Tracfone Motorola W370

The Tracfone Motorola W370 is an attractive flip phone styled like the popular Razr and includes features that make it a (small) step up from the basic Tracfone handsets. It was followed by the W376g which added a camera.

June 2013 Update

Reconditioned models were again available directly on their site. Not sure why they were offering them again. Perhaps they wanted to make the other phones look more attractive and show that not every phone they offer is a double or triple minutes phone - although this used to be available as a double minutes phone before they took it off the market.

Short Story

Subtract the camera and Bluetooth from the W376g and you have an attractive double-minute Tracfone handset for just $20 originally.

Here's the long version . . .

It's a Tracfone

It's a Tracfone, so you get good nationwide coverage and a single rate for all local and long distance calls with no roaming charges.

Double Minutes

You get double minutes for the life of the phone - so for every minute of airtime you buy, you get a free minute. Buy a 60-minute airtime card for $20 and you get a 120 minutes plus a few minutes more, if you use a promo code. Similarly, when you buy a 450-minute card and you get 900 minutes, and so on.

Now some people post complaints about how the double minutes feature is only good for the phone and if you drop your phone into an acid vat and have to get another one, the double minutes feature doesn't transfer. That's silly. All you would have to do is buy another double minutes for life phone for $20.

Basic Features

Size and Weight

How a phone feels in your hand is important.

The Motorola W370 measures 3.9 x 1.77 x 0.73 inches, a relatively compact phone.

The phone weighs 3.4 ounces which is actually a good weight. Once you get below 3 ounces, a phone feels too light to manipulate easily. Actually some of the newer handsets,like the basic open-face W175, also have a pleasing feel to them.

Battery Life

Good battery life reduces the hassle-factor.

A fully charge Tracfone W370 has a talk time of 7.5 hours. This is good but usually not relevant to a prepaid cell phone user.

The Standby-time is 10 days. Anything over a week is good, especially if you tend to leave it in your purse, though it's a good idea to charge it more often.

USB and Car harger

The W370 uses its USB port just for charging the battery. While the phone will come with a new wall charger, if you had a car charger for an old Motorola Tracfone, you'll need to get a new one that connects to a USB port.

Using It

First of all, the Tracfone Motorola W370 is a flip phone, so it prevents accidental pressing of the keys when it’s in your pocket. If you hate carrying around those hip attachments for phones or having to dig it out of a case, getting a flip phone is the way to go.

You get external alert icons.

Caller ID

Always useful when avoiding calls.

Hands free speaker phone

Good to have for when you're doing mundane things like dicing carrots. You wouldn't want to use it as a substitute for a headset.

Voicemail

Voicemail is easy to setup and useful occasionally, though you do use up your airtime.

Messaging

You can send text and picture messages

Text Messages

Text messages cost 0.3 units each to send and receive.

Picture Messaging

This is somewhat pointless since there's no camera, though you can send graphics you've downloaded, and forward those that someone else sends you.

Stuff you do on your own

Here are a few doo-hickeys.

Alarm Clock

Useful as a backup in case your kids have fooled with the clock radio and reset it.

Stop Watch

Okay, so we all love to time ourselves sometimes.

Calendar

The C261 camera phone didn't have one, so this is a plus.

Calculator

Offers from sales people mysteriously improve when you have a calculator with you.

Phonebook

Store your friends numbers.

Manual

Here's a link to the Tracfone Motorola W370 manual(pdf), which goes over all these feature in boring detail.