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Motorola Motofone F3: First impressions

Dialling numbers and searching through contacts is relatively easy, but reading text messages is awkward

Andrew Lim

After being told by a Motorola representative at 3GSM that the Motofone F3 was coming to the UK, I couldn't control my excitement. No, really. So when I saw an advert in the Metro that said that Phones4U were selling it for £15, I rushed to the nearest branch and picked one up.


The Motofone's display uses electrophoretic technology

The handset costs a mere £15, but you have to buy it with £10 credit so it actually costs £25 altogether. It's also locked to T-Mobile, so don't expect to use it with your current non-T-Mobile SIM card. My first impression was that the Motofone F3 looks fantastic and also feels quite sturdy.

Unfortunately, the user interface, which is supposed to be really easy to use, takes a while to get used to and you'll definitely need to read the manual to adjust certain settings. This is because the display blocks out letters like a calculator, rather than using pixels like a normal mobile. Dialling numbers and searching through contacts is relatively easy, but reading text messages is awkward, especially if they contain long words.

Of course, I'll wait until I have a proper go with it to make my mind up completely, but overall I'm not sure this will suit everyone.

Update: A full review of the Motorola Motofone F3 is now live.