Motorola V3 Razr black PAYG - £109.99 at WH Smith

ddavis

I've always had o2 sims (payg) and they work in voda fine.
Before you all tell me they were unlocked they werent, they would not take orange sims.

O2 and Voda ARE supposed to be interchangeable (similar underlying technology in the sims), it's just some o2 PAYG handsets get a bit funny about it.

I'm sure i have seen them for less than 109.99 though - might have been the orange PAYG shop... Think they're under 100 there.

TheChillPill

Amazon were selling them for £99.99 a week ago, but price seems to have gone back up now - it may be the same elsewhere.

billy_the_kid_2

lazymoezy wrote:

tO BE HONEST V3 IS A TOTALLY CRAP PHONE. My brother has one he doesnt even use it, he wants to sell it on n he had it fro like 3 months. The phone isnt worth £50. Thats my POV.

Well thats not really very helpful. If it is crap, can you tell us why. I bought one a few months ago and would like to know what trouble is brewing up for me. The reception and call quality on mine is far superior to all the cheaper Nokia phones I have had in the past, so I cant see where it is going to let me down.

biblejohn

ddavis wrote:

I've always had o2 sims (payg) and they work in voda fine.
Before you all tell me they were unlocked they werent, they would not take orange sims.

O2 and Voda ARE supposed to be interchangeable (similar underlying technology in the sims), it's just some o2 PAYG handsets get a bit funny about it.

You are definately wrong there. 02 & Vodphone are both gsm900 whereas orange/t-mobile/virgin are all gsm1800. In the "oldern days" phones would either be gsm900 or gsm1800, so unlocked phones which were on vodaphone would work on o2 but not on orange. But these days most phones are dual band so this restriction doesnt apply.

Ive currently got orange contract / payg, o2 contract / payg, vodaphone contract / payg, tmobile contract / payg and virgin payg sims. I can safely say that all the service providers currently lock their phones to their network. Regardless of whether its a contract phone or a payg phone. Some even brand the phones with their own software and logo`s etc...

The only case when this might not happen is at stores like the carphone warehouse, where if they are out of stock of a manufactorers locked phone they will very often give you an unlocked version instead.

billy_the_kid wrote:

Well thats not really very helpful. If it is crap, can you tell us why. I bought one a few months ago and would like to know what trouble is brewing up for me. The reception and call quality on mine is far superior to all the cheaper Nokia phones I have had in the past, so I cant see where it is going to let me down.

I bought a v3 silver just before xmas from argos, it was 129quid. They then dropped the price of the silver & black to 99quid over xmas, and now its back up to 109quid for the orange version. I was very wary of the phone as previously ive hated the software on motorolas and ive always stuck to nokias.

I was very pleasantly supprised. The v3 is easy to use, the menus are good, the camera is acceptable but not as good as the nokia 7610 i had previously. It plays mp3`s and you can set them as ring & message tones. You get a usb cable with it as standard which lets you sync with your pc, unlock the phone, upgrade the firmware or copy stuff over from pc/phone. You can also charge the phone via the usb cable from a pc. For most other phones you have to buy the cable seperately.

The phone is very configurable/personalisable and theres also loads of skins etc... you can download for it. I was also impressed by the keypad. Certainly much better than a lot of other phones ive had.

The only downsides i dont like on the v3 is the very small memory (6mb->10mb depending on what firmware you have), the predictive text doesnt work like t9 predictive txt which most other phones use and under "normal use" the battery only lasts a couple of days.

All in all, i think the v3 is an excellent phone. It was originally marketted as a top of the range "designer" phone which would set you back 300quid, so now for around 100quid with the features/look its certainly good value for money. If you dont like it, then you can always sell it on ebay and make a profit.

Its worth noting that there is now the v3i which has more memory, better camera etc... as well as the v3x, so they are winding down the v3 as its old technology.