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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #357 in Cell Phone Accessories
• Color: green
• Brand: Motorola
• Model: W233 Renew
• Released on: 2008-11-10

Features

• World's first mobile phone made using plastics comprised of recycled water bottles--case is 100 percent recyclable
• Pay for just the minutes you use with no annual contract--easy refill via Internet or prepaid cards
• Handsfree speakerphone; text and picture messaging; MP3 player; CrystalTalk technology reduces background noise
• Up to 9 hours of talk time, up to 432 hours (18 days) of standby time
• What's in the Box: handset, battery, charger, quick start guide, user manual

Amazon.com Product Description
Stay in touch with all your contacts and keep your busy life organized with the Motorola Renew W233, and pay the way you want with prepaid and postpaid calling plans from T-Mobile Pay As You Go. You'll get all the communication features you expect from Motorola while reducing your carbon footprint. Not only is the plastic housing of Renew made from plastics comprised of recycled water bottles and 100 percent recyclable, but it is also the world's first carbon neutral phone.

The Motorola Renew is the world's first mobile phone made using plastics comprised of recycled water bottles.

A great phone for those just looking for the basics in mobile communication, the Renew will keep you connected to your closest friends and family members with T-Mobiles myFaves (offering unlimited calls to your five most-used phone numbers) as well as via SMS text and MMS multimedia messaging. The phone also features Motorola's CrystalTalk technology to helps reduce background noise, a speakerphone for handsfree conversations, digital audio player, MicroSD memory expansion (to 2 GB), and up to 9 hours of talk time

T-Mobile Pay As You Go Prepaid Service
T-Mobile prepaid plans give you wireless access with less commitment, so you can pay--and talk--as you go. With no annual contract, no credit check, and no monthly bill, prepaid plans are a simple, direct way to go mobile. There are many ways to conveniently refill your T-Mobile Prepaid Plan so that you can stay continually connected with the people who matter most, including using web2go directly from your phone, via the T-Mobile web site, or using refill cards available at over 90,000 locations nationwide.

With Pay As You Go, you get wireless service exactly how you like it--there's no long-term contract, no credit checks, and no surprises. Add $100 in refills with Pay As You Go and you'll become a Gold Rewards customer, which gets you 15 percent more minutes on all refills and your minutes won't expire for a year after the time you refill.

You can also pay only $1.00 per day for unlimited nights and unlimited nationwide calling to any T-Mobile number. All other domestic calls you make are just 10¢ per minute.

T-Mobile includes the following services with this T-Mobile Pay As You Go phone:

• Nationwide long distance (including calls to Alaska and Hawaii)
• National roaming on the T-Mobile USA network
• T-Mobile web2go (free shopping for HiFi Ringers, MegaTones, wallpapers, and more; not available on all devices)
• VoiceMail, caller ID, call waiting, three-way calling
• Free e-mail address (10digitnumber@tmomail.net)

Additional services available for additional fees:

• Text messaging ($0.20 to send, $0.20 to receive)
• Picture messaging ($0.20 to send or receive)
• Download ringtones and wallpaper (prices vary)
• Download games and applications (prices vary)
• 411 & More directory assistance ($1.49 per call plus airtime)
• International dialing to over 150 countries (international rates apply)
• Prepaid international roaming rates

To keep your mobile number active, refill within 90 days after your minutes expire. After 90 days, your account will be canceled and you will lose your phone number. If you want to restart service after that time, you will need to activate new service.

It's also compatible with T-Mobile's myFaves service, which allows you to call up to five of your most common contacts--on any network, even landlines--without using any of your minutes. Learn more about myFaves from T-Mobile.

Phone Features
If your eco-conscience has been nagging you lately, the environmentally responsible Motorola Renew was designed for you. The phone made from 25 percent post consumer recycled plastics, and its plastic case is 100 percent recyclable. It's also the world's first carbon neutral phone. Through an alliance with Carbonfund.org, Motorola offsets the carbon dioxide required to manufacture, distribute and operate the phone through investments in renewable energy sources and reforestation. The phone has earned Carbonfund.org's CarbonFree Product Certification after an extensive product life-cycle assessment.

A no-frills communicator, the Renew is a great mobile voice and text/picture messaging companion.

The box packaging has been reduced by 22 percent in comparison with standard Motorola packaging. Additionally, the reduced package size and weight helps to reduce transportation emissions. Minimizing its carbon footprint through energy, transportation and material efficiencies this device does its part reduce its climate impact.

A no-frills communication partner for your on-the-go lifestyle, the candybar-style Renew has a 1.6-inch LCD screen (128 x 128 pixels, 65K colors) and a standard alpha-numeric keypad. Sitting between the keypad and display are a four-way navigator, send/end keys, two soft navigation keys, and a dedicated digital audio player key. The phone has a small amount of internal memory--enough to store 500 contact entries as well as ringtones and other information--and it can be expanded via optional MicroSD memory cards (up to 2 GB in size). The phonebook can store multiple numbers per contact entry and is compatible with ringer groups as well as photo/ringer ID. Other features include the most recent 10 dialed/received/missed phone calls, a protected USB port on the right side, and a protected headphone jack (2.5mm) on the left side.

Motorola's innovative CrystalTalk technology automatically accounts for background noise during a call and adjusts the audio quality based on ambient noise conditions to provide the optimal conversational experience. CrystalTalk also reduces the volume of the background noise picked up by the microphone during a call, making it possible to be more easily heard over the phone while in a noisy environment.

If you need text messaging capabilities, the Renew has you covered as support is built-in for sending and receiving SMS and MMS messages. T9 predictive text entry, a technology that makes it easier for people to enter words and text on handsets, is built-into the unit--a plus for text messaging users.

Other features include:

• GPRS data connectivity
• Handsfree speakerphone
• Polyphonic and MP3 ringtones
• Vibrating alert
• Digital audio player compatible with MP3 files
• Tools: Alarm clock, calculator, calendar, voice memo
• Downloadable games (Java MIDP 2.0)
• Web browser (WAP 2.0/xHTML)

Vital Statistics
The Motorola Renew weighs 2.93 ounces and measures 4.37 x 1.77 x 0.58 inches. Its lithium-ion battery is rated at up to 9 hours of talk time, and up to 18 days of standby time. It runs on the 850/1900 MHz GSM/GPRS frequencies.

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Customer Reviews

Good first phone
I bought this phone for my son's first phone. He's 11, but will be doing a lot of camps this summer so I wanted him to have a way to call if needed. With the pre-paid option, I can give him a $10 per month phone allowance. He gets to demonstrate that he CAN be responsible, but it's not a huge thing if he loses it. Either way he's learning, and it's a good basic phone. Nice voice quality. Good volume. I'm sure he'll have the MP3 features figured out soon.

Nice phone but calender and contacts does not work as advertised
This phone is small, light, nice looking and inexpensive.

The big problem with it is that Motorola Phone Tools (latest version is currently V5.17d) doesn't recognize the phone. This means that, despite what the advertising says, you cannot sync your contacts or your calender to your computer, backup your contacts or transfer your old data from your previous phone. It is possible that Motorola will update their software in time but even if they do, it's deeply disrespectful to their customers to advertise functionality that they have simply failed to implement. The phone should be withdrawn from sale until they can make it work.

You can transfer music to it, but there's a trick to it. You have to plug the phone into your USB port and quickly follow a prompt on the phone's screen to switch to storage mode. It then pretends to be a thumb drive.

Update:
According to Motorola, the phone will never be supported by motorola phone tools, so despite what you may read on review sites that claim to have tested the phone, but clearly just paraphrase the marketing materials (I'm looking at you CNET), the phone cannot sync your calender with outlook, and you can't backup the address book or transfer one from your previous phone. It seems to me that Motorola are trying to kill this phone, perhaps so that they can claim that they offered a carbon neutral phone but nobody wanted it. Shame on you Motorola.

A Good Option For Someone Like Me
I don't spend a lot of time on the phone, but it has become increasingly important for people to reach me while I'm away from home, or out of the office. After researching the options, a prepaid phone seemed to be the best choice. No monthly bills, or long term commitment, for a device that would be used infrequently, plus the T-Mobile $100 for 1000 minutes prepaid plan gives me more than enough talk time, and I have up to a year to use it. Anything not used within that period can be rolled over provided you add more minutes before the year is up. Additional minutes can be easily purchased online, over the phone, or at store locations around the country.

The Moto W233 has surprisingly clear audio, along with a well amplified speaker, and strong signal quality. Nine hour talk time, eighteen hour standby on the battery. The screens are intuitive and simple, albeit quite basic. Included in the box is a pamphlet style "quick start" guide, however, a full version of the product manual is available on the Motorola web site.

The address book and calendar are adequate, and new contacts and phone numbers can be added from the T-Mobile web site, as well as through the dial pad. With the optional micro SD card you can also store photos and music on the device. The downside is that the screen resolution is far too poor, and too small, for viewing anything other than clipart style images. In other words, don't bother downloading your Flickr jpeg collection to this phone. You will be very disappointed.

The headphone jack is smaller than a standard earphone plug, so forget about using your favorite iPod earbuds with this one. Fortunately, a decent pair of buds are included in the box. The lime green color gives it a toyish appearance, which may cause some embarrassment when compared with your buddy's fancy flip out Nokia, but hey...you're doing your bit for the environment with this product made largely of recycled plastic.

The battery charges quickly (about an hour, give or take), and can be charged through the USB port on your computer after downloading the proper drivers from the Motorola web site. However, be forewarned, the drivers only work on Windows XP and Windows 2000. Nope, no Vista drivers. Amazing, ain't it?

Overall, if you're just looking for a decent device that enables your people to reach you when you're away from the land line, and you really don't need another phone bill on your budget, the Moto W233 is ideal. It's lightweight, small, fits in a shirt pocket, and fits nicely in your hand. For someone like me, this device is likely to be all I'll ever need when it comes to cell phones.