Motorola V551 Phone (Cingular)

Rating:
Summary: THE BEST PHONE EVER
Review: Cingular has dreadful customer service. The phone is great but I tried porting my number over from T-Mobile and it was a MONUMENTAL task. First I was on hold for over 45 mins with Cingular. Wrong department. Gave me another number. Dead line. Called back. Waited 25 minutes. Told me that I had to go to the store. Went to the first store. They told me that I had to request the port BEFORE the phone was activated and it was now too late. Went to ANOTHER store. They said they could help. Took them an hour, but it happened. NOT impressed.

So, if you need to port your number - be aware!

Rating:
Summary: Richards review
Review: Great phone easy to use,have this phone about 3 months now.Had the v400 nice phone,but the v551 better phone great camara,video phone.Bluetooth awesome.Highly reconmend this phone V551 for the money.RPotter

Rating:
Summary: WoW, THE Best phone I've had so far!!!!
Review: I had this phone for a little while now and I must say that it is the best phone I've had so far!...The vga screen provide really crisp and clean pictures, the sound quality is fantastic and the bluetooth features makes transfering data (graphics/sound clip) to and from your laptop/desktop so easy, as well as hands/cord free driving!...The only con I have is not about the phone but its instruction manual, very confusing to follow, some features are not listed on the contents pages, you have to go to the index pages and hope to find what you looking for...Otherwise, this is a fantastic phone, Good job Motorola!

Rating:
Summary: Motorola V551 = Perfect
Review: I have had this phone for about a week, and I couldn't be happier. It has every feature you can think of, and calls are crystal clear even when on speakerphone. It is the nicest looking phone that I've seen besides the i860 and v3, but those are over $300.00. I got my V551 direct from Cingular for $150.00. The camera takes great pictures and the video feature is pretty cool. Picture caller id is awesome. BlueTooth means no more paying for ringtones or wallpapers. I used to have GSM w/ AT&T and they SUCKED! Cingular has been nothing but a great experience for me so far and I love this phone.

Rating:
Summary: Good Phone
Review: I just bought this phone to replace Panasonic GU87. I have AT&T servide. I have used Samsung X427 in the past which I gave to my daughter. Motorola I have it for a week. It is a great phone. Very sharp display. I used to get "Searching for Network" message with Panasonic at my work but with V551 I've got 3 bars.
Phoen is easy to operate. It is a bit heavy and a bit too big.
If size is a concern Samsung e317 may not be a bad one. Samsung X427 is equally powerful but it does not have all bells and whistles but works really good.

Rating:
Summary: Nice phone but some issues
Review: I just purchased the V551 through Cingular to replace my Samsung A620 that I had with Sprint. Over all the phone is nice but there are a few things that are of issue.

1.) The standard battery needs to be recharged often. If you have the bluetooth feature turned on it drains even quicker. The first time I used the phone the battery drained in 2 days and that is with very low talk time. The manual states that battery time will increase after the first few charges so we will see if that is true. I would like to get an extended battery but haven't seen one for sale yet.

2.) Dropped calls. Not sure if it is the Cingular service but I have had more dropped calls in the first few days then I ever had with Sprint and my Samsung A620. On the plus side my signal strength is better with this phone and Cingular but that hasn't paid off in better phone calls.

3.) Bluetooth- there needs to be an easier way to turn the bluetooth feature on and off. I only use it while in my bluetooth enabled Acura TL so I would like to turn it off easily when not in the car to save battery time. With this phone you have to go through several menus to get the the bluetooth off feature.

On the plus side there are some things I like about the phone.

1.) Quality seems very good so far.

2.) Screen resolution is good and bright.

3.) Bluetooth works great in my Acura TL. The signal strength and incoming caller id shows up on my car display, pretty cool. I can talk hands free via the bluetooth setup and the cars built in voice system, pretty cool as well.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent full-featured phone
Review: I've had it only a couple weeks but so far I am very impressed.

First the downside. I agree with another reviewer that the battery life has been dissapointing-- hoping it will improve over time as the manual claims. And I've had 3 dropped calls in a week. On Sprint with my little Sanyo I dropped 3 calls maybe in 2 years! The signal for both companies is pretty good in my house. I went with Cingular cuz of the GSM SIM card to put phone # in cuz I broke the screen on my Sprint phone and couldn't read the #s! But I copied the SIM #s to the Motorola's book and now I see 2 sets of each name... help!

I'm amazed you can get this level of phone free with service. Speakerphone, video camera, Bluetooth-- amazing! I'm most excited about the bluetooth to get my pictures out and use as wireless modem. Haven't done it yet, so anyone please comment on how the wireless modem feature would work with a Cingular plan... Another reviewer mentioned it takes a lot of menus to get to the Bluetooth function. You can customize one of the 4 "home keys" (the directional pad) to jump immediately to that function. I've got mine set for bluetooth, calendar, phonebook, and calculator. This phone is very customizeable.

Rating:
Summary: have some annoying issues
Review: The nice thing about it is that it plays MP3s so you don't have to pay for ringtones.
It has the following issues though:
1) very poor battery life, one day and it's gone, and for some reason it takes so long to charge!!
2)The ear bud has a very annoying noise that gets worse if the earbud wire comes closer to the antenna. Don't understand why Mot will put the ear bud plug right next to the antenna
3) Drops calls like crazy, and it starts by you not hearing the other side while they do hear you, and then the call ends.
4)The voice command feature is of no use:
a)First, it allocates very short time duration for the command.
b)if you have multiple numbers for each person, you have to record each one with a unique voice command. My T610 used to record the name of the person, and then it lets you record if it is a cell or office, etc..
c) not matter how I record the name using my bluetooth headset, or any other method, it just seems to be having hard time recognizing the speech.


Rating:
Summary: GSM improved
Review: When verizon was charging me too much for simple features, i wanted to switch. I came upon the cingular 250 plan with the v551. The v551 has quad band for international roaming and the sim card is 64k for now because cingular and at&t are intergrating there networks. I used to be a huge CDMA fan and leieve that the IS2000 connection was fast. Cingulars GSM has improved its signal, claritiy. The phones feel is nice with the rubberized covering. The speakerphone is amazing!. The service is amazing clear and perfect. The phone has themes and everything. The video is a bit blurry, but its VGA what can you expect. The camera is nice and the contrast and zoom are awesome. You can assign peoples names to pictures and picture id's. The phones bluetooth i have not tried out yet but i will be buying a handset soon. Amazon is amazing because if you buy this phone you will get 150.00 back!!.. This phone is a must buy