A slim candybar with a tough exterior, the i335 is one of Sprint Nextel's latest Direct Connect offerings. Does it stand up to our tests?
Review summary of the Motorola i335:
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 The i335 is very single-minded. It does what it is supposed to do well—namely, make and receive calls. There aren’t many bells and whistles, and it isn’t the most attractive phone we’ve ever seen, but the rubber does well to protect it, and our callers heard us loud and clear. For Direct Connect customers, and perhaps light calling and messaging users,the i335 is a solid, if uninspiring option. But for anyone looking for anything more should look elsewhere. Release: November 2007. Price: $80.
Pros: Slim, rugged design, good call quality
Cons: Dearth of features, slow SMS, terrible Web browser
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Full Motorola i335 Review:
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Design - Good
The i335 is a slim candybar phone with a rugged, rubberized exterior. We like the rounded edges at the top and bottom of the phone, but ultimately the candybar design is too limiting for our tastes; the screen is tiny and extremely low-resolution, although we did like the red backlight for the buttons. The keypad is covered by a single piece of rubber, but each button is raised enough to easily distinguish it. The side buttons include volume controls as well as the large Direct Connect button, which operates Nextel's walkie-talkie push-to-talk service. We found it awkward that the main menu button is off to the left side and that the OK button in the center of the d-pad doesn't act as a MENU/OK button like most other phones.
Calling - Very Good
Call quality was good, as callers reported hearing us loud and clear. The speaker played back voices with decent clarity and volume, and the ringtones could get extremely loud. This is necessary for the phone's Direct Connect audience, like construction workers, who need a piercing ring just to hear it above the noise of a job site. We were able to connect our Bluetooth headset easily, if not quickly, as the phone took its time searching for devices to pair with. We found no voice dial option, but the speakerphone was a top-level option during calls, and we were impressed with the volume and clarity as well.
Messaging - Good
SMS on the i335 was pretty basic. With such a small screen, we couldn't fit very many of the 160 characters allowed for SMS, and we thought it was a little weird that the number was automatically included in outgoing messages. We imagine this could be convenient for phones that don't automatically include a call back option, but we're not sure many of those still exist.
One disturbing trend we noticed was that while we could see a short preview of the message as it was received, when we tried to open the message, the phone sat on a "downloading" screen for at least 30 seconds before loading even a three-word message. We were disappointed that there was no support for MMS, but as this isn't a multimedia phone and doesn't even have a camera, we find it to be an understandable omission.
There is no included IM program on the phone, but web-based clients for AIM and Yahoo! can be found through the Web browser's main menu. Caveat emptor, however, as they are notoriously bad.
Odds and Ends
Because of the size of the phone's screen, its memory and target audience, we consider the Web browser to be an afterthough. The main menu was confusing, and we couldn't load our homepage, as the phone complained about insufficient memory. When we tried to load the New York Times' main page, for whatever reason the browser didn't automatically redirect us to their mobile site. However, when we punched in the mobile site's URL manually it worked well, even if it looked a bit awkward. Google's page also loaded fine but looked awkward, leading us to conclude that this phone is almost completely useless as an internet device.
Also of note, the phone only uses Nextel's legacy iDEN network for calls, and not Sprint's CDMA network. While this shouldn't make too much difference to the end user, it is worth noting that recent rumors have called into question the continued existence of Sprint's iDEN service. We can't imagine the carrier flipping the switch on iDEN without giving existing customers plenty of warning and alternative options, so this shouldn't be a major concern.
Price and availability
The Motorola i335 is available from Sprint for $80 with a contract. A mail-in rebate of $50 is available, when signing up for a qualifying plan.
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