working fine immediately before its life came to its end).

Anyway I wasn't expecting to have an expense like £40-£60 on this side of xmas 09(Yes- xmas is too close for comfort already!)

As I have a land line which also does sms/texts and I have a pc , I wasn't panic stricken about being unable to get hold of people or anything like that when my mobile stopped working. .The thing I was really annoyed about was that my phone was also my personal mp3 player (always good thing to have when your stuck on a bus or something) .
But really and truly I could live without the mp3 player....

But then.... It hit me........' What about when my son is at school and needs to come home/is sick and I'm not at home to take a call?... What if there is an emergency and a family member needs to get hold of me? .... what if i'm out and I want to call a cab ?.... What if?...... What if ...?? What if ???...............

I NEEDED A PHONE and ONE THAT WAS MOBILE !!!!!!

I checked my predicted spending for the months ahead ,as I always budget my money in advance , and without changing anything on the budget ,I realised I could probably spare a tenner that week. But I wasn't thinking' a tenner for a phone ' I was just thinking 'cool I have a tenner'.

Still ,I went for a look on eBay , just to see what was out there ,what I might be able to get in a month or two. There were a few that I liked in my usual price range -so I added them to my watch list.

AND THEN....

Then I saw a Brand NEW PHONE listed at £9.99-p+p was FREE and also I went on to read that £5 AIR TIME was included!!!

OK!!
so it wasn't even anything like what I usually get .In fact it made my last phone look like a top of the range next to this thing!! In fact this phone would be almost identical in features to the first phone I ever owned in 1998!!!! apart from it being a lot smaller. (still it did look quite like it)

In fact anyone who ever owned an old (new then)motorola in the late 90's...Well.. thats basically what you get with this. This phone is Motorola.

This phone could probably be described as retro style now !!!

All I needed to know was, Could I send and receive texts and make and receive calls with this phone?and could I afford it?The answer to all was YES!. So I thought why not?

For the moment it would do me just fine for what I needed.

This phone was essentially £4.99 when you take off the £5.00 credit .How good is that???!! Considering my cordless home phone cost about £50.00!! I thought it was GREAT.

So after checking feedback for the shop and seeing it was good, I bought the phone-and within 3 days it arrived! The company I bought this from is called Prepaymania .They have a shop on ebay (user name is-prepaymania_shop).

If after all this what somehow feels a little like rambling now... you are still there,reading..... I think it's probably time to tell you more about the phone itself.

This particular phone is on T-mobile pay as you go. On opening the box and unpacking it I inserted the sim card that was included and charged up the phone using the charger supplied. As soon as the sim was in the phone and it was switched on/charged -it was ready to go. i received texts from T-mobile as soon as I switched it on welcoming me etc. Included in the box was a top up swipe card .On this was the phone no. for the phone printed on it.So that was good,no hunting for the number or phoning myself up on my home phone to get it from caller I.D.

To switch on the phone you need to press down on the 'red' phone .When you switch it on there is a welcome tone,which can be loud. If you don't want to hear it when you start your phone you need to put the phone on silent before you switch off .

To get to the menu from the main screen you press the centre of the joy pad which is located top center of the keys. This takes you to the phones MENU.

On this MENU you will find :

MESSAGES
Hit this for everything to do with messages,check voicemail,read texts etc, there is also a 'quick notes ' bit in there for writing things down if you need to -and storing it.
When writing texts or getting to texts on your phone ,should you need to read them again,I found it wasn't as straight forward as with some other phones and it got a little frustrating remembering the quickest way around the menus, but you do get used to it in the end. Also with texts you have to take care not to send a half written text when replying, as you only have to hit the wrong button once for it to send before you've finished writing it.(That's a bit annoying)

INTERACTIVE
Here you can subscribe to things(haven't tried it)also you can set up a quick way to top up your phone with DirectDebit etc.

RING STYLES
Don't expect anything great ,though I will say that it's nice and loud and some of the tones are not too hideous!!There is a feature to add your own tones too, but ,still it will only be those old fashioned kinds,I guess it might be cool to go old skool.
You can also change the tone for text alerts. This phone also has VIBRATE/SILENT options. and A Volume control.

EXTRA'S
Here you find the Calculator / My Menu(not sure what that does) / Alarm Clock / Calendar / Stop Watch / Fixed Dial / Service Dial / Interactive(link to already mentioned)

CONTACTS
phone book stores over 200 contacts(only phone no.s though/not addresses)

PERSONALISE
This doesn't do much-You can add a greeting for yourself to read each time you switch the phone on. You can also change configuration of buttons for features. Also here you can change your digital clock to look like an analogue clock on the main screen.

RECENT CALLS
Call log of -dialed/received calls,call times and a notepad,call cost.

GAMES
Yes this phone has games too! 3 of them. SPRING BALL / FOOTBALL / MAZE.
I have no idea how the football one works and I think that maze is the best one ,though it's quite difficult)

SETTINGS
set call divert.phone status,in-call set up,security,initial setup,network,headset.

So Thats The Main Menu!

As you can see there is nothing especially outstanding there but I WILL SAY IT AGAIN!! it was ONLY £9.99 inc £5 credit.

The screen is the old black and white (no colors / no pictures) Oh and the contrast adjustment doesn't do a lot really(its either bad or ok).I set it on the highest setting -it could be a lot better but on the other hand it could be a lot lot worse!!

On the T-mobile side of things the tariff that came with the phone is as follows-

texts to other networks are 10p ,texts to other T-mobile users 5p
calls to landline /other networks 25p per min calls to T-mobile users 8p per min

T-mobile also has a range of top up offers on all the time ,which you will find on their website t-mobile.co.uk

I recommend this phone to someone who simply needs a phone ,and who also likes to text.

I think also it would make a good first phone for an older child who just needs to keep in touch with you when they are taking short trips to friends houses /school/shops etc .(i.e for safety/peace of mind purposes)

THIS PHONE IS CHEAP AND DOES WHAT IT SAYS ON THE BOX

It may not have much street cred' but it should be respected none the less for what it is, at its face value . Its good at what it does and is excellent value!

CAN'T GO WRONG WITH IT REALLY CAN YOU?

Thanks very much for reading!