Motorola i412, a Flip Basic Phone for Boost Mobile

Completing its wide range of phone market, Boost Mobile together with Motorola released its flip basic phone under the name of Motorola i412. Coming as a basic phone, it mainly targeting for those who love being simple and don’t want to be bothered by complexity of smartphone. In details, here is the review of the phone.

Motorola i412

Motorola i412 comes in typical clamshell basic phone design measuring 96.5 x 49 x 20 mm and weighing 105 grams. The front panel (clamshell closed mode) is designed slightly raised with a tiny external display on the middle of it. The external display features 1 inch monochrome display that shows signal strength, profile status, battery life, date and time as well as incoming message and caller ID. However, the external display is a bit awkward as it comes in vertical mode, but the text reads horizontally - made you to hold the phone sideways to read it accurately. Flip open the clamshell thorough its sturdy hinge to reveal its 1.79 inches internal display with 128 x 160 pixels resolution and 64.000 colors supports. Beneath the internal display are navigation array and alphanumerical keypad. Navigation array comprises of two soft keys, a Menu key, a camera key and a circular toggle as well as a Send key and an End or Power key. Alphanumerical keypad is arranged in roomy space and raise above the surface while each key is designed in square shape. The right side of the phone is resided by microUSB port while the left side is volume rocker keys and PTT key.

Motorola i412 runs on iDEN network (the slowest digital mobile network in America) by Boost Mobile. Reception is good enough and call quality is great overall. It is also equipped by Push-To-Talk feature that delivers good performance. Under iDEN network, the phone's Myriad web browser manages to work well in opening WAP web pages. Sadly, there is no Wi-Fi but Motorola i412 comes with other connectivity such as Bluetooth and microUSB connection as well as GPS supports.

Coming to messaging features, Motorola i412 only provide standard messaging features such as text messaging (SMS), multimedia messaging (MMS), Instant Messaging (IM) and email. Instant Messaging and email comes in Java-based application and manage to get support from AOL, Gmail, Windows Live, and Yahoo. Email service also supports IMAP and POP3 email accounts.

Multimedia features of Motorola i412 looks poor. The phone can load MP3 music but the player is very limited as they are mostly use for ringtone. There is a camera but it comes in poor feature; a 0.3 megapixels VGA camera. Don’t expect too much on this camera as it delivers poor images quality as well. For storage, the phone only provides 5 MB of internal memory without additional external memory as there is no microSD card slot.

Motorola i412 offers Phonebook that can save up to 600 entries whereas each entry may consist of multiple phone numbers, email address, ring ID and other related information. Other basic features coming with Motorola i412 are calendar, datebook, alarm, Calculator, memo pad, call timer and voice recorder as well as a couple of Java applications. Lastly, Motorola i412 is powered by Li-Ion 1130 mAh battery that is rated up to 3.4 hours of talk time or up to 4 days of standby time.