Motorola W315

[ Music ] ^M00:00:01 >> Hi, I'm Kent German, Senior Editor here at CNET.com. Today we're gonna take a first look at the Motorola W315. This is a basic phone for Verizon Wireless service. Motorola does make a lot of basic phones. You might not think so because of the emphasis on the flip phone and those real thin phones, but it does make a lot of very simple handsets as well. This is one of them. You can see that it has a little bit of a big design for a basic phone, not a really big by any means but it just is a little tall. Actually a little over 4 ounces so it's a little weighty as well. It does have a vertical display. These are becoming a bit of an in feature in cell phones these days, so it does have a vertical orientation. If you turn it on the side you can see the text. It is monochrome, but it doesn't have a camera so that's not a huge deal. Shows all the necessary information you need, time, battery life, things like that. Also has an external antenna, you can see it raises here. It is a little flimsy of course, so you may wanna watch it when you're around. It does have a bit of a soft touch here on the outside, it kind of a little rubberized feel. Also have the blue coloring which is pretty snazzy. Open up the phone, inside, we weren't really too impressed with the inside actually. Found the interior display a little too washed out, a little overly bright, not a great color resolution. Fine for viewing the menus and things like that, but not great for pretty much else. The phone doesn't use Verizon's standardized menu interface, which is actually a good thing because those Verizon menus, never really liked those and they've been pretty ill received overall. Does use Motorola standard menu interface though. Isn't much better but could be an improvement over the Verizon's. Here you have a navigation keys. They're pretty big, pretty spaced out, lacks a lot of texture though, very flat with the surface of the phone so, aren't really easy to use by feel. The navigation toggle is especially big, just wished it had a little bit more defining it from the rest of the phone. I did find it had a little bit of a cheap plastic feeling. Didn't feel really firm, really well made. Also the hinge felt just a tad loose. Wouldn't really know how it would stand up to over time. We didn't conduct a longterm test. But overall the phone doesn't have a whole lot, does have a speaker phone, but really is designed for making calls. I'm Ken German and this is the Motorola W315. ^M00:01:52 [ Music ]