Motorola Renew W233 Prepaid Phone, Green
5November 7, 2009 by Atila
- World’s first mobile phone made using plastics comprised of recycled water bottles–case is 100 percent recyclable
- Pay for just the minutes you use with no annual contract–easy refill via Internet or prepaid cards
- Handsfree speakerphone; text and picture messaging; MP3 player; CrystalTalk technology reduces background noise
- Up to 9 hours of talk time, up to 432 hours (18 days) of standby time
- What’s in the Box: handset, battery, charger, quick start guide, user manual
Amazon.com Product Description
Stay in touch with all your contacts and keep your busy life organized with the Motorola Renew W233, and pay the way you want with prepaid and postpaid calling plans from T-Mobile Pay As You Go. You’ll get all the communication features you expect from Motorola while reducing your carbon footprint. Not only is the plastic housing of Renew made from plastics comprised of recycled water bottles and 100 percent recyclable, but it is also the world’s first ca… More >>
Category News | Tags: Green, motorola, Phone, Prepaid, Renew, W233
Won’t charge with a standard cigarette lighter adapter (12v to mini usb) It sees that it is plugged in but will not charge – I suspect it requires a Motorola specific charger, FAIL
Cannot use Motorola Phone Tools ($50 – Seriously? $50!?) to back up data to/from SIM card – don’t have lots of friends.
When mounted as a USB drive on the computer – cannot make or receive calls other than 911 unless you unplug it from the computer.
Speaker is REALLY REALLY tinny
Plastic feels like a cheap Revel snap together model from 1967
IMPORTANT!!! —> Because Motorola in their infinite “we’re totally failing” wisdom implemented a proprietary USB format – this phone CANNOT be CHARGED! from a Mac or Linux or (currently) Windows7 computer. It requires specific drivers from Motorola to charge – TOTALLY STUPID – total dealbreaker for me (can force install .sys driver in Win7 if you know what you are doing)
Cannot mount the phone as a flash drive to load music – CANNOT BE DONE – again requires specific drivers from Moto which will not recognize Windows7 and therefore will not install, and are not available for Mac or Linux (can force install .sys driver in Win7 if you know what you are doing)
if Motorola had just followed standard USB implementation (USB Storage Class built in OS Driver) – this would not be an issue. STUPID STUPID STUPID
Update: Finally got it working on Win7 BUT found out the phone is only USB 1.0 speed 356k per second transfer speed, so a 2GB SDMicro card takes 1 1/2 hours to fill!!
No call answer button on headset – you can set phone to auto answer but that is very inconvenient.
On the plus side – the headphones aren’t bad – about par with the ones that Apple includes with iPods Does allow you to set MP3 files as alarmclock and ringtone
Music player quits when you go back to the home screen – so no playing games or texting or choosing next song while you listen to music
Best bet would be to use a USB2.0 card reader and not change your music often but the SD Micro card is under the battery so you have to shut down – open the case – take out the battery – slip out the card – and reverse. Kind of a total pain.
No playlists – you can navigate to a sub folder and play all music in it – so you could do a crude workaround.
If your kids are pestering you for an iPhone – and you don’t have that budget – this is still not the phone for you, they will most likely be very unhappy. If you are a casual phone user and want something that will allow you to listen to some music on a morning commute or gardening this might work
This “eco friendly green phone” came in a large plastic blister pack with lots and lots of T-Mobile manuals and prepay upsell propaganda inside (they appear to be printed with soy ink on recycled paper – but the packaging isn’t nearly as eco friendly as it could be. )
This is just a HORRIBLE phone!!!
Thank you for taking it back without a restocking fee Amazon, you are the BEST
Rating: 1 / 5
This phone is not very well supported by Motorola. The latest Motorola Phone Tools does not even support it, so there is no way to upload your saved contacts from your old phone. You have to type in all your phone numbers manually, which really, really sucks.
Rating: 1 / 5
I needed a replacement phone immediately. Because I *completely* resent the $18 ‘upgrade’ fee T-Mobile charges on top of the cost of a new phone, I’ve decided to buy unlocked or non contracted phones from now on. I didn’t know what kind of ‘good’ phone I wanted, so I bought this as a stand in… I just slid my regular sim card in when it arrived and I was good to go (i.e. I did not use any sort of pay as you go, pre-paid service with it).
The good:
It works. It makes calls. Calls are clear. It was a cheap filler phone and I’ll hang on to it for that purpose again. There’s a music player which works well.
There are two fun games included with it–sodoku and tetris–which work well and don’t seem to be ‘demos’.
The not great but dealable:
No bluetooth, no email client. It’s a cheap phone, so not having those things wasn’t unexpected but I realized how much I’d grown to like both of those things.
The memory expansion card is underneath the battery–not very convenient.
The battery itself is a REALLY tight fit…I’ve never had one which is so hard to remove (which makes dealing with the memory card more of a pain than I’m used to.
The not so great stuff that I didn’t like about the design which goes beyond the it’s ‘it’s a basic phone’ explanation:
The headphone jack isn’t a ‘standard’ one…and the included earbuds are utter crap so I’ve really missed my stereo bluetooth ones. It’s a shame because the music player itself isn’t bad.
The photo viewer is a disappointment. Pictures don’t fill the screen well and take forever to load. Waste of time.
Perhaps the most significant is that I’ve had a LOT of phones and this has the tightest, most uncomfortable key configuration. The buttons seem hard to press and my hand cramps up. I’m not a texting maniac but I REALLY hate texting on this phone (and I’ve never thought about it before).
I can’t figure out how to turn off the annoying little jangley chirpy sound when I plug or unplug it in to charge. Annoying when that wakes up my husband late or in the morning.
Rating: 3 / 5
Thisis a great phone with terrific reception!
I like that you can check your voicemail using a landline….easy, convenient,and no paying for minutes.
I like that you can add contacts to the phone using My Tmobile online: Add Contacts. Very easy to do,
and fun.
I like that you can check your minutes using your landline or the computer.
The 1000 minutes for 100 bucks is great and look forward to not getting a 40 buck bill from sprint each month.
I got a gel skin for the phone which gives it some heft and protects it….covers most of the green…which I do like, but like the blackbetter with the green showing just a wee bit.
It’s a fun phone. I don’t use it for music…have an ipod. I just can’t get over what a great deall lthe whole thing is.
Perfect.
The only bad thing is tmobilel’s cust. service….it sucks….bad. Hopefully I willnever have to call lthem.
Rating: 5 / 5
Cheap but good,… I like everything cheap and good.
My broke now,..that why I’m using this phone.
Rating: 5 / 5