Motorola i670 (Nextel) review: Motorola i670 (Nextel)

It's been a few months since Nextel introduced a new cell phone, so were we eager to get our hands on its new Motorola i670. What awaited us is a typical low-end Nextel phone--one with basic but dependable features and a bulky design that makes no effort to make a style statement. That's not a bad thing--the carrier always has stuck with what it does best. So, if you're a Nextel fan and want a simple phone for making regular and Direct Connect calls, the i670 is worth a look. Though there's no external display and the internal display is nothing fancy, the i670 will hit your wallet if you pay full price ($249). Fortunately, service rebates can lower the cost to a reasonable $49.

Like most Nextel flip phones, the i670 is relatively bulky at 3.5 by 2 by 10 inches and 4.1 ounces. Granted, that's an improvement over some of the carrier's previous behemoths but it still makes for a tight fit in a pocket. That said, the i670 has sleek lines and it takes its overall shape from the previous Motorola i850. Though the phone is not protected by layers of rubber coating like other phones from the carrier, it does enjoy a solid construction.

The i670 is a typical Nextel-designed phone.

As we said, one drawback of the i670 is that it doesn't have an external display. As a result, you have to open the phone to see a caller's identity and to check the battery life. The other exterior features are reminiscent of previous phones from the carrier. The left spine holds a covered headset jack, a volume rocker, and a control for making push-to-talk (PTT) calls over Nextel's Direct Connect network. On the top of the handset are a speakerphone control and a key for sending calls directly to voice mail without answering. Beside them is the stubby extendable antenna, while the covered charger port is on the bottom of the handset. Finally, the speaker is in its usual place on the bottom of the rear flap.

Unfortunately the i670's internal display is a partial step back in Nextel's screen evolution. While the carrier's newer phones support 262,000-color displays, the i670 display shows only 65,000 colors. You can change the backlighting, time, and font size, but the screen isn't particularly vibrant or sharp. Also, we miss the more attractive and intuitive menu structure we saw on the Motorola i870. On the upside, however, the i670's navigation array is spacious and user-friendly. The rubberized covering also makes them quite tactile. A four-way toggle doubles as a shortcut to four user-defined functions. Inside the toggle center is an OK button surrounded by dedicated power and menu buttons and the Talk and End keys. There are also two soft keys that double as programmable shortcuts. The backlit keypad buttons are large and widely spaced. We enjoyed the raised texture in particular.

Though the i670's feature set is relatively sparse, it still has all the Nextel business-friendly offerings you'd expect. The 600-contact phone book has room in each entry for seven phone numbers, an e-mail address, an IP address and a Direct Connect number. Contacts can be further organized into a variety of groups for regular or PTT calls, and you can pair them with one of 12 monophonic or 5 polyphonic ring tones. Other features include a vibrate mode, a calendar, voice dialing, call and voice memo recording, a memo pad, text and multimedia messaging, the aforementioned speakerphone, an airplane mode, and onboard GPS. You also get Nextel's Direct Connect walkie-talkie service (including Group Connect, which lets you chat with up to 20 others via PTT at once) and Direct Talk, which gives you out-of-network walkie-talkie chat with another Direct Talk handset at a range of up to 6 miles.

Personalization options were limited to a choice of wallpapers and two menu styles. You're stuck with what's on the handset already, but you can always download more options with the WAP 2.0 wireless Web browser. Alternatively, you get a fair choice of Java (J2ME) applications including two game demos (Space Invaders and Tetris); 1KTV, an on-demand pseudo-TV service; and the Trimble Outdoors and TeleNav subscription-based navigation service that takes advantage of the i6700's GPS support.

We tested the Motorola i670 (iDEN 850) in San Francisco using Nextel's service. Call quality was very good, offering loud and clear conversations. Listeners on the other end reported the same conditions, despite being able to tell we were using a cell phone. Speakerphone quality was good as well, though it's not worth much in noisy conditions outdoors. Since the speaker is on the rear of the phone, we'd advise placing the handset upside down on a table when making a speakerphone call.

The i670 has a rated talk time of 2.75 hours and a promised battery life of 5.4 days. In our tests, we fell short of the rated talk time by 15 minutes but got 6 days of standby time. According to FCC radiation tests, the i670 has a digital SAR rating of 1.05 watts per kilogram.