Motorola W315 Prepaid Cell Phone Review - Intro
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Richard Baguley Published on December 29, 2007 Comment on this |
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What sort of cell phone does $25 get you? To find out, we cracked open the Wirelessinfo.com piggy bank and went shopping for a pre-paid cell phone that didn't tie us up with a long contract. What we found was the $24.99 Motorola W315 running on Verizon's INpulse pre-paid service. This phone surprised us in many ways; for something that costs less than dinner for two at a fast food restaurant, the W315 has a decent set of basic features that make it a good deal for the user who just wants to make calls. Those who are looking for more advanced features are going to be disappointed, though; there is no camera, no music or video playback support and no real email support. And there is no support for mobile web browsing; the W315 doesn't have a web browser. As such, it's never going to replace a BlackBerry or other high end phone; those who use their phones for business are going to turn up their noses at this cheap phone. But for the user who doesn't want or need cameras and the like, the W315 is a surprisingly good phone that won't break the budget.
It is also worth noting that the W315 could support features such as web browsing or email; similar Motorola phones on other networks offer these features. But Verizon decided to disable these features, presumably so they didn't undercut their more expensive phones.
One thing to bear in mind with a pre-paid phone like this is the cost of calls: you pay a bit more per minute on a pre-paid plan than you do with a monthly plan (between 2 and 10 cents), but you also pay a sizeable daily fee as well on most true pre-paid plans (some carriers don't charge these fees, but all of Verizon's pre-paid plans include this). Depending on which InPulse plan you go with, you pay between $0.99 to $2.99 for every day that you use the phone. That means that if you make a short call (or even get an incoming wrong number call) or send a text message, your balance goes down by between one and three dollars for this daily fee. This is where phones like the W315 may turn out to be less of a deal in the long run than you might think; your prepaid balance can quickly get eaten up. And the preapid balance expires as well; refills of less than $29.99 vanish after only 30 days.
The W315 is available for $24.99 on Verizon's prepaid InPulse service.
Here are brief summaries to the different areas of our review. Click on any of the titles to read the full section.
Tour & Design - The W315 is a small, sleek phone that is well, if simply, designed
Audio Quality - The W315 has good audio quality for both sent and received audio
Imaging - The W315 has no camera, so there isn't much to talk about here.
Making/Receiving Calls - The W315 does a decent job of managing contacts and calls.
Messaging - SMS support is adequate, but there is no support for email.
Organizer - A basic calendar is the only major organizer feature.
Multimedia - The W315 can play back audio, but there is no way to get music onto the phone.
Software - The built-in software is extremely basic, and there is no way to update it.
Battery Life - The talk time battery life is rather short at just over 2 hours.
Connectivity - No Bluetooth and no WiFi means limited connectivity.
Hardware - The keypad on the W315 is adequate, but was a little slow to type on.
Other Features - There are no other features on the W315
Value & Comparisons - At $25, the W315 is cheap.
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