Too good. Review on Motorola E398

This is the first of the motorola phones tht challenges the class and design of the much hyped NOKIA phones in India.

The phone has a classy look. You see the phone once and you'll like its design for sure. For the first time the software designers of motorola seem to understand the needs of the end-users. The buttons are neatly carved and it gives no problem at all.

I mean there is seldom a chance for mis-pressing the keys. As for the joystick, its a 5-way button and u shd get used to it in a maximum of two days.

Coming to the design, it comes in the usual rectangular shape. It has got two excellent stereo-speakers in both of the sides. The speaker is extremely good inside a room but when in a crowd its no better than a low-grade toy speaker. It has got three buttons on the sides. Two on the left side and one on the right. All the buttons are customizable.

The main menu's design too is customizable. You can assign shortcuts for the four directional movements of joystick from the main menu. The menu is the usual 3*3 square grid. The arrangement can be altered to our need. One more useful feature is that the phone provides a security mechanism that you can enable so tht each time u switch on the phone, it asks u for the security code.

The camera comes with a handy 4x zoom. The pictures in daylight are excellent. At max u can get 640 x 480 when u transfer it to the computer via a data cable or blue tooth. The phone lacks an IR port. Many ppl keep complaining about the data cable tht comes with the phone for free.

But luckily for me its doing good. I cannot comment about tht part cos I'm not sure if its not checked properly b4 the product is delivered. The phone has got a powerful flash light but that hardly helps taking pictures in the night. When you keep the flash light close to an object, then you get a clear image.

The games are mediocre as in other motorola phones. but it supports java2 tht enables u to download ne free game of ur choice 4m the net. There are umpteen games available for this phone.

The phonebook allows u to store more than one number for a particular name. this comes in handy at times. As with other camera phones, the caller-id can be associated with a picture in the phone memory. (they 've excluded the option of using a picture in the flash card as it makes the phone slow to respond). The message facility is also good.

The phone allows u to create email msgs also. The phone comes with an IM (instant messenger). but I guess it wont b of much use to average indian mobile users cos no service provider gives this service for free.

The browser is excellent. You can store ur favourite pages in the memory!! The phone maintains a history of the pages tht u visited. There'z an option to create shortcuts for the homepages but still i'm not able to figure it out!

The polyphonic tones that comes with the phone are good. But what more can u ask if u r allowed to use mp3 ringtones for the incoming calls. Most of the items in the phone are customizable tht makes it very user friendly.

The phone comes with an internal memory of 5MB and an external flash card of 64MB (it comes free with the package). The s/w tht comes with the phone for the usage of data cable is buggy. It gives a lot of trouble when u try to access the flash card. But on the whole its Ok. The battery is pretty good. It comes for one n half days if u use it liberally.