Motorola V220 - Silver (Unlocked) Cellular Phone

The Motorola V220 was a popular Cingular phone in the US and a popular Rogers phone in Canada. One of the first truely useable sim card (gsm) phones, it was small, more or less rugged, could hook to a PC with relative ease, and most important: Folks who like to play with the programming of phones LOVED IT.
It is also rather easy to repair, which you might need to learn how to do, because a lot of the really cheap ones have something wrong with them.

FIRST: Test your new phone: Calls and recieves calls. Speaker, microphone and speakerphone speaker (in back) are working. Phone is locked or unlocked (you will need an old sim card from another carrier to test this).

SECOND: Go googling for "v220 flex flash". This will find you a few forums, instead of the 20,000 folks who want to sell unlocking services to you. If you want a simple unlock, and it is a Cingular phone, call cingular a lot until you can request an unlock code because you are "planning to travel" - they will then email you it for free within a week. The Forums you found will have lots of info on how to hook the phone to a PC (drivers, drivers, drivers.. plus the common mini-5pin usb cable that lotts of digital cameras and mp3 players use) as well as how to unlock and reprogram your phone to factory appearance and functionality. Spend a few evenings reading before you post annoying requests.

What else: The V220 menu system is fairly straightforward. The voice dial works, speakerphone setting is easy to use. Store your contacts to SIM card. The Camera is lame compared to today's megapixel high-end phones, and there is no video, but it is good enough for casual use. Learn to hook to the PC to move your pix! Dont buy any themes or ring tones - the V220 can use mp3 ring tones, so free PC audio editors and some transferring can get a recording of your mom yelling at you to answer the phone as your ring tone, if you are really sick. The forums will also help with transferring games, and there are thousands of them out there.

Repairs and parts: The battery is a very common motorola type.. ebay will get one to your door for under $10, perhaps even under $6 if you lurk a lot. Aside from busted screens, all the other mystery problems (bad camera, earpiece, screen cut-out, etc) are probably caused by a bad flex cable. It is a bit of a bear to replace, but strong fingernails, a T6 screwdriver and walnut picks can completely disassemble the phone. Buy 2 flex cables if you have never done it before and take your time.

In the end, I keep a few V220's as "my phone" because they fit in my pocket, have good sound, and do the job. Later model motos have great features, but I like the small size.

I have bough many phone during my professional price. The Motorola v220 is one that gave me the most satisfaction.It have excellent sound quality, a killer speaker phone.The camera is not to compare with the newest 1.3 mega pixel high price PDA phone.

The 640 x 480 image quality is similar to older 1990s Desktop computers but is more than descent enough for a tiny phone like the Motorola v220.With a 4x zoom camera, it have equivalent strength to many early 2003 digital cameras.

My profession required me to make frequent travel inside north America.At that time I was with cingular but many states in the middle west doesnt quarenty reception with that provider.I love my moto v220 so much that I didnt want to buy a different phone for local provider.

I needed then to unlock it but Cingular was reticent to give me an unlocking code.I can understand their decision, I was for more than 3 years in contract with them and always a good payer.After insistence, one costumer service agent suggest me to get a Cingular unlocking code card on Ebay.

This cards are often provided my big cellular company like Cingular, Tmobiles and they have the logo of those companies.So it's perfectly legals because they are sold by those very same companies.

My only regret was to purchase those unlocking cards for $35 on Ebay,because I discovered that Motorola V220 was very easy to unlock with a software and regular usb cable(include with the phone)if you want to do it yourself.If you don't have that cable, it is sold less than $5 dollars at any electronic stores.Furthermore the unlocking code for the v220 is all over the internet for free and you don't need any cable


Without doubt in mind, I recommend that phone because if its price versus qualities.

When my wife and I changed our cell phone coverage, she got a camera phone and I got one without the camera. Her phone did not include the cable and software for downloading pictures. After looking for this software and cable and having bad luck with some copies of software, I noticed the free gifts included with this cell phone. I ended up getting the software and cable for both phones and a good camera phone for myself.

Simply changed out the card and the phone was ready to go. Gives good service, good reception and though the pictures are not up to the quality of my digital camera, they are handy for recording the little things that occur suddenly. They can easily be e-mailed.

Phone is small enough to be easily carried in a pocket. As it folds up, I don't have to worry about buttons being pushed by accident. Reception is as good as any I've seen in this area where we have limited cellular reception.

All in all, a good phone with useful accessories included at a very reasonable price.

son wanted camera phone and didn't want to go to cell phone provider to get one and sign another two year contract so we decided to get one off ebay, works great and had the features he wanted with an excellant price even though it was used and it made him happy.

This is one of my favorite phones I ever had. I have it in pink, and it's just the cutest! Sure, it's not the most advanced phone and it doesn't have the greatest camera, but that's why it's less expensive. It's definately worth the money. The only bad thing I can say about the phone is that it doesn't get the best reception, especially in my house where I don't have a great signal. But when I'm somewhere with a good signal, I've never had a problem. Like I said, it's definately a great phone for the price. I've never had any problems w/ it being too fragile or the antenna breaking like some of the other reviews, they must be hard on their phones!