Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I gave it 3 stars because it could go either way. There are two ways to look at this phone:
1. One of the coolest, most feature-loaded phones for the price.
2. A super-cheap deal on an advanced smartphone.
If you are in category 1, this phone will be awesome. You won't find a touchscreen phone any cheaper, and this one also has some fancy organizer features, good volume, a handy set of customizable shortcut bars, and a menu system which allows you to filter which kind of menu options are displayed. The on-screen keyboard system works pretty well.
However, if you are in category 2, this will be a very disappointing substitute for other phones which cost as much as the a810's original price. The menu is slow, and many sub-menus require several seconds of a "processing" icon before they will open. The web browser is slow, even for EDGE. It can only run one Java application at once (you will be prompted to close one if you open another). The email client has no auto-connect options at all. For such an apparently-slow processor (I couldn't find any official rating, but menu response is slow), it doesn't have very good battery life (normally the upside to slow phones). It also cannot run Opera Mini v5 (4 works), which most of my older phones handle OK.
And one big problem if you want this specific phone for advanced uses... it either doesn't have any security certificates included, or at least not any common certificates (I couldn't find a way to view the list, but it fails either way). This can cause problems trying to establish secure email connections, which makes the built-in email client useless unless you want to pass on security. The phone also has problems with signed Java applications, so I can only install the unsigned version of Opera Mini (and then the phone has the nerve to "warn" me that it is unsigned every time I use it). This is the second secondary-market Motorola I have tried (these phones are "new", but were probably overstock reflashed to unbranded or US firmware) which had this issue.
The bottom line is, don't get this thinking it is an amazing deal on a high-end phone, because the ultimate functionality is more like an average phone plus the touchscreen interface. But if you have a fixed budget of a hundred bucks for any kind of phone at all, this is a very cool alternative to newer phones in that price range, which will truly be entry-level.
If for some reason you need a more advanced phone for a similar price, try one of the low-priced Samsung Blackjack models currently available. You will have to be OK with the rather unpleasant Windows Mobile platform, and lose the touchscreen, but it will be able to handle things the a810 fumbles with.Update:
I was originally going to keep this phone as a spare or physical labor phone when I don't want to risk my "good" ones, since it is so cheap. But now even Opera won't run. The popup to allow internet access freezes up, and nothing works. I have to reboot to shut down the program, and even then it doesn't always work. Re-installing Opera or GMail works for a while, but that is too annoying.
Update 2:
"onewebmall" is a scam website which steals reviews. I wrote this review for Amazon, not some Internet leach which steals reviews to get high search engine rankings.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Motorola A810 Shang-Chi Unlocked Phone with GPRS, 2MP Camera, Video Playback, Recording, 3GPP, MPEG4, Touch Screen with Advanced Motorola Handwriting Recognition, MP3, FM Radio, and Bluetooth--International Version with No Warranty (White)
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