A925 Motorola 3G Review
    
 
13th April , 2004
    
 
 by Kevin Thomas
  
Issue 01
       
Review Sections
Description
  
More Plus Photos
Introduction
This is a review of the Motorola A925 and was undertaken in April, 2004. The A925 replaces the A920 which is no longer on-sale.
  
This review covers the Motorola A925 only and does not address the performance of 3's 3G Network.

Photos
The review is supported by a number of relevant photos.
  
See photos below.
More details
There are some useful previous press releases with regard to the Motorola A925 and these can be found at the foot of the review.
  
See foot of review.
       
 

 

See a three dimensional view of the phone.

See 3D View
1) Style
Style details
 
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Style

PDA-style handset with large touch screen and stylus.

It combines powerful technologies - AGPS for location services, 2-way video calls, video streaming, multimedia and email messaging.

An expensive looking bit of kit. Extremely stylish, fully loaded features but large.

  

The A925 is really an A920 in disguise. It has a new front cover but the actual physical elements are the same. Infrared and Bluetooth are functional on the A925.

Photo 1 : Full length photo

 
Looks

The Motorola A925 3G Phone is a large phone by today's standards. It also has an external aerial which protrudes beyond the top of the phone by aprrox. 1.5cm.

The phone has a large viewable screen and of course uses a stylus pen as opposed to having a keypad.

 

The phone itself is black and silver made of durable plastic. This makes for a sexy looking handset.

Photo 2 : Full length photo ( sideways )

Photo 12 : Motorola 3G Screen
Front

The A925 has a 4 way navigation key and another six key buttons on the front for easy access to the various functions.

The rotating camera ( for both camera type pictures and video conferencing ) is located on the top of the phone.

The rotating camera is a nice feature for easy forward and reverse operation yet I feel it will need to be cleaned regularly.

  

Photo 5 : Navigation keys ( top )

Photo 6 : Navigation keys ( bottom )

 

 

Photo 4 : Rotating camera
Left The lefthand side of the phone has the speakerphone key, volume keys, the voice key and the earpiece socket.  

Photo 19 : Left side of phone
Right The righthand side of the phone features the infrared port. Although this looks very dark it is an IrDa port.  

Photo 20 : Right side of phone
Back
Here you will find the connector for GPS and a loudspeaker for hands free and general voice comms. The stylus is also housed in the top left and the rear of the rotating camera is visible.
  

Photo 4 : Rotating camera

Photo 3 : Back of phone
Antenna Internal / External - protrudes approx. 1.5cm  

Photo 17 : The Protruding Aerial
2) Specification
Specification details
 
More details
In the Box

1 x Mains Charger

1 X Docking Cradle

1 X Leather Pouch

2 x Li-ion Battery

1 X 32MB SD Card

Comprehensive Instruction Manual and booklets ( in colour )

Software on CDROM ( covers how to install, phone tools and user guides )

USB Data Cable

Headset

  

Photo 8 : Goodies supplied with phone

Photo 10 : Back off

 

 
Mode
3G UMTS / GSM : 900/1800/1900
  
Will work on WCDMA ( 3G from 3 ) and on GPRS ( O2 ).
Weight

212g.

This is the weight of the phone (with battery) and is measured in grams (g).

  
This is a weighty phone by today's standards. Its not a lightweight for sure.
Volume
175cc
  
Dimensions
148.5 x 60 x 24.3 mm
 
A large phone by today's standards. I mean its length is 15.5 centimeters
Battery Life

Standard battery life ( 3.6v )
Standby: 90 hrs
Talk time: 120 mins
Video call: 60 mins

Battery / Video Times - The total time a battery can power a phone for mobile calls. As the phone drains the battery during a call, the talk time left in the battery is diminished until the phone is turned off or the battery recharged. The longer the talk time the less frequently you will need to recharge.

Battery Standby The time a battery can power a phone in the standby mode, switched on and ready to make or receive a call, without being used for an actual call. The longer a phone is in standby mode, the less standby time remains in the battery.

 

Photo 9 : Battery

Photo 13 : Phone in Charger

Photo 15 : Phone in Charger ( top view )

Li-Ion stands for Lithium-Ion. The Li-Ion battery has twice the charge capacity of a Ni-Cd battery and further has the advantage of having a slow rate of self-discharge.

The main advantage of a Li-Ion battery is that it is stable and safe and has the highest energy capacity among others.

This phone needs to be recharged at the end of each day - even under normal useage.

The cradle is also used for battery charging and yes battery supply is not great and you are best to have one charger at home and one in work for total piece of mind. Particularly showing off all those battery guzzling videos.

Photo 14 : Blue charger light

The cradle had an very impressive glowing blue strip when the phone is charging.
3) Design
Design details
 
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Operating System
The Motorola A925 runs on the latest version of the open operating system, Symbian OS v7.0 and incorporates their latest pen-based user interface. Applications can be downloaded, such as games based on Java and C++., from 3.
 
Navigation and Keypads
Although the product is packed full of the latest technology, it is very simple to use. The touch screen uses a stylus pen and handwriting recognition technology. The menu system is navigated via icons on the touch screen, as well as dedicated 'hot buttons' for the most popular applications such as, 'home' and '3 services '. When browsing, the 'forward' and 'back' options operate just like on a PC.
 

Stylus stored in slot provided. Stylus is metal and plastic combo.

Photo 4 : Stylus storage

Photo 18 : Stylus

 
Keypad

The keypad is accessed via an icon towards the bottom of main screen. Once you tap it with the stylus you can start your typing. However, with this type of phone you should seriously consider using the handwriting recognition facility. I mean after all this phone was designed for it.

The touch screen uses a stylus pen and handwriting recognition technology.

  

You write as you normally would in two areas of the screen. Then what you write appears on the screen a short time after.
Display Type

TFT touch screen with 208 x 320 pixels and 65,000 colours.

The A925’s screen is touch sensitive and features 65k TFT colour. Resolution is 320 x 208 pixels. It is bright, and performs well even in bright sunlight. Despite the fact that it is 65k, colours seem a little faded. It is capable of showing more than 20 lines of text.

The Motorola A925's 65,000+ colour screen - which can also hold up to 20 lines of text - will show video content, such as Barclaycard Premiership goals and the latest film clips, with an impressive clarity and resolution. The handset was jointly developed by 3 and Motorola, exclusively for the 3 video mobile network.

  

Photo 16 : Photo of screen ( home )

The screen is split

Application selector bar, information snacks, personal information, application shortcuts and status bar.

The screen has three areas :

- the desktop
- two control type sub screens

The top sub screen is called the “quick-launch screen” and shows menu icons. The taskbar is located towards the bottom of the screen and displays basic functions like the time, volume etc. In addition, it highlights key functions like network status ( 3G/ GPRS/ GSM ) as it’s a Tri-band phone, battery status.

To navigate via the screens you use the stylus and tap menu item on the display. If you lose the stylus don’t despair you can also use the key navigation system.
Picture Camera
On-Board Camera
- VGA camera
- Photos saved as Jpegs
- Compression setting option
- Photos filed on 8MB memory or via external memory card for viewing
- Picture quality is extremely good
 
Good quality pictures.
Video Camera
On-Board Video
- records up to 60 seconds of video / audio
- Videos stored via internal memory or via memory card as MP4 movies.
- video player for playing MPEG-4s, works well and supports full screen viewing via tilted option
 

Good video picture quality. Video conferencing picture quality is adequate to good.

Photo 7 : Rotating camera

 
Memory
An expansion memory card is also available for up to 256 extra Mb of space for multimedia files. The phone also offers more basic mobile phone functionality such as text and picture messaging.
 

32MB SD card supplied

Photo 11 : 32MB SD card

Expansion card slot is under the battery cover.
4) Connectivity
Specification details
 
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Connectivity

Bluetooth and IrDa available on the A925. When outside 3G network area it will hook up to GPRS.

Good news you can connect it to your PC via the USB cable and has a cute sync cradle to accomplish this.

Bluetooth® is a technology that allows different electronic devices to share data and communicate without using wires. These devices include phones, printers, personal computers or laptops. In order for it to work, both devices need to be “Bluetooth® enabled”.

  


InfraRed
A data port that uses infra-red data association (irDA) as the standard for wireless communications between computer and mobile phone devices. For example, to update the phone list on your irDA-enabled PC, you would line up the infra-red ports on each device and then transfer the phone information to your PC.
  

Photo 20 : IrDa port

Infrared is supplied and functional. You turn it on or off as required via menu system.

USB Port
USB (universal serial bus) is a fast (1Mbps) path for data transfer between the phone and an external device, such as a pc.
 
Content
The A925 allows access to 3’s content services, ranging from news and weather to games and entertainment.
 
However, the service does not provide open access to the internet through this handset i.e. a walled garden scenario.
Games
The A925 can also double up as a separate, hand-held gaming console. Flip the phone on its side and use the console-style game controls, including a four-way keypad to play Java-based games.
 

The A925 supports Java but 3 has locked the damn thing so you cant download games.

Photo : Gaming On A925 ( 3 Sweden )
5) Comms
Communication details
 
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Video Call
2 Way Video Call
With an integrated digital camera and high speed data transmission, you can enjoy the next best thing to being there.
   Download a 1MegaByte video clip in about 40 seconds via 3G.

Location Based Services
Combined with services from the network service provider, Motorola’s integrated AGPS technology enables you to find your way around.
  
We found AGPS ( Assisted Global Post ion System ) a few miles out. Readers of the 3G Forum also note some similar problems. Not sure about this.
MMS (Multimedia Messaging)
Send and receive pictures, sounds and animations with your messages.
 
SMS
The short message service (SMS) enables you to send and receive text messages using your Motorola mobile phone or personal communicator.
 
POP3 E-mail
The POP3 e-mail function allows you to use your phone to access e-mail. (The e-mail is retrieved from a server over the air).
 
PIM
PIM (Personal Information Management) functionality enables you to manage your life easier. Examples are Calendar, Contacts and Address Book, Task List, Notes, Date / Time with alarms.
 
6) Sound
Sound details
 
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MP3
The A925 has an MP3 player on-board for playing music to the loudspeaker or to the supplied stereo headphones. Sound quality is good. With the MP3 you can do all the normal stuff like make playlists etc.
 
MP3 Player and polyphonic ringer tones add a powerful audible experience. Richer musical tones will resonate from your phone each time it rings.
Ringtones
Phone software supports digital downloads of ringtones to personalise your phone.
 
Polyphonic ringer tones add a powerful audible experience for alerts and ringer tones. Richer musical tones will resonate from your phone each time it rings.
Headset Jack
Integrated Stereo Headset Jack and Integrated Speaker Phone provide an enhanced audio experience.
 
Vib Alert
Yes
  
Speaker Phone
Integrated Stereo Headset Jack and Integrated Speaker Phone provide an enhanced audio experience.
  
7) Photos
All the photos used in the review are found on right.
   Review photos : click to view - Photo1, Photo2, Photo3, Photo4, Photo5, Photo6, Photo7, Photo8, Photo9, Photo10, Photo11, Photo12, Photo13, Photo14, Photo15, Photo16, Photo17, Photo18, Photo19, Photo20
7) Conclusion
Conclusion and score
  
Score
Kevin Thomas scores the Motorola A925.
  
84 out of 100.

When you turn the phone on you will see the Moto branding ( see photo on right ) which gives you a lot of reassurance that something good is coming.

You can usually judge how good a phone is by judging people's first reactions to it.

I showed this phone to 20 people and they commented :

- too big for me

- great screen and size

- can't see me getting on with the stylus operation

Meanwhile, I feel this is an impressive piece of kit which includes a 3G mobile phone, GPRS phone, video and still camera, a PDA, an MP3 player and a gaming capability which have all been combined into a sexy looking package.

On the negative side is the whole navigation and menu access / handwriting recognition thing, which will need some practicing. Master that and your flying.

A battery is only good for less than a day. Maybe quite a bit less with all the video larking about.

This a big phone wrapped up in 3G armour ! I am considering using the A925 as my first line phone.

Find out more about this phone and take part in discussions at 3G Forum

  

The score is based on a checklist developed by Kevin Thomas of www.3G.co.uk.

Photo 12 : Motorola 3G Screen

This review covers the Motorola A925 only and does not address the performance of 3's 3G Network.

Copyright
You are advised that this material is the copyright of Kevin Thomas 2004 on behalf of www.3G.co.uk and is my own personal view only. (C) All rights reserved 2004.

Whilst every care has been taken in the preparation of this review, Kevin Thomas nor 3Gcouk cannot be held responsible for the accuracy or authenticity of the information it contains, or any consequence arising from it.


    
       
MORE
Motorola A925 Press Releases