Motorola V551

How many ways can Motorola repackage the same design? That's one of the first questions we asked after seeing the V551 from Cingular Wireless, which looks a lot like the V400 and V600. The answer: Motorola might be repeating itself, but at least it knows what needs fixing and what doesn't.

In fact, the V551 made us wonder whether its designers trolled Web forums looking for what users liked and disliked about its predecessors. No Bluetooth on the V400? The V551 has it. No video camera on the V600? The V551 does. A hot key for one-touch access to the camera and another for Internet access? Got those, too. Bottom line: The V551 is a worthy successor to some great-but-not-perfect phones.

Is there still room for improvement? Sure. The built-in browser is fine for WAP sites and Cingular's text-heavy MEdia Net portal, but if you prefer a wider selection, you'll need to download a Java-based HTML browser, such as Reqwireless' WebViewer ($20).

The lack of a decent browser was less of an issue on the V400 because it used GPRS, but the V551 uses EDGE, which is about three times faster than GPRS. The V551 also has a crisp, vivid display, which is the other half of a good browsing experience.

EDGE is a good complement to the V551's VGA camera because it zips photos and video clips at a noticeably faster rate than GPRS. "Noticeably" is the key word because there's no way to confirm when the V551 is using EDGE. It has a GPRS icon, but the manual doesn't mention an EDGE icon. In fact, it doesn't mention EDGE at all, so you're left wondering. Motorola told us to "look for a blue and red icon that looks like a stylized letter E," but we never saw it.

Cingular says that regardless of which data plan you're on-even the entry-level $7.99 MEdia Basic-as long as you're in an area with EDGE coverage, you'll get EDGE. Considering that Cingular now provides EDGE across almost all of the country, it's safe to assume that you're usually on it.

As a digital camera, the V551 is fantastic. The photos are among the best we've seen from a VGA phone: crisp, with good color. The video clips are less impressive, with limited detail. They're formatted as .3GP, so you'll need only a small plug-in to view them on a PC that already has Real Player.

Like some of its predecessors, the V551 has a convoluted phone book. For example, suppose you store a contact's mobile number, home number, and e-mail address. You'll get three separate entries in your phone book rather than a single entry that you click on to get all of that person's contact info. This arrangement is a pain for accessing people in the middle of the alphabet because you have to scroll through so many duplicate entries.

Cingular sells the V551 with a two-year contract for $100 after a $50 rebate. That's a fair price, considering its mix of features and looks. If you're looking for a good balance between voice and data in a svelte package, the Motorola V551 belongs at the top of your short list.