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The C290's feature set is all about the basics. You get a 500-contact address book with room in each entry for five phone numbers, an e-mail address, and a birth date. You can organize contacts into caller groups and, for caller-ID purposes, pair them with any of 21 polyphonic ring tones. You can also assign contacts with a picture, but since the C290 has neither multimedia messaging nor a camera, your photo options are limited. Other features include a vibrate mode, text messaging, a 60-second voice recorder, a calendar, an alarm clock, a calculator, a world clock, and a WAP 2.0 wireless Web browser. The speakerphone is a welcome addition to such a basic phone, but you must first make a call before turning it on. The phone comes with an airplane mode, but beyond using it for playing games, we can't imagine why Motorola chose to include it.
You can personalize the C290 with a variety of screensavers, clock types, menu styles, and sounds, with more options available from Sprint. You can also get more ring tones or mix your own with the Tone Maker DJ application, but you must use wireless Web airtime to do so. There's a tiny red LED on the upper-left hinge that blinks for incoming calls, though you can also turn it off. As for Java (J2ME) games, you get demo versions of Tetris, Ms. Pac-Man, BlockBreaker Deluxe, 2Fast 2Furious, and World Poker Tour. You'll need to buy the full versions for extended play.
We tested the dual-band, trimode (CDMA 800/1900; AMPS 800) Motorola C290 in San Francisco using Sprint's service and had no trouble getting a signal. Call quality was decent, with admirable clarity and superior volume. We had no trouble understanding our callers, and they could hear us plainly. At times, voices on our end sounded a bit robotic, and callers could tell we were using a cell phone, but overall, we were pleased with the performance. Speakerphone quality was somewhat diminished, but a drop in call quality is not unexpected. Fortunately, the speakerphone was sufficiently loud even when the phone sat on a table with the speaker facing down. Web browsing was poky but not atypical of a handset supporting 1xRTT data speeds.
The Motorola C290 has a rated talk time of 2.8 hours and a promised standby time of 8.5 days. In our tests, we got 2 hours, 40 minutes of talk time and an impressive 11.5 days of standby time. Please note that the C290 does not use the mini-USB charger jack becoming standard in newer Motorola phones. According to FCC radiation tests, the C290 has a digital SAR rating of 1.53 watts per kilogram.
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