Motorola Entice W766 review – Great call quality
For:
Motorola Entice W766 is compact and lightweight folder type phone that offers fantastic call quality and good features.
Against:
The streaming video quality needs to be improved.
The Whiz Kid Speaks:
Motorola Entice W766 is based on CDMA2000 1X technology and supports CDMA2000 1X 1900/800 band. The Entice is a folder type phone and has conference calling capability. It has internal memory and micro-SD expansion slot that supports cards up to 8GB. The additional features are voice command, Text-to-speech (text recognition) and Bluetooth.
Motorola Entice W766 has 1.8-inch external display on the front. In addition, the 2.2-inch internal LCD display has a resolution of 176×220 pixels that supports 16-bit (65000) colors. The W766 has 2-megapixels camera, which works as both still camera and camcorder. The digital video playback formats are WMV, H.2630 video plus AMR audio, MPEG4 and H.264. Supported digital music formats include eAAC+, AAC+, AAC, MIDI and WMA.
Messaging features of Motorola Entice W766 are email, Voice mail, Instant messages, Voice messages, Picture messages, Multimedia Messages (MMS) and Text messages (SMS). The W766 supports BREW platform and has WAP2.0 Web browser. Inbuilt messengers are Windows Live Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger.
Motorola Entice W766 has two connectors – 1×2.5mm headset jack – sub-mini phone and 1×micro-USB. The W766 has 940 mAH lithium ion battery that has a life of 330 minutes of talk time and 395 hours of idle standby time.
Razzle Dazzle:
Motorola Entice W766 is 3.8 inches tall, 1.9 inches wide and 0.7 inch deep and it weighs around 3.5 ounces. The W766 is a lightweight and compact handset with clamshell factor. It has smooth edges, rounded corners and silver plastic bezel at the front. The phone gives a nice, comfortable and soft-touch feel while taking in hand.
Inside Dope:
Motorola has released its new clamshell handset – Entice W766 for Verizon Wireless. It looks like the Rapture VU30 that was released by the company last year. However, the W766 is not shiny and sleek as the Rapture. Motorola Entice W766 has touch-sensitive external keys, EV-DO support and 2-megapixel camera. Overall, it is a good and midrange handset that offers good call quality and multimedia features. Motorola Entice W766 costs around $19.99 with two-year contract from Verizon Wireless and mail-in rebate of $70. The W766 has dedicated controls for music player, Bluetooth and speakerphone on the lid, so there is no need to open the phone to access these options. We weren’t much fond of these buttons but still it is nice to have them. It still provides below-average streaming video quality. The complete front surface is reflective, it is a fingerprint magnet. It captures fingerprints even on gentle touch. If you need a midrange handset with good call quality, then you can buy the new Motorola Entice W766.
Design
Motorola logo and camera lens are located above the display. There are two rows of touch-sensitive buttons located beneath the display and backlit with blue light. The first row consists of music player controls – play/pause, back/rewind and fast-forward/skip-ahead. As soon as you press any music control, the first row buttons will backlit with white color. The second row has two buttons of speakerphone and Bluetooth. These touch-sensitive controls will be locked automatically when not in use. Also, the phone will vibrate when you press any touch-sensitive key.
Volume rocker, speakerphone/unlock key and micro-USB charger are located on left spine. The speakerphone/unlock key will activate or unlock the touch-sensitive control only when the phone is locked. The voice command key is located on the right spine. Micro-SD card slot is located behind the battery cover.
Display
1.8-inch external display sits at front on the phone lid. It displays photo and caller ID, wallpaper, signal strength, battery life and date/time. The clock format and wallpaper can be changed on the external display.
2.2-inch QCIF internal display has 176×220 pixels resolution and 65,000 colors. It shows sharp, colorful and bright images. You can change the menu layout (List, Grid or Tab), clock format, menu font size, dial font, brightness and backlight time. You can also re-arrange the icons of menu.
Navigation Array and Keyboard
Navigation array has Send key, End/power key, Clear button, camera/camcorder button, circular toggle and two soft keys. You can assign three different functions only to down, left and up directions. The right direction will always show My Shortcuts pop-up, in which you can add four shortcuts.
The navigation array has metallic surface like the Razr. The navigation keys are spacious, flat and wide. The numeric keypad has well-spaced plastic keys that are slightly raised above the surface. You can easily text and dial without any problem.
Phonebook and PIM features
Motorola Entice W766 can store 1000 contacts in its phone book. Each contact can save five numbers and two email address. You can divide the contacts into caller groups and pair them with one ring-tone and a photo for photo caller ID.
The basic features are speakerphone, notepad, world clock, stopwatch, alarm clock, calendar, multimedia and text messaging, calculator and vibrate mode. Advanced features of Motorola Entice W766 include USB mass storage, GPS support, stereo Bluetooth, voice recorder, Web-based POP3 account, EV-DO support, instant messaging, voice command and voice dialing.
Verizon Services
Verizon Wireless has also included its services like Mobile Email to receive the emails, VZ Navigator for GPS support, V Cast Music with Rhapsody and V Cast streaming video. You can use V Cast Music to download the songs on additional cost.
Music Player
Motorola Entice W766 has inbuilt music player that has similar interface like other V Cast Music phones. The songs are arranged by genres, albums and artists. The features are create/edit play-lists and shuffle/repeat modes.
Camera
Motorola Entice W766 has 2-megapixel camera that works for both capturing still pictures and as camcorder to record videos. It takes still photographs in five resolutions: 320×240, 640×480, 1280×960, 1600×1200 and special photo caller ID size. The camera has features of three shutter sound with one silent option, fun frames, digital zoom, color effects, white-balance settings, brightness and self-timer. Camcorder can record videos in two different resolutions: 176×144 and 320×240 and it have editing options like that of still camera. You can record videos in two options – as per available memory and up to 45 seconds for multimedia messages.
The photo quality is good considering it is just a 2-megapixel camera. We captured some photographs and recorded video for testing. The colors of still images were good with little blur. The photo quality was poor in dim light. The recorded video quality was not good as it had various pixilations and shaky movements.
Games and Personalization
Motorola Entice W766 has two games – Tetris Pop and PacMan. You can personalize the phone with a selection of alert tones, display themes and wallpaper. You can download more options and games on additional cost from Verizon via Web browser.
Call Quality
We made few calls through Motorola Entice W766 via Verizon Wireless. The overall call quality was very good. We received clear and loud sound without any background noise or static blip on our end. The callers also received same call quality without background noise at their end. However, both of us received little harsh sound sometimes, but still the call quality was good. The callers could tell that we were using cell phone.
The speakerphone call quality was not as good as normal calls. The callers received echo sounds at their end. We also received metallic and tinny sound at our end. The callers could hear us even when we were at a distance from the phone. Music quality on the speakers was also not good because the volume was tinny and harsh. However, the headset provided good audio quality.
The EV-DO and download speed was not impressive. We downloaded a 3MB song from V Cast in 30 seconds. The google.com loaded in 15 seconds in the Web browser. There was no buffering time while viewing streaming video through V Cast. Still, the streaming videos looked blurry and pixilated because the display had low resolution.
Battery Life
Motorola Entice W766 has a battery life of 16.5 days of idle standby time and 5.5 hours of talk time. The digital SAR of the Entice phone is 1.4 watts per kg as per FCC radiation tests.
Verdict:
Motorola Entice W766 is a good clamshell handset with good features and nice call quality. If you need a midrange basic phone with fantastic call quality, then you can buy the new Motorola Entice W766.
