Motorola C450 GSM phone review

The Motorola C450 model is almost a complete analog of the previous C350, if you want what this model was supposed to be from the very beginning. External differences are not too striking, the device looks exactly the same as the previous model C350. The first change you see as soon as you take the device in your hands, it has become a little thicker (2 mm), now its dimensions are 98 x 42 x 20 mm. The large thickness of the phone is primarily due to a different battery capacity, now it is not 650 mAh, but 750. An increase in capacity guarantees from 6 to 12 "extra" hours of standby time, the device works on average for about 3-4 days at 20-30 minutes conversations.

It is curious that batteries from C350 are suitable for C450, the reverse situation is also possible. But in the case of the C350, you will have to install the back cover from the C450, as the battery protrudes a lot. The panels, as you might guess, are interchangeable, but when installing the panel from the C450 to the younger model, there will always be free space between the wall and the battery.

Considering that panels from C33x were quite suitable for C350, it is also possible for C450, but with a battery from C350 (the new battery is thicker, it will have to be changed to a less capacious one).

The weight of the phone has increased slightly, by 6 grams, now the device weighs 86 grams, which is quite acceptable.

The color screen is made using STN technology and displays up to 4096 colors, its resolution is 96×65 pixels. The screen accommodates up to three lines of text, a line of labels for soft keys and a service line with icons. It should be noted that this screen does not look like a champion among similar models, its color reproduction is not as good as that of Nokia and Alcatel products. At the same time, in its price segment, it is quite acceptable and in demand.

The phone's keyboard is made of plastic, all the number keys have a facet, they are ribbed to the touch. The keys are surprisingly easy to work with, which cannot be said about the convenience of soft keys and navigation buttons, they are made at an average level. The Menu key, inscribed in the navigation keys, sometimes causes difficulties, instead it is psychologically easier to press the up arrow. This is prompted by the fact that on the screen just above this key is the corresponding icon in the standby mode. In the Russian version, the keyboard has two rows of characters, Latin and Cyrillic. The backlight of the keyboard is white, while the characters are clearly visible indoors, in bright sunlight they are not always distinguishable, too bright light starts to play on the edges, and the font size is small.

On the bottom of the phone you can see the mini-USB connector, it can be used to connect to a PC and synchronize data, as well as networking. The cable will have to be purchased separately, however, as well as the corresponding software. Nearby is a charger connector, as well as a headset connector.

In this device, the SIM card holder is located under the battery, in order to remove the card, just move the slider, a convenient and simple solution.

Finally, it should be said that the hardware platform itself, unlike the C350, has undergone changes, a hardware clock has appeared, now the time does not go astray when the battery is removed. Moreover, thanks to the built-in clock (RTC), it became possible to implement the alarm function separately, which is not typical for a device of this class from Motorola.

Because the similarity of the two models is literally complete, we will allow ourselves to quote excerpts from the Motorola C350 review, but before that, let's note the main differences in the new model.

Firstly, the phone has a separate dedicated alarm clock, we have already mentioned this. Secondly, the ability to download Java applications has been added. With the C350, Java technology support was a thing in itself, you couldn't download new applications or delete old ones. Immediately it became possible, the corresponding item appeared in the menu. At the same time, the amount of memory of the phone has expanded, now it has not 1 MB as before, but as much as 2 MB. The memory distribution is as follows, 950 KB is allocated for Java applications, including pre-installed ones. This is the maximum size for programs, the size of one program is not more than 512 KB. About 700 KB are occupied by various ringtones, pictures, screen savers – apparently you can’t delete them. And about 350 Kb is allocated for the ability to save your ringtones, pictures and other things. That is, the total memory has become equal to 2 MB with a little.

Finally, the latest innovation is support for MMS messages, everything here is similar to older devices, for example, Motorola T720i. There is only one page in one post, where you can add only one picture, it's sad.

The following are the main characteristics of the device, which have not changed compared to the Motorola C350. Of course, screensavers, some pre-installed pictures have undergone a change, but this is also possible on the C350.

In the C450, the main menu is represented by a circle of labeled icons, a typical organization for all recent models. Quick menu navigation using number sequences is not provided. As a replacement or even an analogue of quick navigation, there is the MyMenu function. You can create a shortcut to any menu item and then get to it with two clicks.

Phone book. Up to 100 numbers can be stored in the phone's memory, and several phones can be stored for one name, but the total number of entries cannot exceed 100. The general list displays numbers from both the phone's memory and the SIM card. All names for which multiple numbers are stored are displayed multiple times, one after the other, with the phone type icon displayed on the right. In addition to numbers, you can also record email addresses , as well as group individual names into categories. For each name, it is possible to choose a call option and an icon that will be displayed when calling. For 25 numbers, voice tags can be recorded, recognition works well.

Messages. Up to 20 SMS messages can be stored in the device's memory. Supports SMS chat function, you can create templates. The phone supports the EMS standard, so it has pictures and melodies to use when composing messages. In our version of the phone, it took about 4 seconds to open a single message, experiments with different SIM cards showed that the time for all was approximately the same. There was a feeling that the limitation is not even the time of reading information from the card, but the time of drawing the picture on the screen.

Media Center. media centre. From this menu item you can access demo images, animations, melodies. MotoMixer is also located here – a music editor with which you can create your own versions of melodies. There are only 35 of them, plus it is possible to create up to 32 melodies. A new feature that appeared for the first time in this device is themes, with their help you can immediately change the screen saver, wallpaper and some design elements.

Chat. Chat. This menu contains SMS chat, creating a separate menu item for this function is highly doubtful, since not many people use it often.

Voice dialing. Voice dialing (20 tags) is a separate item of the main menu. It is convenient that in one list you can view all the names from the phone book for which there is a label, it is not convenient that this item is located here, and not in the menu of the book itself.

Parameters. Traditionally, security settings, wap-browser settings, choice of menu language, backlight operation time are collected here. The phone has screen savers – regular or animated images. You can set the time after which the screen saver starts working (in minutes, select from the list). When the screensaver starts, the backlight of the screen turns on for a short time, this is done on purpose, because otherwise the image on the screen simply cannot be seen.

Office tools. office tools. Up to 500 entries can be saved in the phone's memory, and there are no separate alarms, so organizer entries are used as their replacement. There is an auto-delete of old events, the ability to assign a reminder, repeat an event. There is no calendar as such, only a screen with one week and a list of days is displayed. The same menu contains a standard calculator.

Ring styles. Ring styles. The user can find all settings related to calls in this menu. Nothing special.

Recent Calls (Recent Calls). It is this menu item that is highlighted when you enter the menu, from which you can view a list of the last 10 dialed phones, as well as 20 received and missed calls. An interesting feature of the phone is that pressing the call send key from standby mode shows only a list of the last dialed numbers. In order to see missed calls, you need to climb into the menu (and this is as many as 3 clicks, or 2 if you added an item to MyMenu). The downside is the fact that missed calls are shown as such only once when you view information about them for the first time, then they just appear as received, you can't see that they were missed.

The same menu contains information about the time of calls, the amount of received and transmitted information (both in bytes and minutes).

Speed Dial. Quick Dial. In this menu, you can configure the speed dial keys, assign individual numbers to individual keys.

Fixed set. fixed dial. Basically the same, but only for three numbers.

Web sessions. web sessions. Settings for WAP via CSD or GPRS, the localized version immediately contains all WAP and GPRS settings for working with MTS, Beeline, Megafon.

Browser. Browser. The wap-browser version 2 is installed in the phone, all functions are standard.

Web Access. Access to the browser is duplicated, as well as viewing history, a list of favorites, saved pages.

Games. There are three Java-games in the phone, one of them is familiar from T720 (motoGP race), due to the worse screen it is not so pleasant to play, but you can still spend a lot of time playing it. Astrosmash is a space arcade game, while Snood21 is a card game, somewhat akin to the well-known point game.

Impressions

The device is fully consistent with the Motorola C350 in terms of the quality of communication and its capabilities, which means that there are no problems with it, it provides reliable communication. The volume of the 16-tone polyphony is still low, calls can be missed. The vibrating alert is average in strength or even slightly weaker, it does not correct the situation.

Innovations in the new model compared to the C350 can be described as a more capacious battery, full Java support, increased memory, MMS support. The model will be delivered to European markets from the end of September, the estimated price will be about 120 Euros. I don't presume to judge how attractive this solution will be, if there is a cheaper analogue in the face of the C350, it is unlikely. After all, not so many users in this segment are actively in need of MMS, Java, in order to overpay for the device about 20-30 Euros. On the other hand, new users will be attracted to the C550 model, which offers the same functionality plus a built-in digital camera.

Motorola C450 GSM phone review

The Motorola C450 model is almost a complete analog of the previous C350, if you want what this model was supposed to be from the very beginning. External differences are not too striking, the device looks exactly the same as the previous C350 model. The first change you see as soon as you pick up the device is that it has become a bit thicker (2 mm), now its dimensions are 98 x 42 x 20 mm. The large thickness of the phone is primarily due to a different battery capacity, now it is not 650 mAh, but 750. An increase in capacity guarantees from 6 to 12 "extra" hours of standby time, the device works on average for about 3-4 days at 20-30 minutes conversations.

The weight of the phone has increased slightly, by 6 grams, now the device weighs 86 grams, which is quite acceptable.

In this device, the SIM card holder is located under the battery, in order to remove the card, just move the slider, a convenient and simple solution.

Since the similarity of the two models is literally complete, let's take the liberty of citing excerpts from the review of the Motorola C350, but before that, let's note the main differences in the new model.

In the C450, the main menu is represented by a circle of labeled icons, a typical organization for all recent models. Quick menu navigation using number sequences is not provided. As a replacement or even an analogue of quick navigation, there is a MyMenu function. You can create a shortcut to any menu item and then double click to access it.