Menu/Phonebook: The Motorola menu interface is intuitive; requiring only a couple of steps to access most of the cell phone's features. Entering and saving numbers (store up to six phone numbers and an e-mail address for each contact – sorry, no place to save addresses) isn’t too hard, but if you’re not accustomed to using Motorola cell phones it might take you a few tries to get acquainted entering Contacts.
Camera/Video: Like many higher-end cell phones, the Motorola E815 sports a 1.3-megapixel camera and a flash (though, the flash doesn’t do a whole lot). The camera phone takes decent pictures. The video recorder functionality is a nice plus, but you can only record 15-second videos, so don’t plan on capturing a ton of footage with this Motorola.
The real issue with this camera phone is that the Motorola E815 only comes with 40MB of memory. That’s not a lot to save photo, video and music files. The good news is that you can expand the memory by purchasing an external TransFlash memory card (Think: multimedia card that went into the Willy Wonka shrinking machine). Although many of the Motorola’s features are typically straightforward, the TransFlash memory card might trip you up a bit. First, the actual memory card is super tiny – about the size of your pinky fingernail. Second, you’ll need to format the card in order to store and later access videos, photos or music files. 
Music: The Motorola E815 includes an MP3 player that does a decent job at playing back the music. However, using the music player is another story completely – it’s a tad buggy. For example, while the player supports playlists you have to actually create them on the cell phone. You also can’t play another song without opening the cell phone and accessing the player. Many cell phones with this capability, such as the Sony Ericsson W600, have buttons on the outside of the cell phone that can control the MP3 player.
Connectivity/Bluetooth: We were able to cell pair the phone with a Motorola Bluetooth headset, however, we needed to consult the manual to set it up correctly. We should note using the Bluetooth feature for calls degrades call quality a bit. Unfortunately, you can’t use Bluetooth to transfer music to the cell phone from another Bluetooth-equipped device. |
Look and Feel: There’s no easy way to say this, we’ll just come out with it: The Motorola E815 is a big cell phone. True, it’s not as big as the first cell phones that were installed in cars in the late 1980s, but still it’s noticeably larger than other cell phones on the market. And with big size usually comes noticeable heft. If you have large hands you’ll likely appreciate the Motorola E815. While if you have smaller hands this cell phone is probably too big for you and the Motorola V325 is probably a better fit. The internal and external displays are bright and highly readable in most lighting environments. Although, the cell phone is big we should mention it’s a bit of a delicate flower. Meaning it easily attracts scratches and can be temperamental if jostled too much.
Keypad: One good thing about a big cell phone is that it’s likely to have a large keypad – as is the case with the Motorola E815. The keys are highly tactile, spaced out and large enough that one-handed dialing is an easy affair. If you tend to have problems reading the numbers/letters on the keys you won’t have that problem with this Motorola cell phone. |
Motorola E815 Expert Rating
