Verizon Wireless Motorola Rival in Purple

Looking for a great slide-up phone with the option of an integrated keyboard, then the latest offering from Motorola is definitely one you can’t pass up. With mobile texting growing in popularity nowadays, the phone has been developed to target this market. Designed to compete with its mid-range texting counterparts, the Motorola Rival has special features that gives its competition a run for their money.

The phone was basically designed for heavy texter’s in mind. Text messaging through mobile phones has been steadily growing with the young and school-aged population.

Marketed also as a fun phone, the Motorola RIVAL makes great use of its different features. The phone comes with a 2 MP camera that produces images and videos that are good for its range. The camera is capable of making five different picture resolutions. Other features included were settings for color effects, brightness, picture balance, self-timer and three distinct shutter sounds with an option for silent capture. Picture quality was at most decent and if you’re looking for a better camera you might start with some of its rivals.

Listening to your favorite music is no problem with the RIVAL’s 8 gig memory card. This gives you the option of storing thousands of your favorite tracks and images. Music quality was poor however and getting a better headset or set of speakers is recommended for better listening experience.

Keeping track of your friends is easy with its 1000 entry phone contact. Expand contacts details with five individual phone numbers or 2 email addresses. Quickly organize your contacts into groups for even better access. Standard phone features include speaker phone, world clock, stopwatch, calculators, voice messaging, vibrate mode and notepad.

Advance communications include an instant messenger interface coupled with its standard text and multimedia messaging. The phone supports Yahoo, AIM, and Windows Live messaging. Added features are voice dialing and wireless web browsing. Bluetooth support allows for hands-free operation, dialup networking, file transfers and Bluetooth headsets.

Keep track of your online communications with email support for major sites like Windows Live or Yahoo Mail. If your into streaming videos, the phone offers this feature at better than average speeds. Browsing though WAP pages was smooth and download times were minimal. The low point in video streaming was the phones lower than average display. Video was pixilated and viewing was less than expected.

Voice quality was clear and crisp. Average battery life was placed at 5.3 talk time and testing showed that real time battery use was at par.

Overall outlook for the Motorola RIVAL^TM A455 is average. If you’re looking for a phone specifically for online and mobile texting the Motorola is proving quite to be a great inexpensive option. With its slide-up QWERTY keyboard, it makes quick work of your messaging needs. The Motorola RIVAL A455 is a mid-range phone and there are certainly better products out there which easily beats it hands-down. But if you’re searching for a texting phone the Motorola could be the best inexpensive option for you.