A small stereo jukebox - Motorola E398

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Motorola E398 freely follows all company's previous V-models but the construction is classic and besides other functions it comes up with a revolutionary feature: it has two speakers and can play MP3 loud and in stereo. Its control is identical to those of V600, V500 or V80 models. Therefore we won't deal with functions that are common for all models and we'll focus more on design and the aspects that differs E398 from its colleagues.


Blue-silver classic
With its dimensions of 108 x 46 x 21 mm Motorola E398 belongs to mid big handsets. The construction is classic, with a keypad on the front. The front side is dominated by the active colour display, which sizes respectively are 30 x 37 mm. It features resolution of 176 x 220 pixels and displays 65k colours. This top class display offers very good brightness and contrast and is well readable even in outdoor light.

The display window is placed quite deep under protective glass framed by silver-grey border. The border is bent to an arc on the upper part and you can find a round metal silver Motorola company sign on the top of the arc. The lower part of the front side consists of control handset elements - a numeric keypad, joystick and function keys separated from the display by a blue partition.

Under these four keys you can find a slightly bent silver strip with two oval chrome keys used to make and receive calls (in classic configuration). There is a small five-directional joystick - in chrome as well - placed between them. A recessed hollow is designed around the joystick to make the joystick usage easier and effortless. The hollow stretches a bit up to both middle keys and down to the "2" key.

The remaining space on the front side is taken by the numeric keypad organized in a standard square matrix form with twelve keys. The whole grid is slightly bent down, which gives it some kind of dynamic and boost appearance. The white illuminated keypad shines enough in the dark.

Everything is set on the side
The phone is trimmed by a silver stripe almost all around. On its both sides, approximately on the display level, there are two symmetrically situated speakers, protected with ribbing. The colour LEDs are hidden under the speakers and blink in some situations. As symmetrically as the speakers, a silver Motorola logo is imprinted on both phone sides into the silver trim. It represents a nice complement and is really not obtruding the overall appearance of the mobile.