vB Easy Archive - Motorola v60s review

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Motorola v60s review
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Posted by: vtguy

The Motorola v60s is basically the VZW CDMA PTT phone (v60p) with the PTT disabled in the firmware. While it offers several improvements over the v60i, some of the changes are a bit questionable. Given that the v60s is an evolution of the long-lived v60 series, I am going to focus primarily on the pros and cons of the differences between the v60s and the v60i. I'm not going to get into some of the issues common to all v60 series phones (mono display, 1-line ext. LCD, etc.).

Pros

The speakerphone is incredibly loud and clear. Not surprising since it is essentially a PTT phone. It is full duplex and oftentimes the person on the other end can't tell that you are on a speakerphone. Now in the car, I often just use the speakerphone and rarely use my headset. Also, the tiny speaker by the antenna has been eliminated and the ringtones now come from the speakerphone, which makes them incredibly loud. A complaint that I had with the v60i was that the ringers weren't loud enough. Incidentally, the v60s plays midi polyphonic ringers, but custom ringtones can only be added via SMS not GIN. I have not yet tried to hack the v60s.

The v60s is a 1x phone. As such, WAP and SMS seem to go faster. Incidentally, the v60s seems to have much more memory than the v60i for SMS. I had about 50 SMS in my inbox and the memory meter was only up to 2 bars out of 7. Also, iTAP seems to have been improved. You still can't add words to it, but it seems more intuitive now. For example, when you press 4, the first letter highlighted will be "I" instead of "G". Likewise, when you press 1 after a word, the first symbol highlighted is the apostrophe. Yay! The v60s also seems to work faster than the v60i, which is especially evident when you are copying phonebook entries.

The v60s has a stub antenna but better RF than the v60i. My v60i was always strong in the RF department, but the v60s pulls as good of a signal as the v60i did with the antenna extended. Putting a v60i antenna on the v60s makes it work even better.

The v60s comes with a PolySwitch VLR battery. I am not really sure what this means, but according to www.discountcell.com, the extended SNN5723 (same size as the SNN5705) is rated at 850 mAh, versus 800 mAh for the SNN5705. The slim battery (SNN5722) is rated the same as the SNN5704 (700 mAh). BTW, my v60s came with the extended battery, but based upon what I have read on HoFo, it appears that some came with the slim battery. Not sure why.

The phonebook is much improved over the v60i. While it is still only one entry per name, you now have the option of designating a "primary" entry, and displaying only the "primary" entries when the phonebook is sorted by name. This gets around the issue of having multiple separate entries for the same person. However, you still can't search beyond the first letter of the name. Also, ringer IDs are now available, which you have the option of disabling for specific ring styles.

The separate power button has been eliminated, and the power button has now been incorporated into the END key. The SEND/END keys are still reversed, though.

While the holster looks identical to the one that shipped with the v60i, it seems to be made of a slightly less rigid plastic, as the top part flexes easier and as such, the phone is not so hard to get out of the holster. Thank you Motorola!!!

Cons

Even though the v60s takes the same batteries and back covers as the v60i, it is noticably thicker. A v60s with a slim battery is about as thick as a v60i with an extended. A v60s with an extended battery is very thick indeed. While the v60s is still pocket friendly, the thickness may put off some people.

The v60s is a bit of a battery hog, probably due to the speakerphone. I now have to charge every 2 days, whereas I used to be able to go 3-4 days between charges with my v60i.

You can't remap the Smartbutton on the v60s from the Phonebook to another menu item, which you could do on the v60i. As such, it is somewhat redundant to keep the Phonebook as a softkey.

The v60s speakerphone button is on the top where the ringer speaker was on the v60i. As such, when the v60s is in the holster, it is hard to get your finger in there to push the speakerphone button, and I don't think that there is a way to switch to the speakerphone via a menu selection while you are in a call - you have to use the hardware button.

With the v60i, I could voicedial with the flip closed. However, I can't seem to do that with the v60s. The workaround is to open the flip, then voicedial, then close the flip, which is a bit of a bother.

The v60s does not come with any games (not that the ones that came with the v60i were so great) and AFAIK, it can’t download games.

The skater power on/off animation on the v60s is pretty silly, and I don't know of any way to disable it. Also, what's the point of screen saver animation on a clamshell phone??? The icon for the loud ring style on the idle screen is also somewhat vague as compared with the v60i.

Finally, I haven't been able to get the v60s to work with TrueSync, even though it says "TrueSync Ready". It does work with mobile PhoneTools, but AFAIK, there is no simple way to sync Palm Desktop with mPT, which I could do easily with TS.

Hope you enjoy my comments!

Posted by: vtguy

I forgot to mention one more thing under "Cons." I actually prefer the way the Main Menu (which comes up when you press the "Menu" key) is set up on v60i. On the v60s, the title of the menu item takes up the entire screen along with a pretty useless animated icon. There is, however, no selection number for the menu item. As such, you have no idea where in the menu you are unless you have the menu sequence memorized. On the v60i, you can see three lines of the Main Menu at once, so you have a good idea where in the menu you are.

Posted by: vtguy

In my experirence, popping a v60i extendable antenna onto the v60s instead of the stub yields a gain of between 5-7 dB. Very nice! However, the v60i antenna base doesn't go all the way into the base on the v60s, so it might be more susceptible to breakage.

Posted by: vtguy

Update: I was finally able to get True Sync (v. 3.1 Service Pack 1) to work with the v60s.

Posted by: cadnyc

hey dude, excellent review. your review made me go out and get a v60s. upgrading it from my a530s