Motorola W490 Review

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Whenever I think of Motorola, its always going to be associated with their Razr phones. However, the company does manufacture a series of models that puts emphasis on basic features which is more dependable and useful for most consumers. One handset that has this characteristic is the Motorola W490. The W490 provides basic calling features in a simple, easy-to-use design.

The W490 has a boxy, sharped-edged design. It is a bit on the heavy side measuring 3.89 inches by 1.89 inches by 0.68 inch and weighs in at 3.7 ounces. It has a sturdy construction and a solid feel in the hand.

The handset also sports a square external display that supports 65,000 colors. It shows the date, time, battery life, and signal strength. In addition, the display also shows photo caller ID, which makes it very useful.

At its left corner, you will see a a volume rocker and the standard Moto smart key. On the right side, you have the voice-dialing button. The W490’s internal display is a bit of an improvement to its external display. It measures at around 1.8 inches and has a resolution of 262,000 colors, 176×220 pixels. Colors are exceptionally bright and graphic displays are sharp and beautiful.

As for the W490’s features, its very basic. You have a 1,000-contact phone book with room in each entry for six phone numbers, three e-mail addresses, a URL, two street addresses, a birthday, and a nickname. You can save callers to groups or pair them with a photo and one of 42 polyphonic ringtones and alert sounds. Other essentials include a vibrate mode, text and multimedia messaging, a speakerphone, a calculator, a calendar, an alarm clock, and a world clock. Bluetooth, USB mass storage, e-mail, instant messaging, and voice commands are present, as well.

In addition to all these basic features, the W490 offers a 1.3-megapixel camera that takes pictures in four resolutions. The W490 camera offers three quality settings, five lighting modes including a night option, exposure metering, an 8x zoom, five color tones, and four shutter sounds plus a silent option. The camcorder shoots clips in three resolutions with sound. Editing options are similar to the still camera, and clips only last 15 seconds.

As for the quality, its not very good. It’s a rather underwhelming camera, and the photo quality was disappointing. Images were blurry with muted colors.

The Motorola W490 has a rated battery life of 7.5 hours talk time and 14.6 days standby time.

Sources:
http://www.phonearena.com
http://www.letstalk.com
http://www.phonegg.com