Motorola Ti250 Review

Overall Rating

Size.
Silver Casing.
Feature Set.
Weight.
Screen and blue illumination

TrueSync Software.
Shape.
Menu button.
User interface design.

An interesting phone, but don't buy it blind. Marketed by Motorola as the alternative to the Nokia 6210 it boasts an impressive feature set including WAP, Voicenotes, T9 Predictive type, IR port and bundled software to allow synchronisation with a compatible PC.

Firstly the good parts, the size and weight are good, as is the large screen with a lovely blue illumination. Unfortuately this is spoilt by using green illumination for for the keys, which ruins the aesthetic effect and just looks wrong. Despite the nice size, the phone has a pronounced bulge at the top to hold the screen, which makes it top heavy and fit strangely in the back pocket.
The voicenotes feature is wonderful and is amazingly useful. Voice dialing works well, as does the user customisable shortcut feature, which can be controlled by buttons or voice.

Now the down side. Firstly, the TrueSync software is incompatible with Windows 2000 despite Motorola's assurances that it will work. As Windows 2000 is an important business OS, this is a major omission. I am not prepared to change to Windows 98 just to use my mobile phone. The user interface is badly designed, although the new toggle button is great, the menu button is a waste of space. Menu should be activated using the toggle key. Likewise a dedicted button for voicemail is not necessary, this can be set as a shortcut by the user. The rest of the menu is haphazard and badly designed. The most commonly used features are not presented first. When will Motorola get this right?

Finally, my phone was shipped without iTAP predictive text functionality. Apparently Orange UK has a bad batch floating around, so check the phone you buy. Another note for orange users, download the full motorola manual from their website, as the standard Orange manual is abridged, and does not even mention how to set up voicedial!!

I have returned my phone, as it's not the phone for me. If u want a viable alternative to the Nokia monopoly, and dont worry about the software issues, then buy one. But buy carefully...