The Motorola W376G is a triband GSM enabled America bound clamshell phone, still supporting European/Asian frequencies for roaming customers. Like the W370, the W376G also supports three modes of GSM namely GSM 850/1800/1900. The phone also includes some nice features like the 65K color display, VGA camera, Bluetooth, organizer and a powerful speakerphone.

Some features like:

• The dimensions of the phone are 3.89 x 1.77 x 0.73 (99 x 45 x 18.6 mm) delivering the phone a smart and a compact overall look. The phone doesn’t weigh anything more than 95 gm which is a big advantage on the scorecard.
• The display of the phone is better than the W370, it has a big screen and a much better resolution. W376G sports a TFT display with full vibrant 65K colors and a resolution of 128 x 160 pixels.
• The battery type of the phone is standard Li-ion 850 mAh which doesn’t fail to deliver a better talk time and a standby time than the W370. The battery of the W376G provides a talktime of 7.00 hours and a standby time of 250 hours.
• The phone also has a built-in VGA (0.3 megapixels) camera and the phone also brims with some very nice features like Bluetooth, WAP internet browsing and USB support.
• The phone has also got a FM radio for music enthusiasts and good messaging features like the iTAP dictionary and the W376G is MMS enabled.
• The Built-in internal memory is a good 10 Mb, to store important files like music and pictures. Calculator, Stopwatch, Alarm and calendar are some of the basic and handy features bundled with the phone.

Some of the downfalls of the W376G are:

• Has a poor design and build quality and the phone keeps falling apart.
• The phone camera could have been better as it is only a VGA camera and the pictures produced are quite shabby and have poor quality.
• Problems related to the phone freezing up and poor processing power have been reported.

Overall the Motorola W376G is a nice phone, it is definitely a delivering phone in all aspects apart from some little flaws, it is a gadget that has good connectivity and ample of internal memory (10Mb). The phone does have some downfalls like the freezing up problems and the poor quality camera but if Motorola works on it and omits them then the phone could be a sure winner.

The LG 225 is another solid flip phone offering from Tracfone. The clamshell phone looks smart and performs outrageously well when on the go. Capturing those picture perfect moments is much easier now with the help of a 4x digital zoom VGA camera, the phone also enables the user to readily share them with family and friends while on roaming.

Some good features of the phone are:

• The phone’s sleek and sporty look gives it a nice overall feel and the screen is also protected because of the clamshell design.
• The phone is a Quad band GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz which is a pretty good for people on the go. The data transmission takes place through GPRS class10.
• The phone is small compact and has a comfortable feel to it, the dimensions of the phone are 3.36” (H) x 1.89” (W) x 0.90” (D).The weight of the phone is very low weighing only 3.27 Oz
• The interesting feature about the phone is that the LG 225 has dual screens, one on the outside and one on the inside. The internal Screen is a soft 65K color screen whereas the external screen is a monochromatic 96 x 64 screen, which is use full for checking time and new messages.
• The battery of the phone delivers a nice standby and a talk time as the battery is 1000 mAh Li-ion battery. One can talk on the phone for up to 2.5 hours and can keep the phone on standby for up to 10 days which is very amazing.
• The phone has some other attractive features like the MMS and java support for people who want some fun out of the phone and looking out to kill time.

Some of the downsides about the phone are:

• The phone has no photo caller id on the external screen which surely fails the whole concept of the external screen.
• The camera of the phone though a nice added feature still doesn’t deliver nice and colorful pictures and surely could have been better.
• Sometimes the headset gets noisy and scratchy when inside buildings or handling sounds at high volumes

The phone’s sleek and sporty clamshell look will obviously get it popular among the masses, also the phone is pretty well built and performs really well, apart from a few minor flaws here and there the phone is excellent.

The Motorola c261 is a dual band GSM camera phone. The stylish svelte phone which has a candy bar style has been launched keeping in mind the youth. The phone is stylish, sleek and has cutting edge features. Moreover it weighs only 91 gm.

It mostly includes the standard cell phone features like a speakerphone, 200 name and address book, a large and bright LCD display with 65k color display and polyphonic ringtones besides simple messaging. The VGA camera with 4x digital zoom has 640×480 resolutions. It also has a WAP 2.0 browser. The battery standby time and talk time are also good, with the former being 250 hour whereas the latter being 7.5 hour. The handset is neither Bluetooth nor infrared enabled. The menu is typical Motorola style with no changes.

The Good

• Is sleek, stylish and light. Looks good in its black outfit.
• The 7.5 hour talk time and 250 hour standby battery is awesome. Certainly this may attract many.
• A dynamic memory phonebook where you can store multiple numbers for a contact and personalize your contacts too.
• A loud and clear speakerphone. And this is certainly the best feature according too me in this phone. The speaker sounds great sans any disturbances and can be set as per your volume needs.
• Low Price. The phone certainly is going to be a hit at this front. Even I’ll give a perfect to the it’s team for placing the most apt price.

The not so good

• No Bluetooth or infrared connectivity. A sure disappointment for Moto fans and people going to buy out this phone. I mean how will you add on stuff to your phone? I think the team for the sake of a low price compromised at this end.
• Little memory, poor entertainment facilities. If the lack of Bluetooth and IR connectivity was a disappointment, this might probably a bigger one. With only 1.8 MB of memory available to the user where will they store their downloaded stuff?
• Text messaging is very slow. Surely this wasn’t expected. You cannot provide any phone with such a degraded essential feature.

The bottom-line is that Motorola c261 caters all those who are looking for a stylish yet simple phone with minimal features. Moreover the phone serves your primary needs for pictures, but you cannot go overboard because of its low storage memory. This phone can surely be one of your best bets for your first phone. This phone makes you get used to the functionality of a cell phone. Moreover the JAVA applications like iTap, Currency Converter, Calculator, Stopwatch are add on features. And the pre loaded games like Soccer and Crazy is for all that fun of yours.

Sometimes the text messaging seems to be very slow making it quiet boring at moments. And the low memory is on for the disappoint front of the users.

But the catch is the price of the phone.

Priced very low this can be surely on of your best buys at such price. Except a phone or two from Nokia (which indeed are camera-less) this phone should surely be a hit among students and first time users. The phone with a good large readable screen and decent voice quality serves this sect perfectly!

The Motorola v176 is a flip-top low end Tracfone with modest features.

First of all this is a dual band GSM phone which supports only 2G networks. With its flip top design the phone is eye catchy. The soft keypad is simply awesome.

The CSTN 128×160 pixels screen supports 65k colors with a bright display. The phone has a standard Li-Ion battery (720) with a standby time of 260 hour and a talk time of 7.5 hour. The sound is one of the best features as besides all those pre loaded polyphonic ring tones, the phone supports MP3 tones and has a composer too. It has a WAP 2.0 browser. And as already mentioned with its soft keypad the phone supports instant messaging besides SMS, MMS, and EMS. The phone is not Bluetooth or Infrared compatible but it does have a USB port. But with 3MB of internal memory and no expandable card slot, the phone will not cater much of your entertainment needs.

The Good

• The flip top design is awesome
• The 7.5 hour talk time and 250 hour standby battery is excellent.
• A dynamic memory phonebook which can store up to 500 records.
• A loud and clear speakerphone.
• USB port to meet all your entertainment needs.
• The soft keypad is probably the best feature of the phone.
• A 32 preloaded ring tone set with some new and exciting music from the company
• Push to talk feature (the general folks may not be much familiar with this!) is another advantage of this phone and places it much higher in this low range category phones.
• Unlike Moto’s c216 which falls in the same category, the v176 has an organizer with alarm for various events.

The not so good

• No Bluetooth or infrared connectivity; can be disappointment for some users but the USB port is always at the rescue.
• Text messaging is very slow. This might probably be the feature I would give a miss to this phone. You have to wait for probably some seconds before you can see what you’ve typed.
• Low internal memory and no expandable slot. This feature will again disappoint the entertainment seekers. With only 3 MB of internal memory, this would surely be a skip for the entertainment frenzy.
• Screen presentation is not so good. Those old fruits and flowers background for Motorola will surely be thumbs down from me.

Motorola v176 is for all those who are looking at a stylish yet affordable phone with some exciting features and at the same time serve their entertainment needs (even if only to some extent, as in this case!) then this is the smart choice for them. The phone overall has a good design and sound quality but as far as the menu and other sophisticated features are concerned you need to check out the other phones from Motorola.

I am sure that I can tell you lots about the stylish Motorola W260g as I have personally owned one.

Known as one of the most stylish small phones around, it was originally meant to replace the similar old shabby looking Motorola V170, but came as a surprise package in the market. I liked it mainly because of the icons on the external screen, crystal talk and all the other nice features in that reasonable price of $18 on Tracfone.

Let’s get back to the section talk:

• SIZE- As I have already told you, this phone is a nice, lightweight and a compact device.  It weighs around 3.2 ounces and has apt dimensions of 3.74 x 1.75 x .67 inches.
• BATTERY- a long enough talk time of 6 hrs, an amazing standby time of up to 6-8 days is really some solid stuff. Considering the price of this phone, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that it has got a superb battery life.
• ACCESSORIES- a battery, a charger, a SIM card and earphones is what you get in the mobile pack. But you can get an accessory pack on your demand From Tracfone if you order one.
• CRYSTAL TALK BONUS- I really like to use the word ‘Bonus’ here because this crystal talk feature in this model is extremely helpful in voice enhancement and also in reduction of noise.
• EXTRAS- you have other features like voicemail which can be really helpful to check your messages from landline when in need. Also, the call in waiting and the caller id functions are unexpected but worth it.
• MISC. – in this age, one really needs a hands free speaker just in case you want to shout it all to someone. And what I have observed is that the crystal talk comes in use here as well. The quality of voice in speaker is just above average. The vibration alert, more than 500 entries phone book and lots of trendy ring tones are definitely making it a winner.

Now coming to some of the general but noteworthy points, being a slider phone, there’s no risk of the phone being scratched.

No Bluetooth capability, camera or internet access however is a little disappointment.  The games are nice and the outside attractive light indicators can easily inform you of any incoming calls or messages or even battery life. The phone is available in 2 colors: silver or jet black.

According to me, this is one of the best inexpensive phones in the market with some really worthy style.

The Motorola W370 is a clamshell phone which has looks very similar to the Motorola RAZR V3, even though its dimensions are a bit bigger than the V3. The phone is a GSM enabled phone and is provided by TracFone. The phone has quite a colorful and a vibrant screen with 65K colors and brims with some very nice handy features.

Here are some of the catchy features:

• The phone is a GSM enabled phone and is provided in three modes GSM 850, GSM1800 and GSM 1900 which is quite handy.
• The weight of W370 is surprisingly low and only weighs 2.5 oz which is 96 grams, which is very light for a clamshell phone. The dimensions of the phone though more than the RAZR V3 are still quite attractive 3.9″ x 1.77″ x 0.73″ (99 x 45 x 18.5 mm).
• The battery life of the phone is actually very good considering it delivers a talk time of 3.3 hours and Standby time of around 450 hours max. which is equivalent to 18 days of standby, the battery of the phone is standard Li-ion.
• Features like alarm, EMS, calendar, texting and games are there, one of the most interesting features is the internal memory of 1.5 MB and Bluetooth, which offers better connectivity and can save your pictures and other data provided.
• A VGA camera (0.3 Megapixels) is also provided which is an added feature for people who like taking pictures.
• The LCD screen which is 65k color vibrant screen is a small screen on the inside which delivers the purpose. FM radio is also a nice added feature for people who are on the road.

Some of the pitfalls of the phone are:

• The phone lacks some of the features which are there on the mid and the high end phones.
• The phone’s LCD screen could be difficult for some people to work with, and the phone’s dimensions could have been smaller.
• The camera though a nice feature ,somehow isn’t really clear and good and could have been better

The final verdict is that, overall the phone is very nice for people who just want to communicate with their family and friends. Even though the phone doesn’t have all the snazzy features of high end phones, it is still a bargain and has a design that can rival many of the high end phones

The LG 200C is the latest CDMA phone from Tracfone. It is a simple clamshell type phone designed to look trendy and serve its purpose at the same time. The features of the phone to be impressed with are:

• The phone comes with a CDMA dual band network.
• It measures 3.42 by 1.85 by 0.80 being not too small and not too bulky either therefore being easier to carry. It weighs a mere 2.82 ounces or around 80 grams. Lightweight and convenient.
• It comes with a Li-Ion mAh battery that provides up to 2.5 hours of talk time and an impressive 10 days of standby time. The battery also charges fast in addition to lasting long.
• The resolution of the screen is 128 X 128 pixels and it supports a wide array of 65, 536 colours.
• The menu is user friendly, easy to use and easily navigable.
• The buttons work well and are can be used with ease.
• The phonebook is pretty impressive too and holds 300 entries. There is also the option of storing multiple numbers per contact.
• The T9 texting option makes message typing a breeze. It is also very simple to change between the standard and T9 mode.
• The phone has a great coverage area and very strong signal strength.
• It also packs the option of voice commands and voice trains very easily.
• The phone comes with the usual extras like Alarm, Calendar, Calculator, Stopwatch, World Clock, Notepad, Unit Converter, EZ Tip Calculator
• It packs a nice bundle of games like Sudoku and Reversi.
• The vibrating motor is pretty strong and the volume of the ringtone drops as soon as you open the flap.
• You have the option of going into the flight mode and yet playing games.
• The keyboard is bigger than in other such phones and hence easier to operate.

The LG 200C lets you down on these features:

• Its round shape makes it difficult to get in and out of a cell phone holder.
• No downloads are available on this phone so you can’t download that favorite song of yours if you want to.
• The smooth black case easily collects fingerprints and smudges.

You can go for the LG200C if you want a simple phone that works well and has a great battery life. It easily scores over its predecessor, the LG 3280.

A new candy bar phone enters the prepaid arena: Kyocera K126C. The phone is a dual band CDMA Tracfone and has a black and white display. The phone has some interesting features like color filter and has a solid speaker phone. The price range is very much similar to the Motorola C139 but Kyocera K126C scores much better than the Motorola contender .The phone also sports some features which are omitted from the C139.

Some Interesting Features:

• The phone is basically a nice compact and sturdy phone having the following dimensions: 104 x 46.5 x 16.5 mm. Kyocera K126C has a pretty light weight only weighing 2.68 oz or just 76 gm
• The screen is compact but serves the purpose and has a resolution of 96 x 64 pixels, the phone doesn’t have a colored screen but the screen is pretty good and has features like color filter which makes it clear.
• The phone is brimming with handy basic features like the Alarm, Calendar, Calculator, Stopwatch and World Clock and also has an interesting feature called the tip calculator for people visiting the restaurant frequently.
• The phone has caller groups support which is an added feature .Phonebook can store up to 200 contacts which quite a lot considering the compact size of the phone.
• The battery of the phone is Li-ion 900mAh and is quite good considering the phone talk time is up to 3 hours and the phone delivers a Standby time of 220 hours that is about 9 days which is excellent by the phone standards.
• Considering the texting features of this phone, they are quite good, normal text input is but natural there, apart from that the text input the phone also sports a dictionary, it is not exactly the T9 but EZI texting is very much similar.

Some downsides of this cell phone:

• The phone is basically an “emergency Phone” and can’t be used for everyday usage cause at the end of the day the phone is very basic and may not be interesting to some.
• The usage of the phone actually depends on how much one really needs the CDMA phone with a wide roaming coverage. Meanwhile this phone can act as a emergency phone for a travelling GSM user.
• The battery might look really good but once you combine the Talktime and the Standby time, the battery starts dying out really quickly.

Basically, the Kyocera K126C is a good travelling emergency phone which has a good battery life. Most of the features it packs score over the Motorola C139 so if you want a better phone, it is advised you go for the Kyocera K126C.

The Motorola C139 is a phone meant for those who want to use a phone for its obvious function, that is, to make and receive calls. It’s a smart and sleek phone designed in a simple and uncomplicated way with no camera, music player and other fancy features to divert your attention. Some of the key features of this phone are:

• Its compact (4.0 by 1.8 by 0.9 inches) and easy to carry weighing about 3 ounces.
• The rubberized slider gives it a good grip and an external antenna is also absent.
• The display is small but colourful providing a array of 65,000 hues.
• The menu is organized and user friendly and can be arranged in an order that suits you.
• You can personalize the C139 with a selection of wallpapers and screensavers.
• It surprisingly packs the feature of composing your own ringtone if you want choices beyond the 20 monophonic tunes.
• You get most of the essentials, including a vibrate mode, speed dialing, text messaging, a calculator, a currency converter, a stopwatch, a calendar with a day and week views, and an alarm clock.
• It comes with three simple games; Maze, Spring Ball and Soccer.
• The talk time provided is exceptional lasting as long as 11.5 hours as is the standby time of 18.75 days.
• Also the dual-band (GSM 850/1900) is decent and offers little interference ad disturbance.

However, the phone disappoints you in some categories such as:

• It lacks a speaker phone, a feature present in almost all of today’s most basic phones.
• The navigation array is a bit confusing compelling you to shift keys frequently. The menu button does not double up as the OK button which is the case in most other phones.
• There is no volume button on the sides so you have to remove the phone from your ear to regulate the volume.
• The phone memory can only hold 100 contacts which may be insufficient for most users. Although the SIM card can hold an additional 250 contacts, its not very helpful if a contact has multiple numbers.

All in all, the Motorola C139 is a good basic phone if you want to avoid the hassles of fancy features and easily scores over the Nokia 1680 in the same price range.

But if you want a sleeker phone with more features and are willing to shell out a few more pennies, then it’s a good idea to opt for the Motorola Rokr E8.

The Motorola V170 is a simple yet reliable Tracfone cell phone that works on GSM 900 and GSM 1800. The phone is uncomplicated, hassle-free, lasts a long time and includes the following features:

• It is a flip phone with comfortable elevated buttons in an easy-to-use layout.
• The V170 measures 3.6 X 1.92 X 0.92 and weighs 3.7 ounces and is therefore more comfortable to use than other lighter phones. It also fits in easily in a handbag’s cell phone pouch.
• The V170 is compatible with worldwide GSM and is suitable for overseas travelers also.
• If you get a $20 package directly from Tracfone, then you get a 60 minute airtime card and a promo code for getting an additional 60 minutes when you activate the card.
• The battery life is pretty good lasting 6 hours at a stretch. Although you may not want to talk for 6 hours on your prepaid phone, but you could.
• The standby time is around 12.5 days which is more than sufficient and means that you could go without recharging your phone for more than a week.
• Interestingly, it is Bluetooth enabled which although not essential could be used if you want to use a wireless headset or transfer data from your laptop.
• The V170 is a Single Rate phone which means that you are charged 1 unit per minute. Plus, there are no roaming charges and you can make international calls without any additional charges.
• You can send and receive text messages at 0.3 units both ways.
• It is easier to send, read and type text messages because of the easy-to-use elevated buttons arranged in a way that you don’t have to switch button too often. Common messages can be stored from beforehand and used later on, when required.
• You can send Voicemail pretty easily and the Tracfone system is efficient enough so that you don’t use more than 1 or 2 minutes.
• You can customize your wallpaper and screensaver and choose from a range of 20 ringtones.
• You can see your balance and expiry date without having to send a text message or call another number.

The phone however lacks some pretty important features:

• The screen is very small and does not boast of a variety of colours like many other Tracfones.
• The games are confusing and some way to easy.
• The phone is not equipped with a camera or a video recorder.
• It does not come with a music player.
• It also does not have a speaker phone which could be handy in certain situations.

The V170 is a convenient, user-friendly phone. Although it does not come with a lot of additional features, it works for a long time and serves the purpose pretty well.

However, you could try the Sony Ericsson K610im or the Sony Ericsson V630 which have been rated higher than the Motorola V170.