Motorola E398 Review

[Sid]

Michael has finally posted his E398 review -

Well, I finally sat down and wrote the E398 review. Why the delay? Well, I was just too darn busy using the thing. It was love at first sight, and the E398 has been an absolute dream over the past few weeks. Find out why in our full review.

http://www.mobileburn.com/review.jsp?Id=903&source=HOMETOP

[francisofarabia]

i think on the CONS, the NO VIDEO RECORD should be included... IMO

[mobilerampage]

Wow Thanks for posting this review! I was waiting for it :D Now waiting for my E398.

[Michael]

one small point, you CAN store sms on the phone. i assume that the version that you tested was unbranded - many networks often 'switch' it so that sms are stored on the sim. motorola phones, however, are very customisable, so it is very easy to switch it back to storing sms on the phone. by default, they should be stored on the phone.So how does one do this? I certainly can not see it.

[Michael]

i think on the CONS, the NO VIDEO RECORD should be included... IMOI agree.

[Michael]

Michael
you can either ask your network to set sms storage to phone, if they allow this. or, there's an easy method called seem editing if you would like me to give you an outline. its a procedure that the typical phone user can, and does, do.If I have to get the network to do something in order to get the phone to store SMS in its own memory, then as far as I am concerned it doesn't do it.

The non-Motorola phones I have, and that is a lot, all can store SMS in their own memory without me having to jump through hoops.

[aussieland]

I was ready to say that you can mp3 over using bluetooth but i just noticed the review has been updated :D I guess the only thing I have to say is great review Michael. Oh and also I have another thing i don't like ... you can't set an mp3 straight from the memory card, which is kinda annoying as the phone memory is only 5MB (not a lot to store mp3) and to transfer a mp3 to the phone can be quite slow.

[Daedalus]

Michael
it should be stored on the phone by default. the only occassion when it is otherwise, its because the a network has set it otherwise.

Thats crap for a start, it has NOTHING to do with the network, its a PHONE issue, the networks have nothing to do with where in the phone the messages are stored :rolleyes:

I was ready to say that you can mp3 over using bluetooth but i just noticed the review has been updated I guess the only thing I have to say is great review Michael. Oh and also I have another thing i don't like ... you can't set an mp3 straight from the memory card, which is kinda annoying as the phone memory is only 5MB (not a lot to store mp3) and to transfer a mp3 to the phone can be quite slow.

Your not really supposed to use and ENTIRE mp3 file as a ringtone, that'd just be stupid. I mean your phone won't ring for 3:23 will it? Most people just cut the MP3 down to about 30 seconds and change the bitrate to about 64kbps to lower the audio quality (well you won't notice the difference as a ringtone).
Anyway, still really want to get one, just now I hate T-Mobile even more for making the E398 a total 100% exclusive in Europe (UK especially) so you can only get it locked to T-Mobile, and I REALLY don't want to be on T-Mobile :(

its a procedure that the typical phone user can, and does, do.

What kind of 'typical' phone users have you been talking to? The 'typical' phone user is just Average Joe who buys a phone because of what it is, not what some 'Internet guys' tell them it can possibly do if their willing to break their warranty and have the possiblity of cocking the phone up if they do it wrong, which often they will as they don't really know what their doing. The 'typcial' phone user is not the kind of person your thinking of, I can tell you that much.
And how do I know this you ask? I talk to (on average) 60 of them every Saturday, and they know bugger-all about the features of the phones (I work in a phone shop).

[Daedalus]

LOL.
Ok, if I can't do it WITHOUT SEEM EDITING, then yeah, fine, please prove me wrong....

[FRiC]

I doubt that anyone cares, but I just got the E398 recently after looking at it for months. But recently they started giving away the HS820 with it...

Anyway, does anyone else here already have this phone? I notice the screen seems to have been installed upside down, like on a digital camera.* The result is that when holding the phone, I need to tilt the top of the phone towards me to see the screen clearly. If I hold it normally with the top tilting away, someone standing in front of me and looking downwards at the phone can see the screen clearer than I can.

:confused:

(I also have the V300 and V303. The E398 appears to have the same type of transmissive screen as the V300, but the V300 doesn't have the upside down LCD effect. V303's transflective screen is far better than either.)


* LCD screens are designed to be best viewed from one direction. So they're installed differently depending on how they're to be viewed. e.g. digital cameras are designed to be viewed from above, and cellular phones, from below. The exception is Nokia who installs many LCD screens side ways, so they only look clear when the phone is turned sideways.

[Daedalus]

righttt...sorry, did'nt realise that heh. When you said network I did'nt for one minute think you meant the networks flex :)
Sorry for any misunderstanding, i guess your partly right, but, its still not something that the network can sort out, just luck I guess.

Either way, I've scrapped the E398 for now and I'll be getting a V500 for around £100 (yes its brand new and on pay as you go) in the next week or so :)

[DEViANT]

Daedalus
its just that many networks over-brand their phones and, unfortunately, setting the sms to be stored on the sim instead of the phone is just one of them. once the phone has passed into the buyers hand, the only thing the network can do is to increase the limit of smsm stored on the sim.
yep, you're right - it does seem to boil down to just the luck of the draw :).

but, i have never known anyone who owns a motorola who doesn't tweak it in some way - i have a v500 and i've tweaked it to get rid of all the orange branding, significantly increase the volume of the earpiece, mouthpiece microphone, and ringtones, and enable the video playback(which i never use). get yourself a usb cable(about £11. i got mine from expansys uk. next day delivery), p2kman, XVI32(a hex editor), and have fun :). most people start off, like me, by tweaking the odd feature here and there, but a lot of people go further and like to get the very latest flexes/flashes(to keep up with the jones' ;)) and etc. i stopped at the tweaks i mentioned above, but once it goes out of warranty, i may go onto howardforums and have some fun with flexing/flashing.

Yes, I agree, a very good review, and that's why I'll be waiting for the MB 6260 review before I consider getting one - because they tend to have the most in-depth details, and it's worth waiting a bit longer for that.

GoldDigger, have you thought about putting up a Motorola tweaking guide? I would be interested, despite not owning a Motorola (apart from an MPx200) with the Synergy UI. If you do, let me know and I'll sticky the thread. What sort of things can you do with it? Unlocking, removing network branding, volumes? Sounds very interesting...

[FRiC]

you're wrong about the transmissive. they don't have transmissive display. they have transflective. only the v500/v400/v303 have transmissive. transflective were designed as a compromise between the bright clarity of the transmissive tft indoors, and the clarity of the reflective tft outdoors. indoors, transflective is more dull looking than transmissive. whereas outdide in the sun, the display of transmissive is mostly unreadable because there is no 'reflective' layer between the screen and the sun.



Sorry, I typed transmissive and transflective backwards...

(Still disappointed by the E398's screen...)

[aussieland]

Your not really supposed to use and ENTIRE mp3 file as a ringtone, that'd just be stupid. I mean your phone won't ring for 3:23 will it? Most people just cut the MP3 down to about 30 seconds and change the bitrate to about 64kbps to lower the audio quality (well you won't notice the difference as a ringtone).

Thats true you can do that but if you could set a ringtone straight from the memory card (say like you can with nokia 6230), you wouldn't have to do the cutting into 30s process and the changing of bitrate. I know this isn't a big issue I am just saying it would be nicer to be able to do it from the memory card

[DEViANT]

Yes, but on the 6230, depending on the memory card you could very easily crash the phone when loading an MP3 ringtone from the card. I suspect this might be part of the reason, also it is very costly in electrical power to access the memory card. What would be far better is to have a hardware program in the phone to let you choose say, 30 seconds, of music at a specific point to cut and recompress it and then store it in local memory, but I guess you can't have it every way...

[DEViANT]

DEViANT
any chance of some feedback and some answers to my 2 questions above? :). please :)

I only saw one question, but about the unlocking. It's totally legal - it is basically opening the phone so any provider's sim cards work in the phone. For example, if you buy an Orange UK Motorola V500e, it will only work with Orange UK sim cards and no others. If it's unlocked, any sim card will work with it.

[Michael]

oooops! nearly forgot about respondin to you :). to be more precise, whether the sms are stored on the phone or not is entirely dependent on the flex. networks often have thir own flex's - thats why its not a phone issue, and is a network issue :). That is 100% bogus.

My phone came direct from Motorola, it is running generic firmware, not setup for any particular network. Motorola by default seems to have SMS stored on the SIM. I've seen it with other Mot phones, like the V600.

If in order to "tweak" this thing to store SMS properly, the user has to mod the firmware, then it just doesn't matter. Even though you don't seem to know any people that don't tweak their Mot phones, I think I can safely say that 95% of actual Mot users do not tweak their phones.

If it doesn't do something out of the box, that's it.

[Michael]

Sorry, I typed transmissive and transflective backwards...

(Still disappointed by the E398's screen...)I can't see how you could possibly be disappointed by it, it is fantastic. It works in all types of light, is plenty bright, just overall works. The only thing I could possibly say is that it would have been nice if it were bigger.

[Michael]

its not the firmware thats modded, its the flex. the flex and the flash(ie the firmware) are different entities. the firmware is the actual software that operates the hardware(a bit like a driver), whereas the flex contains the settings/parameters, branding, GUI, etc. thats why when a person does a master clear/reset(ONLY affects the flex), the firmware is not changed, but the settings and wallpapers/ringtones/games/etc are set back to their factory settings .You are playing a semantics game. The Flex settings are not something the user has normal access to, so it is not something that can be fairly considered when revewing a phone. All of the people out there that buy an E398 that has SMS stored on the SIM are going to just deal with it since there is no way in the UI to change the setting.

[aussieland]

some people(eg you) get their motorola phone with sms set(prior to buying etc) to be stored on the sim, while others(eg me) have them set(prior to buying etc) to be stored on the phone

Mine too stores sms messages on the sim card

I can't see how you could possibly be disappointed by it, it is fantastic. It works in all types of light, is plenty bright, just overall works. The only thing I could possibly say is that it would have been nice if it were bigger

I agree, E398 is my first Motorola and I am impressed with the screen

[raymerium]

I was ready to say that you can mp3 over using bluetooth but i just noticed the review has been updated :D I guess the only thing I have to say is great review Michael. Oh and also I have another thing i don't like ... you can't set an mp3 straight from the memory card, which is kinda annoying as the phone memory is only 5MB (not a lot to store mp3) and to transfer a mp3 to the phone can be quite slow.


i have been having problem with my transflash. like unable to access it using phone tools. and not being able to directly copy mp3s direct to it. after experimenting i found out that if you format the TF card using a card reader, insert it in the phone( the phone has to get re-aquainted with the TF card i.e. set up all the folders and subfolders ex. "audio", video", etc.) you can then transfer direct to TF card. ANd you can access its folder in the phone tools without those annoying error messages. but its still around 1Mb/min of transfer of mp3. But if you use the card reader its around 8seconds per song but you gotta put your mp3 files under the audio folder(im assuming the phone has got "acquainted" with the formatted TF card) or else the phone gets confused( i found it the hard way) .
so far i havent got any problems in that aspect. but when i loaded the TF card with all the songs it can take, operations got slower.

[aussieland]

i have been having problem with my transflash. like unable to access it using phone tools. and not being able to directly copy mp3s direct to it. after experimenting i found out that if you format the TF card using a card reader, insert it in the phone( the phone has to get re-aquainted with the TF card i.e. set up all the folders and subfolders ex. "audio", video", etc.) you can then transfer direct to TF card. ANd you can access its folder in the phone tools without those annoying error messages. but its still around 1Mb/min of transfer of mp3. But if you use the card reader its around 8seconds per song but you gotta put your mp3 files under the audio folder(im assuming the phone has got "acquainted" with the formatted TF card) or else the phone gets confused( i found it the hard way) .
so far i havent got any problems in that aspect. but when i loaded the TF card with all the songs it can take, operations got slower.

Thanks but i just meant that it would be nice to be able to set a mp3 as ringtone straight from the card. It isn't a big issue, surely you can copy them on the phone, it's just that i had that feature on the Nokia 6600 and loved it

[aussieland]

there are many moto flex's that have them stored on the sim, so its not just Michael's that does.
maybe i should just ignore the facts and say that all motorola's have sms stored on the sim. i'd best agree with Michael, as he has given me 15 negative reputation points for each time i've disagreed with him.


I get what you're telling me I think that what Michael was trying to say is that a lot of users get their sms stored on their sim cards and can't do anything about it. It doesn't worry me but i can understand how it can be a problem for others.... Anyways once i tried a different sim on my phone and i could see all the sent messages still, so it means they are stored on the phone.... pretty odd hey?

[raymerium]

Thanks but i just meant that it would be nice to be able to set a mp3 as ringtone straight from the card. It isn't a big issue, surely you can copy them on the phone, it's just that i had that feature on the Nokia 6600 and loved it

well i happen to think the Nokia 6600 is a near perfect phone. The only edge the E398 have over it is the stereo speakers and the nice body design. COnsidering they're within the same price range, the 6600 would be the better phone. But im stuck with my E398. off loading it would mean losing 1/3 of the value. oh heck.

[raymerium]

hey isn't there any new software out there for video recording of the E398?
i also encountered "no modem found" in the mobile phone tools and can't initialize. damn.

[MikeUK]

hey isn't there any new software out there for video recording of the E398?

I own an E398, and that'd be intresting!

[meanmachine]

Does it still have the annoying 10 message inbox limit like on the V600? For such modern phones I find that very stupid.

[Daedalus]

I've found that my Orange-branded V500 has a limit of 60 messages, which is enough for me, though I do find that the cleanup system has never taken effect, so I have to do it manually :/

[xianmc]

That is 100% bogus.

My phone came direct from Motorola, it is running generic firmware, not setup for any particular network. Motorola by default seems to have SMS stored on the SIM. I've seen it with other Mot phones, like the V600.

If in order to "tweak" this thing to store SMS properly, the user has to mod the firmware, then it just doesn't matter. Even though you don't seem to know any people that don't tweak their Mot phones, I think I can safely say that 95% of actual Mot users do not tweak their phones.

If it doesn't do something out of the box, that's it.

So how do switch my e398 to use my phone memory instead of the SIM. This is really a problem for me since I usually kept important messages in the phone like my previous nokia phone which has 120 more messages.

Please help. I'm just an average phone user and I don't know how to tweak phones.

[jayesh]

So how do switch my e398 to use my phone memory instead of the SIM. This is really a problem for me since I usually kept important messages in the phone like my previous nokia phone which has 120 more messages.

Please help. I'm just an average phone user and I don't know how to tweak phones.

not an easy do u u need a flasher cable /dongle with the correct flex or software for your e398....

ive heard a lot about what u can do with the kits u can even unlock the quadband features of the e398 or so it seems


i suggest u try googling flex motorola.. e398 quadband and watch the fun