First Impressions Count

My first impression of the Motorola C975 was OK whats going on here. Of course, this phone is the reincarnated A835 which appeared in the shops just over a year ago. Who remembers that brick ?

The C975 is a second generation budget 3G phone which outshines the now obsolete A835 in many ways.

The main noticable difference is its size and weight are much reduced for the C975 compared to the A835. I mean its weight is reduced by 30 grams and its 23 mm shorter. A great step forward Moto.

I know this is a budget handset and its a bit larger than you might expect but its looks and feels OK. But just OK.

The main on-board camera is only VGA 0.3MP which is a tad low end of the spec when you consider many 1.3MP camera phones are available. Don't expect great photos then. The other camera is worse at 0.1MB pixel resolution.

The screen is a good size for watching all those videoa that you can download etc. whilst I feel the joystick is still a bit clicky yet has good selection ability.

Hope you like turning your phone off to put the TransFlash card in - thats the only way you can do it as the damn thing is under the battery ( but much improved than the old A835 cause it didn't have memory expansion capability ).

The battery is still not going to last as long as many other phones. You can talk for about 2 hours before the battery gives up. The LG 8138 will last nearly twice as long.

Oh nearly forgot the ear area. The C975 has 16mm polyphonic speaker (24 voice polyphony, 16 channels) and a built-in speakerphone and voice recognition feature

Is It The Bomb ?

This a much better handset than the old A835 but nowhere as good as Moto can do. Recently, Moto recently announced a 3G handset which is the bomb - the V1150.

However, this is not the bomb its a budget phone with budget looks and features. A low end camera, no bluetooth or infrared, on-board memory which is realistically inadequate so you need to buy expansion memory and a handset which is a tad too large by todays standards.

The Motorola C975 is not the bomb but its a good budget handset at a good price. As a 3G handset it works and performs OK.

Kevin Thomas scores the Motorola C975

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.

This is a review of the Motorola C975 handset and was undertaken in March, 2005 by Kevin Thomas of 3G.co.uk. This review covers the phone only and does not address the performance of Orange's 3G Network.