Motorola EX-115 Dual SIM Review
Introduction:-
The dual sim mobile phone market is very saturated with small manufacturers like Micromax, Spice and other brands enjoying almost total domination of this market segment over the bigger, more established names in the business like Nokia, Samsung and LG who all want a slice of this lucrative segment which they ignored for a long time. Motorola quietly mounted an offensive on the dual sim mobile market segment a couple of months back when they announced their EX-115, which is a QWERTY keypad based dual sim mobile and the EX-128, a touch screen phone with an intuitive Java based OS.
Telecommunications giant, Motorola, is the grandfather of mobile phones. With many amazing innovations and firsts to their credit along with their Six-Sigma for excellence which is a by-word in absolute excellence in a product or service. However a few years back they fell way behind the rest of the Big names and with Samsung and LG overtaking them globally in sales as well as customer satisfaction the future looked bleak. They packed up their operations in India and left (that is what most of the mobile phone vendors tell customers and Motorola phones as a result had zero resale value). However they aim to make a strong comeback with these dual sim models as well as their updated line up of basic as well as high end phones. Let’s see what the Motorola EX-115 has to offer.
Technical Specifications:-
The official specifications from Motorola’s product page:-
The exposure standard for mobile phones employs a unit of measurement known as SAR (Specific Absorption Rate). The SAR limit recommended by the EU Council is 2.0 W/kg.
The highest SAR value for this model phone was 0.893 W/kg and the lowest value was 0.684 W /kg.
For more details kindly visit the product page here: - Motorola EX115 - Camera Phone - Tech Specs - Motorola India
Un-boxing:-
The Motorola EX-115 comes in a small, compact box with the basic specifications and the USP of the phone mentioned clearly. The box design is attractive and is sturdy enough to protect the phone and its accessories in transit.
The contents of the box are as follows:-
930 mAH battery
Hands-free kit
User manual
Warranty Card
This is a sparse bundle by any standards. I would’ve preferred an USB data cable at least. No memory card was bundled with the phone and I had to review the phone with a 2 Gb micro sd card. On the up side the user manual is very comprehensive and has coloured images to assist the user to learn the functions of the phone.
Design and Construction:-
The Motorola EX-115 has been code-named Starling. It has dimensions of 109 x 61 x 12.4 mm and weighs 102.2 gms. The construction of the phone is much better than the Nokia C-3. It has a sturdy and a solid feel to it. The back panel is made of rubberized plastic and offers amazing grip. The EX-115 is smaller when compared to the Nokia C-3. The phone feels good when held in the hand.
The phone is slim at the sides and has a single port that on the left hand side which is used to connect the charger and the data cable.
On the right hand side of the phone are the volume control keys.
At the top is the 3.5mm jack where one can connect their own headphones/ earphones or the default hands free kit provided with the phone.
The 2.3 inch TFT screen is capable of displaying 256K colours and has a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels. The screen is not only bright, but also produces rich and vivid colours. The legibility under direct sun light is good. The display has good viewing angles.
On removing the battery cover we find the dual sim card slots and a memory card slot. The phone supports micro-sd cards of capacities of up to 32 Gb.
The keypad is good and has responsive keys which make messaging a nice experience. The D-pad is used to navigate the menus and control the media player. There is a dedicated camera key as well.
User Interface:-
The phone comes with the typical Java based user interface which has been so common in phones based on this OS but it has an upmarket and refined feel to it. It has quite a lot of features to offer. The navigation is simple using the D-pad. There is no lag and everything works smoothly. Everything is quite detailed which makes the operation of the handset rather easy. The menu animation and overall appearance of the phone can be changed by playing with various themes.
The phone comes with 50 Mb of inbuilt memory. I used a Kingmax 2Gb Micro-sd card to test the phone. The file manager is good and offers detailed information along with many options to play around with.
The Organizer section has the standard features such as the calendar, world clock and alarm clock along with tasks. Calculator and currency converter tools are there as well.
The settings section has the usual phone settings, network settings, security and connectivity settings and the dual sim settings.
Motorola EX115 allows you to stay connected to all your friends as it offers access to different social networking sites like Myspace, Gmail, Facebook etc. The phone comes with social networking applications pre-installed. The phone also comes with the Opera browser which happens to be the default browser for surfing the internet. The speed and performance are good as this phone has EDGE support.
The phone-book can store unlimited contacts. You can set the phone-book to display contacts from the phone memory, SIM memory or both. You can assign ring-tones to each contact.
Telephony:-
The telephony in the Motorola EX-115 is decent. The signal reception on this phone was good. The in-call sound was crisp and clear. There were no call drops or reception issues at all both in the single sim mode as well as the dual sim mode. The loudspeaker is excellent and offers loud, crisp and clear sound. The phone has both SIMs active at all times. One can receive calls on both sim cards and can select the sim card to make outgoing calls or outgoing messages. The sim selection can be done in the settings menu.
When on a call from SIM1; SIM2 is not reachable or switched off. But if your using SIM1 and get another call simultaneously on SIM1 it becomes a waiting call automatically.
Messaging:-
The messaging department is certainly up to the task and is somewhat common when it comes to the interface if compared with other Java based QWERTY phones. The Motorola EX-115 is capable of handling all the common message types including SMS, MMS and audio messages and there’s easy email handling too.
Group Messaging is not possible on this phone.One cannot send bulk messages. We have to manually select one contact after the other.Also another missing feature is that we cannot select multiple contacts at one go to send the message to.
Multimedia:-
I was expecting the multimedia capabilities of this phone to be somewhat dull but then it blew me away with its amazing sound quality and acceptable camera performance.
The media player supports MP3, H.263, WAV, AAC, MIDI, AMR NB formats. The sound quality of the loudspeaker was really good. Playback through the bundled hands-free was not so satisfying however this phone comes with a 3.5 mm jack and I could plug my Soundmagic PL-11 IEMs which was a much more satisfying experience. The music player has visualizations as well.
The Motorola EX-115 has a fixed focus 3.2 MP camera with digital zoom. I was expecting the camera to be poor but it turned out to be quite good. The daylight snaps were decent with good colour reproduction and the night shots were acceptable but not very good due to the lack of flash. The camera has loads of customization options and one can expect decent snaps at all times. The video recording is of poor quality at 15FPS QCIF.
Some sample snaps:-
The image viewer application is decent and the phone also comes with a bundled photo editing software.
The FM radio functionality is good and the signal reception is good. There is an inbuilt sound recorder as well. FM recording functions are present as well.
Connectivity:-
This phone is a quad band GSM phone with EDGE Class 10 support. The phone also comes with Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP and EDR. The phone supports USB 2.0 connectivity and can be connected to the pc with the Motorola phone suite or as a mass storage device. Motorola didn’t provide a data cable along with the phone to keep costs down.
Battery:-
The 930 mah Lithium-ion battery offers talk time of nearly 180 minutes and a standby time of almost 240 hours. One can easily expect the phone to last for 2-3 days with moderate to heavy usage before charging it.
Conclusion:-
The Motorola EX-115 came across as somewhat of a surprise to me. I was expecting this phone to be similar to the Spice or Micromax phones which have the flooded the market of late but it is way better than any of them. It is a dual sim phone which looks very elegant. It is extremely well made, well finished and feels heavy if you hold it. The performance of the phone is acceptable and the multimedia performance is very good. The SAR ratings are low as well for the more health conscious users. Overall Motorola seems to have done a very good job with the EX-115.
The Motorola EX-115 cost me Rs.4800 inclusive of a data cable and VAT. If one plans to spend Rs.4000-Rs.5000 on a decent QWERTY keypad based dual sim phone the Motorola EX-115 should definitely be considered.
Thanks to TE Member Abracadabra for his valuable contributions to the review.
Introduction:-
The dual sim mobile phone market is very saturated with small manufacturers like Micromax, Spice and other brands enjoying almost total domination of this market segment over the bigger, more established names in the business like Nokia, Samsung and LG who all want a slice of this lucrative segment which they ignored for a long time. Motorola quietly mounted an offensive on the dual sim mobile market segment a couple of months back when they announced their EX-115, which is a QWERTY keypad based dual sim mobile and the EX-128, a touch screen phone with an intuitive Java based OS.
Telecommunications giant, Motorola, is the grandfather of mobile phones. With many amazing innovations and firsts to their credit along with their Six-Sigma for excellence which is a by-word in absolute excellence in a product or service. However a few years back they fell way behind the rest of the Big names and with Samsung and LG overtaking them globally in sales as well as customer satisfaction the future looked bleak. They packed up their operations in India and left (that is what most of the mobile phone vendors tell customers and Motorola phones as a result had zero resale value). However they aim to make a strong comeback with these dual sim models as well as their updated line up of basic as well as high end phones. Let’s see what the Motorola EX-115 has to offer.
Technical Specifications:-
The official specifications from Motorola’s product page:-
The exposure standard for mobile phones employs a unit of measurement known as SAR (Specific Absorption Rate). The SAR limit recommended by the EU Council is 2.0 W/kg.
The highest SAR value for this model phone was 0.893 W/kg and the lowest value was 0.684 W /kg.
For more details kindly visit the product page here: - Motorola EX115 - Camera Phone - Tech Specs - Motorola India
Un-boxing:-
The Motorola EX-115 comes in a small, compact box with the basic specifications and the USP of the phone mentioned clearly. The box design is attractive and is sturdy enough to protect the phone and its accessories in transit.
The contents of the box are as follows:-
930 mAH battery
Hands-free kit
User manual
Warranty Card
This is a sparse bundle by any standards. I would’ve preferred an USB data cable at least. No memory card was bundled with the phone and I had to review the phone with a 2 Gb micro sd card. On the up side the user manual is very comprehensive and has coloured images to assist the user to learn the functions of the phone.
Design and Construction:-
The Motorola EX-115 has been code-named Starling. It has dimensions of 109 x 61 x 12.4 mm and weighs 102.2 gms. The construction of the phone is much better than the Nokia C-3. It has a sturdy and a solid feel to it. The back panel is made of rubberized plastic and offers amazing grip. The EX-115 is smaller when compared to the Nokia C-3. The phone feels good when held in the hand.
The phone is slim at the sides and has a single port that on the left hand side which is used to connect the charger and the data cable.
On the right hand side of the phone are the volume control keys.
At the top is the 3.5mm jack where one can connect their own headphones/ earphones or the default hands free kit provided with the phone.
The 2.3 inch TFT screen is capable of displaying 256K colours and has a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels. The screen is not only bright, but also produces rich and vivid colours. The legibility under direct sun light is good. The display has good viewing angles.
On removing the battery cover we find the dual sim card slots and a memory card slot. The phone supports micro-sd cards of capacities of up to 32 Gb.
The keypad is good and has responsive keys which make messaging a nice experience. The D-pad is used to navigate the menus and control the media player. There is a dedicated camera key as well.
User Interface:-
The phone comes with the typical Java based user interface which has been so common in phones based on this OS but it has an upmarket and refined feel to it. It has quite a lot of features to offer. The navigation is simple using the D-pad. There is no lag and everything works smoothly. Everything is quite detailed which makes the operation of the handset rather easy. The menu animation and overall appearance of the phone can be changed by playing with various themes.
The phone comes with 50 Mb of inbuilt memory. I used a Kingmax 2Gb Micro-sd card to test the phone. The file manager is good and offers detailed information along with many options to play around with.
The Organizer section has the standard features such as the calendar, world clock and alarm clock along with tasks. Calculator and currency converter tools are there as well.
The settings section has the usual phone settings, network settings, security and connectivity settings and the dual sim settings.
Motorola EX115 allows you to stay connected to all your friends as it offers access to different social networking sites like Myspace, Gmail, Facebook etc. The phone comes with social networking applications pre-installed. The phone also comes with the Opera browser which happens to be the default browser for surfing the internet. The speed and performance are good as this phone has EDGE support.
The phone-book can store unlimited contacts. You can set the phone-book to display contacts from the phone memory, SIM memory or both. You can assign ring-tones to each contact.
Telephony:-
The telephony in the Motorola EX-115 is decent. The signal reception on this phone was good. The in-call sound was crisp and clear. There were no call drops or reception issues at all both in the single sim mode as well as the dual sim mode. The loudspeaker is excellent and offers loud, crisp and clear sound. The phone has both SIMs active at all times. One can receive calls on both sim cards and can select the sim card to make outgoing calls or outgoing messages. The sim selection can be done in the settings menu.
When on a call from SIM1; SIM2 is not reachable or switched off. But if your using SIM1 and get another call simultaneously on SIM1 it becomes a waiting call automatically.
Messaging:-
The messaging department is certainly up to the task and is somewhat common when it comes to the interface if compared with other Java based QWERTY phones. The Motorola EX-115 is capable of handling all the common message types including SMS, MMS and audio messages and there’s easy email handling too.
Group Messaging is not possible on this phone.One cannot send bulk messages. We have to manually select one contact after the other.Also another missing feature is that we cannot select multiple contacts at one go to send the message to.
Multimedia:-
I was expecting the multimedia capabilities of this phone to be somewhat dull but then it blew me away with its amazing sound quality and acceptable camera performance.
The media player supports MP3, H.263, WAV, AAC, MIDI, AMR NB formats. The sound quality of the loudspeaker was really good. Playback through the bundled hands-free was not so satisfying however this phone comes with a 3.5 mm jack and I could plug my Soundmagic PL-11 IEMs which was a much more satisfying experience. The music player has visualizations as well.
The Motorola EX-115 has a fixed focus 3.2 MP camera with digital zoom. I was expecting the camera to be poor but it turned out to be quite good. The daylight snaps were decent with good colour reproduction and the night shots were acceptable but not very good due to the lack of flash. The camera has loads of customization options and one can expect decent snaps at all times. The video recording is of poor quality at 15FPS QCIF.
Some sample snaps:-
The image viewer application is decent and the phone also comes with a bundled photo editing software.
The FM radio functionality is good and the signal reception is good. There is an inbuilt sound recorder as well. FM recording functions are present as well.
Connectivity:-
This phone is a quad band GSM phone with EDGE Class 10 support. The phone also comes with Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP and EDR. The phone supports USB 2.0 connectivity and can be connected to the pc with the Motorola phone suite or as a mass storage device. Motorola didn’t provide a data cable along with the phone to keep costs down.
Battery:-
The 930 mah Lithium-ion battery offers talk time of nearly 180 minutes and a standby time of almost 240 hours. One can easily expect the phone to last for 2-3 days with moderate to heavy usage before charging it.
Conclusion:-
The Motorola EX-115 came across as somewhat of a surprise to me. I was expecting this phone to be similar to the Spice or Micromax phones which have the flooded the market of late but it is way better than any of them. It is a dual sim phone which looks very elegant. It is extremely well made, well finished and feels heavy if you hold it. The performance of the phone is acceptable and the multimedia performance is very good. The SAR ratings are low as well for the more health conscious users. Overall Motorola seems to have done a very good job with the EX-115.
The Motorola EX-115 cost me Rs.4800 inclusive of a data cable and VAT. If one plans to spend Rs.4000-Rs.5000 on a decent QWERTY keypad based dual sim phone the Motorola EX-115 should definitely be considered.
Thanks to TE Member Abracadabra for his valuable contributions to the review.
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