Search Fone-Review

  • Custom Search

« TracFone Bonus Codes That Expire August 12, 2008 | Main | TracFone bonus codes extended to August 19, 2008 »

August 07, 2008

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00e553adf153883400e553e704c38834

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference TracFone Motorola W376g Review:

Comments

Feed You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

booboo

Zachary and Keith
did you read my post on april 28th?,under booboo?
Don't those steps take care of what you wanna do? Thats how I deleted my "test" pics.
Thanks for the quick reply to my 2nd post Keith,bout the browser "hard" key.

Keith Tyndall

booboo - I tested your instructions from 4/28 on how to delete a pictures, and it works!

johnny

My son has a trac fone he just put into retirement acouple wks ago. He says it has "service available" till 2015. He apparently has bought alot of "time" cards over the last 2 yrs. My ? is, is it possible for this fone to stay "in service" for that length of time, keeping it charged up now and then of course.?

Keith Tyndall

johnny - Yes, the phone will stay "in service" that long, but it still needs airtime minutes to work. As long as a TracFone has minutes and is not past it's expiration date, it will work.

johnny

Keith, you say above that one cannot "temporarily" disable voicemail. Is one able to "permanetly" disable/disconnect voicemail?

johnny

Keith, this is a long one so settle back.
When I bought my son his fone,we activated it from his hometown in NW Ohio. Great coverage. Later he moved in with me down in SW Ohio, again great coverage. I bought myself a fone, activated it in SW Ohio. Great coverage down here. But when I go up to my hometown (the same as my sons),there is no coverage whatsoever. Should I waste an hour or more with cus. ser. trying to solve this problem?
Or just see if I would be able to "reactivate" using my hometowns zip,which I assume, would give me full coverage in NW Ohio and SW Ohio like my sons fone did for him. Hope I was able to splain this ok

basicblur

Has anyone tried to transfer their W376g's phone book with Bluetooth?
I have a Sony NV-U94T GPS-Bluetooth connection/calling from GPS works fine, but the GPS has the option of transferring your phone book by Bluetooth.
I've got e-mails into both TracFone (got a feeling this option has been disabled by TracFone?) and Sony, since I can't figure out how to enter the phone book manually on the GPS if I can't transfer it from the phone.

Thanks for the good reviews/info-I used it to pick my phone/plan.

Keith Tyndall

Johnny - Now that I think about it, I'm not sure that you can disable TracFone voicemail altogether. What you can do, however, is simply change your voicemail greeting to state that you don't check voicemail. That way people won't be expecting a reply.

Keith Tyndall

Regarding the coverage question in Ohio, it's probably worth it to try to sort this out with TracFone's customer service.
The problem I see with reactivating is that you will have to wait for your phone to expire, and if you do that you will most likely be assigned a different phone number when you reactivate.
Maybe that's not a big deal to you, but it's something to consider.

Keith Tyndall

basicblur - I've never heard of anyone being able to connect to anything other than bluetooth headsets using the W376g bluetooth, so I'm thinking that it's not likely that it's going to connect to your Sony GPS. :(

johnny

appreciate the help keith
you do a good job here

johnny

Update on coverage problem
keith I talked to cust. ser. and was told that the reason I do not receive coverage in NW Ohio is because my w376g has gsm <(close?).
If it had cdms <(close?), like my sons old fone, I could get coverage like he did. I am told the gsm is newer technolgy,so it makes no sense to me why the "newer" tech. would be subpar to the "older" cdms tech, as far as coverage area.
Now, I may switch over to my sons 2-3 yr. old fone so that I may enjoy the wonders of "ol' skool" technology.

basicblur

Yeah-just got off the phone with Sony and there's no way to manually enter info into the GPS phone book-I can use the preloaded GPS data when looking up points of interest and call when the POI comes up, but no way to do so from within my GPS address book. Guess I shoulda got the LG600G since the Bluetooth hasn't been crippled, but I really like the lit keypad on the Motorola.
You'd think they would at least allow you to transfer your phone book, but I guess that comes under "files" they don't want you to be able to transfer.

Just got a couple of cheap OEM? car chargers off Amazon, and I've opened up a whole 'nother bag of worms-trying to determine if I got counterfeits-think Motorola's counterfeit site/downloadable ID book is out of date-got an e-mail into Motorola now.

Went ahead and ordered some more OEM? stuff off Amazon (can't believe the price differences)-got a set of Motorola Stereo Handsfree Headset #CHYN4516B on the way for around $6 delivered!
Been itching to try out the FM with it's data display, but couldn't find a decent pair of 2.5mm earphones locally.

basicblur

Sorry-didn't read your reply closely enough.
The W376g WILL hook up with the Sony NV-U94T GPS-you can answer/make calls from the GPS-just can't transfer your phone book to the GPS.

Tom in Seatt;e


When composing a text message on the W376g, how do you add a line break (newline, carriage return, etc)? I can't find it in the online Motorola manual nor can I figure out how to make it work through experimentation.


Nice review, Keith. Thanks!

I'm delighted with the phone. My requirements are simply to make and receive phone calls, which this phone does very well, and some occasional texting.

Call quality is great using either the bare phone or with a Motorola H710 bluetooth headset, which paired right up.

The phone is built very solidly, and gives me a lot of confidence that it will last for a couple of years.

iTap text entry works great. The trick is to not worry about word completion. Just type away, but don't look at the screen until you've pressed the space button (*). Chances are very good that the phone has chosen your desired word. For anything unusual, switch to Tap mode before starting the word entry, then switch back to iTap for the rest of your message. (I've never used a T9 phone, so I have no standard of comparison. I just don't understand why so many folks don't like iTap. It works very well for me. I can't see T9 being any easier.)

Like others, I've noticed that the battery life is probably shorter than advertised. After charging until the phone says that it's charged, my battery meter shows 4 after two days on standby. I haven't tried to run it to exhaustion, though, to see what standby time actually is. For me, having to charge the phone every two or three days isn't a problem.

I don't care about the camera, browsing, or adding ringtones, so the crippled bluetooth isn't a problem for me. Just be aware that this isn't a smartphone. If you just want to call and text, this is the phone for you.

...Tom


Keith Tyndall

Johnny - It's CMDA, not CDMS, but you were close! They are different technologies and use different towers, which explains the coverage difference.

basicblur - Thanks for the update about the Sony. I guess the W376g just sees it as a headset.

Tom - Thanks for sharing your experience with texting! Unfortunately, I don't know how to do a carriage return either. There doesn't seem to be any obvious way of doing it.

Nick C

I bought this phone to replace my W376 phone since i thought it would be nice to have Bluetooth so I can do hands free in my truck. What mistake that was. I guess when you add Bluetooth and a camera you have to give up something, apparently the marketing folks at Motorola decided that reception was not as important as a camera.

I can place both my W376 (non bluetooth) and W376g (bluetooth) phones right next to each other and the older non-bluetooth phone shows 5 bars while the new W376g has no reception. I get great reception with it in the city but none just 12 miles out. The old phone gets reception anywhere the new W376g is just plain useless unless you want to take a picture, but then you can't send it to anyone, no reception.

basicblur

Sorry for the long message-just trying to contribute a bit since I’ve gotten a lot from this site!

Just got my OEM? headphones and am pretty impressed with the FM radio-I live on a fringe area of my favorite FM stations (45 to 60 miles away) and it picks them up much better than my Zune's radio! Really like the reception, RDS display, and it has 9 presets.
Never heard back from Motorola regarding their counterfeit ID booklet being out of date. I don't know if some of the stuff I'm getting off Amazon is counterfeit or not, but if it is the counterfeiters have raised their game (I'm a little worried 'bout counterfeit chargers).
Here’s a link to the OEM? Headphones for anyone interested:
http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-Stereo-Handsfree-Headset-CHYN4516B/dp/B000M23HVU/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_cart_3
I got my last bunch of accessories from SF Planet @ Amazon-I e-mailed ‘em and they say their car chargers are OEM and are as they appear in the Amazon ad (entire M logo lights up)-according to Motorola’s (outdated?) info, counterfeit chargers do not have the entire M lit up. I got a couple where the logo does not light up (just a small blue LED), but from what I’ve been able to dig up I think the ones I received may be an updated version-no reply from Motorola regarding this. Got a couple of car chargers on the way from SF Planet-we’ll see!
SF Planet Storefront
http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html?ie=UTF8&marketplaceID=ATVPDKIKX0DER&me=A19R3BN6ZSO9A1

Motorola Counterfeit Site (with 35 page PDF booklet on identifying counterfeit products dated October 2007)
I’m not so sure this book is up to date?
http://www.motorola.com/content.jsp?globalObjectId=8171-10944

BTW-I see TracFone has refurbished W376g phones with 120 minutes for $19.99-free shipping.

Lucas

How do you send a text with a picture to your e-mail?

Ken

I have two questions:
1. I have a W376g and have seen some comments about using email to retrieve photos shot with the phone. I can find no information on how to send a photo from the phone via email. Is this possible? How is this done?

2. I replaced a W370 with the W376g but find my network connections fail on the W376g in locations where I was able to connect using the W370. Are any explanations or fixes available?

Thanks, I think your reviews are a great help.

Pat

Every time I make a call the speaker phone is on and I have to turn it off. Is there a way to turn the the speaker phone off before I dial a number?

Jacki A

How do I copy my phone book from my old cellphone to my new 376g?

How do i turn the sound off for the key pad?
I've tried to do it following the manual, but it turns off the ringer onthe phone!!

johnny

I have a w376g. Is there a way, that when I click on phonebook, I can set it to show the peoples numbers along with thier names, instead of what it does now, which is show name and display an icon. Then you have to click on each name to see each number if your doing a number search.

basicblur

I've seen lots of folks complaining 'bout battery life-got some of my accessories from SF Planet over at Amazon, and they have a Battery Charging Tips PDF you can download. The document covers their new & completely dead batteries-I've loosely followed their recommendations since the TracFones come with the battery partially charged (think the TracFone documentation says initially charge for 5 hours before using).
So far it looks like my batteries are lasting longer the more times I charge them-how much of this is due to SF Planet’s recommendations I can’t tell ya.
Hope this helps someone?
http://sfplanet.helpserve.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=5

BTW-the Motorola car chargers I ordered from SF Planet (referenced in an earlier post) are identical to earlier ones I received (have a small blue LED instead of the entire M logo lighting up) from another vendor. I specifically asked SF Planet if theirs had the entire logo light up and was told they did, and all their Motorola stuff is OEM.

Oh well…waddya gonna do? They seem to be good quality and all work-still no word from Motorola regarding info in their counterfeit products document regarding these chargers.

Elwood Gruschow

My W376g got so it held a charge for only two days. So I bought another reconditioned W376g with a no-additional charge 60min card and shipping all for $19.95. ( Like a free phone since I needed the minutes) The new phone would not activate over the web, I had to call 800-867-7183 from a comfortable chair. I got it going but noticed I could not email a picture. Another LONG service call and that is fixed. The new W376g uses Tmobile, the first one used ATT, same number. I used to check stock prices and weather by sending SMS to Google at 46645, now I get," Sorry this service is unavailable for your current service plan." The new W376g now uses about 3 minutes air time to check weather. The old one under Google SMS used .3 up and .3 back.

SherryL

my motorola v170 just bit the dust and was looking at a new phone, thankyou so much for your review, it was just what I needed!! You answered every question I had. Decision made for the W376g

johnny

Is Keith in Argentina with South Caroline gov?

Keith Tyndall

johhny - Ha! No, I haven't been in Argentia with the governor, I've just been super busy. I've also been working on a review of TracFone's new Smart Talk Prepaid brand.
http://tracfone-blog.fone-review.com/straight-talk-prepaid/

Also, I've loaned out my W376g to my nephew temporarily, so I don't have one on-hand to tinker with.

So after saying all that, I'll say that I'll post another response soon with my advice on the questions asked over the last week or two.

Right now, though, Dora the Explorer is over, so it's my daughter's bathtime. :-)

Keith Tyndall

OK, I'm back. For starters, I want to share with everyone a comment I had on another post:

----------
Dear Tracfone Customer,
My name is Elston and i am a Tracfone Emplyoee and i am here to assist anyone that needs any help. you can contact me at 1.800.626.4883 ext 6107 or by email elombillo@tracfone.com
----------

I'm going to admit up front that I'm not able to answer everyone's questions. Those of you for whom I am less than helpful, I'm going to suggest that you contact Elston and see if he can fix you up.

Nick C - I'm not sure what you mean by W376 (non bluetooth). Maybe you mean W370? Is this phone also a TracFone? Even two different TracFones can possibly have different coverage if one is on T-mobile and the other is on AT&T, for instance. If that's the case, I think TracFone customer service can send a new sim card to change the primary carrier on the phone.

basicblur - Thanks again for another helpful comment!

Lucas and Ken - Since I don't have my phone with me to walk through the steps to send an email from the phone, I'm going to refer you to the following post I found:
http://www.fixya.com/support/t1993409-setup_sending_pictures_e_mail_address

Ken - see my response to Nick C in this comment for an idea on why the W370 and W376 might have different coverage. You might want to contact Elston at TracFone to talk about this.

Pat - I'm not sure why the speaker phone would be active every time. It's supposed to turn off when you end a call. I'm going to refer you to Elston on this one.

Jacki A - Unfortunately, there's no simple way of copying in the phone book from your old phone. You possibly can use a sim card reader, but I have never tried this myself.

For changing the keypad volume, go to page 29 of the moto manual:
http://www.motorola.com/Hellomoto/Master%20Lists/Product%20Manuals/Static%20Files/US-EN/W377g_UG_.pdf

johnny - I don't know if you can customize the phonebook the way you want. I'd say either look through the moto manual I just linked to, or contact Elston.

basicblur - thanks yet again for another helpful post!

Elwood - I'm sorry to hear that your phone is not working as well now. Is there any reason why you didn't try to get a new battery for the old one? If you contact TracFone again, explain your problem, and are persistent but polite, you may be able to get them to send you a new sim card to switch you back to ATT.

SherryL - It's good to hear that you found the review helpful.

And finally - johnny - thank you for the Argentina joke! It was what made me put some other things on the back burner and finally get caught up on all of these questions!

george

I bought this phone about 6 months ago, and i loved it but the screen gets scratched easily, and the features got kinda boring( but i am a teenager lol ) but anyways i left on a trip so i took the battery out so it wouldn't set off alarms or anything, when i got back i put that battery in and it was fine, next morning i take it off the charger, the screen was white and that was it. i took out the sim and put it back and then i got it to got to the homepage after showing the white. later it went white again and now i have nothing!!! i've decided to switch to net10, they rent service through tracfone but i heard the phone service is better and they're rates are CHEAPER! even without double mins, or buying the mins in bulk. and the text messages are slightly cheaper, but it adds up almost every 10th text message is free!!!

george mullins

wow now they are 19.99 each with 60 minutes airtime, time to upgrade! mike

Lee Butcher

Keith, First of all, thanks VERY MUCH for your time and help! What a guy! Anyway, I just bought my 376 a few weeks ago, and I have 2 questions. A) How can I get the scrolling "end service date" off my home screen? I'm good till 2024, so I don't need an irritating reminder sucking my battery dry!
B)I downloaded a better ringtone for my incoming calls, and now I'd like to get another one. The first time I accessed this site, I was able to listen to the ring tones before I bought one. Now, I can't figure out how to listen to them while I have them on screen, and since I'm paying to browse, I need to know how to 'test drive' the downloads before I give up 30 minutes for one. Lee

johnny

Lee, if I may, to disable service date, go to "prepaid" icon,click,.. go to "airtime display",click.. highlite "due date" then change to "off" that should do it

Keith Tyndall

Johnny - Thanks for chipping in with your answer!

Lee - You can go to http://www.tracfone.com/buy_ringtones.jsp?task=ringtones on your computer and browse and listen to all the ringtones you want before buying one. If you buy it on the website, they will send a text message to your phone that will allow you to download to your phone the ringtone that you bought online.

Maary Lou McKee

How do I recieve pictures that were sent to my motorola w376g?

Dan T

I currently own the Moto V170. My biggest gripe is that it does not record the incoming number when someone leaves a voice mail. Is this a Tracfone quirk or just this model? Does the W376g have this issue or does it record all incoming numbers including those who go to voice mail. Thanx for all your help. BTW great site !!

Robert Harlow

I recently replaced my V170 with the W376G (the V170 became nonfunctional)and am generally pleased. Good quality, great reception and I'm moderately hearing impaired. Most likely I'll not use the internet feature. I might rarely use the camera feature. (I have several good cameras including a good digital camera) My question: exactly how do I send a photo by email to my computer? I must admit I don't even know how to send an email by cell phone. Is there someplace that has step by step instructions? Help!!! Robert

JOY

Very Helpful Thnks

erik

can you tranfer your previous phone number from my old company to my Moto 376g

Brianna

So, What is another way you can get ringtones?

Verify your Comment

Previewing your Comment

This is only a preview. Your comment has not yet been posted.

Working...
Your comment could not be posted. Error type:
Your comment has been posted. Post another comment

The letters and numbers you entered did not match the image. Please try again.

As a final step before posting your comment, enter the letters and numbers you see in the image below. This prevents automated programs from posting comments.

Having trouble reading this image? View an alternate.

Working...

Post a comment