Motorola Moto i290 from Boost Mobile and Sprint

After trying out the i465 Clutch and the i9 Stature from Motorola, I’m not certain whether I was too impressed with the Motorola Moto i290.  After all, if you are going to name a phone after the first few syllables out of your company’s name, then you should really make it something to remember.  As it is, the Moto is your plain ordinary candybar cellular cell phone. 

In fact, its biggest bragging right that it has is that it is “thin and super lightweight”.  And how many phones like that are already on the market?  Quite a few, actually.  At least the Motorola Moto i290 looks pretty durable.  It may not have the rubberized back like the Clutch, but it definitely appears to be able to take a small fall. 

Speaking of similarities to the Clutch, it has a menu button that will reveal all the same icons including Re-Boost and BoostLIVE (Boost Mobile only) as well as WT Service, Web, Recent Calls, Contacts, Settings, and Profiles.  The display is a relatively small 1.5 inch TFT with 130 pixels. 

The Push to talk option works as walkie talkie, push to view, push to meet, push to smart replies, and push to send messages.  The Speed dial has one touch dialing, and a phone book with a 600 entry contact list. 

As for the web, it has a built-in microbrowser and is Java 2 enabled.  As for the battery life, it has about 80 hours of standby time and 245 minutes of usage time.  It has several ringtones in formats like MIDI, MP3, and WAV. 

I will admit that one drawback was that I found it impossible to take off the back cover.  I mean, there was a supposed easy switch for it, but the cover was still stuck!  When I read the instruction manual, it seemed to imply that I would have to do is used the easy-to-use switch and yank it off.  However, it didn’t happen that way, and I had to use a knife to get it out.  All that trouble just to exchange a SIM card, man, please!

All in all, I suppose that I could recommend the Moto i290 if you are looking for a low-budget phone as a gift to someone.  However, there are so many mobile phones from so many other companies out there, so I don’t expect the Moto i290 to make a splash in the market.  Maybe they should have called it the Rola. 

If you are interested in getting the Motorola Moto i290 for about $49.99 from Boost Mobile, and users also have the option of getting it from Sprint.