The V9m’s external display is so big, and can do so much, it almost makes me wonder why there are two screens at all. And then I remembered that flip phones are cool, and generally quite comfortable to talk on. Still, a handset with two displays running at nearly the same size and resolution is either approaching the pinnacle of utility or total overkill.
On the outside of the V9m is the 2” secondary display running at QVGA (320 x 240) resolution across 65k colors. As mentioned, you can use this display to watch TV, browse your music collection, and do all kinds of other things via a row of three touch-sensitive controls aligned along the bottom edge. Pressing any of the touch controls results in a jolt of vibration that lets your finger know its intent was received. This display is bright and clear and shows off the most user friendly user interface I’ve seen on a Motorola handset in quite awhile. As also mentioned, there are certain navigational tasks I expected to be able to handle via the external controls that required opening the phone up, which was a little disappointing.
Flipping the handset open reveals a 2.2” primary display which also runs at QVGA and 65,000 colors. I’d really liked to have seen this screen bumped up to 262k colors like on the GSM RAZR 2 (V8) - why the CDMA versions get a lower-res internal display is beyond me. In any case, the internal display is more than adequate to make good use of that much improved UI and all of those Sprint Power Vision multimedia services. It’s not a state-of-the-art display, but it’s certainly not bad in any way.
I tested the dual-band CDMA V9m on Sprint’s network in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. Audio quality during phone calls was generally quite good. Callers came through loud and clear on the phone’s earpiece, and they reported being able to hear my voice with no problems beyond the occasional crackle or distortion. There were no notable problems with static or hiss during calls, and signal strength on the V9m was above average as compared to other Sprint handsets I’ve used.
The V9m’s built-in speaker is also quite loud, making for a more-usable-than-most speakerphone function. Stereo Bluetooth is also supported by the V9m, and while I’ve read some reports of issues playing music wirelessly from the handset, I found that it worked fairly well with the Motorola S9 headset Sprint provided for this review. No wired earpiece is included with the device, though its micro-USB port does support mono and stereo headsets.
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4.5
