With the great success of Motorola’s first low end music phones in the W230 and W270, Motorola has unveiled a slightly upgraded version for 2008 Q3 release, the Motorola W388. This phone will be priced higher than the W230 and will cost roughly PHP 3,200.00 or roughly USD $80.00. Note that this is an estimated price based on the press conference and not the real SRP. The main difference between the W388 and the W230 is the inclusion of a VGA camera and a bigger memory bump.
We must note that the VGA camera does not come with video capabilities. Phone …read more

Motorola’s “el cheapo” line of mobile phones is generating a lot of buzz with interested buyers. The W230 in particular is popular but has been reporting issues of not being able to do file transfer. Kiran from the community has a fix, which implies upgrading the firmware:
The problem with the fone is that file transfer is possible only when fully charged. I too had this problem. Here’s how to fix it:
Step 1: Install this file
Step 2: Charge the phone fully(the battery image should be green)
Step 3: Restart the Computer.
Step 4: Plug in fone and install the driver.

For more features and …read more

Skeptical as I was, I did try it and boy were my reservations put aside. The W230 is the cheapest mobile phone with good (read: LOUD) MP3 audio playing capability. The W230 is capable of playing up to 2GB of music via microSD card. Perhaps the closest reservation I had was the fact that it doesn’t use a 3.5mm audio jack for audio. Instead it used a 2.5mm jack for audio accessories. I realize that the inclusion of a 3.5mm slot is reserved only for the ROKR series, the latest one being the ROKR E8. Hence, this is why it …read more

2009 UPDATE: Motorola has announced for 2009 the new Motorola W233, an eco-friendly version of the W230.
UPDATE: Motorola has announced an upgrade to the W230, called the W388. It is an incremental upgrade to the low end phone, now sporting a VGA camera and a little bit more memory.
As an aside, the “W” naming scheme is a bit of a throw off as one might think that this is a Sony Ericsson phone. Motorola has released a new line of entry level phones in the W230 and W270. No fancy bells here compared to the RAZR line. Both phones stress …read more