Motorola PEBL (Pink) / Reviews

I've had this phone for 2 and a half years, and i like it a lot. Mine broke twice in the 1st year while it was still under warinty, and both times they gave me a new phone but since then it has worked wonderfully. i like the buttons because my fingers just slide over them as i am texting, and they are not big or small. The thing i don't like most about this phone is it will only hold 40 messages in the inbox at a time, and i always have to delete them. I still get complements daily, and mine is pretty beat up. (i don't take very good care of it.) It is my 1st phone, so i can't compare it to anything else, but i love it a lot

I own one, and its okay for talking, but I text more, and this ohones keys are too small! Its magnets are cool at first, but then they just get annoying! It has horrible reception, I can barely get reception in my own house let alone down my street. The top screen is now crooked from opening it, and it has a problem where the bottom gets damaged somehow, so every 15min or so it loses service completely, then goes completely white, then restarts! It has bad memory, and horrid picture quality

Also, the part that covers the battery now falls off by gently sliding a finger past it... Not Good...

Good Reception, Excellent camera, nice loud ring, Button on side sometimes cancels ring if you have a bunch on junk in you pocket

Pro: none

Con: EVERYTHING

it breaks all the time. i had to send mine back to tmobile 6 times and they were all broken!

This has to be the absolute worst phone in the world. Menus suck, reception is lousy, it has problems with bluetooth signal quality and is constantly telling me to switch to the handset, the battery life is good for about an hour or two at most of talking, the keypad is hard to use because the directional pad has an awkward shape. I go this phone for free and hate it! I will glady pay money to get a phone that I feel is functional. The only good thing about it is the fact that it has a nice one handed opening mechanism. Thats it. There is nothing else worthy of even mentioning of this unfortunate waste of plastic.

While the PEBL is definitely the most stylish phone out there and I do appreciate its design and feel, I've had big problems with it.

I've had it about eight months and all along there have been weird things, like entries in my phone book randomly disappearing (!) and the ringer often not working.

Worse, though, is that I live in Vancouver where it rains a lot and Motorola phones aren't waterproofed enough. When I answered the phone outside recently, the keypad stopped working because some rainwater leaked in. Meanwhile Fido's warranty is voided if there's water damage. Great, just great. Not.

Pro: For the most part it is a good phone, but i find i get alot of dropped calls and for the first month the ringer didn't work and I missed alot of calls. I enjoy the cute design and the easy flip mechanism, but it is still slow in scrolling, sending messages, etc.

Got this phone to replace a V551 (also Motorola)

Pro's
looks good
easy to hold
cool in general
stays in pocket better than the boxy razr or krazr, and doesn't "poke" you with its corners or antenna
scratches less easily b/c of rubberized coating
has a "name dial' voice activiated dial function that does not require your "voice training" each entry
non-color external window is less of a battery drain
decent battery life (I charge about every 3 days)
decent ringtone selection that comes with phone (better than v551)
T-mobile service is great in my area (Los Angeles): better than Cingular
good voice quality and volume (less tin-y than the Samsung I once had)

Cons
No actual voice recorder-- you cannot record your voice while in middle of a conversation-- When not in conversation, you can use 'voice notes' which is like sending a voice-text-message, but you are charged every time you use it, even if you're sending a note to yourself. This is my hands down biggest disappointment with this phone.

Difficult to type on keypad -- I'm fairly young and hip (in my twenties) and still found this more difficult than I expected. given the voice activated dialing, and the fact that you can sync w/ your computer via bluetooth-- it isn't too much of a problem (just enter numbers on your computer, then sync). If you are constantly dialing numbers you don't store in your phone-- this might not be the phone for you.

I'm not big into pictures, music, and data on my phone-- that's why I have a camera, ipod, and a laptop.

If switching companies, and keeping your number, I think Amazon lets you get a temporary T-mobile number. Without a temporary number, T-mobile may shut down your other service before the phone comes in the mail (which happened to me and wasn't cool! Typical, I believe, if you order from T-mobile directly.)

I've had mine for about 5 weeks and have had nothing but trouble. First the ringer often won't work resulting in a lot of missed calls (I have it set at 'vibrate then ring' set at maximum volume). Then the bluetooth wouldn't work. Then when answering or making a call I couldn't hear the caller or be heard. And the battery would run down waaaay too fast and die, which I wouldn't know because the low battery tone wouldn't work. I finally took it in and had it replaced, now after less than a day, the ringer on the replacement doesn't work either.

Aside from the lemon aspect, I find the buttons a real pain to use. The clam shell flip hinge looks flimsly too and I suspect it'd wear out quite quickly.

The only plus is that it's signal strength is really quite good.

Overall, I'd avoid this phone at all costs.

I have to admit I like Motorola's phone designs. The PEBL has a very solid feel to it, and I really like its whole magnetic opening/closing mechanism.

Unfortunately, the software running on Motorola's phones has always been pretty weak, and the PEBL software doesn't offer any noticeable improvements over what's in my 3-year-old V600. Texting and scrolling are both still quite slow.

Motorola has swapped the locations of the call and hangup buttons from where they were on their older phones. This now matches with phones from other manufacturers, but it was "backwards" for me and took a little while to get used to.

Everything else is pretty much as advertised. Bluetooth works fine. The camera is mediocre but works.

T-Mobile was happy to unlock my phone after 90 days, which was useful on a trip to Europe where I was able to use a local SIM card. The PEBL's quad-band support worked well.