Physical Aspects

The Motorola W233 Renew from T-Mobile is clad in a sporty looking white, green, and black color scheme. Despite the use of recycled plastic for the housing, it is surprisingly sturdy, with minimal muted creaks. Weighing in at a scant 83g (2.9oz), it's definitely one of the most lightweight phones we've used in a long time.

The front of this candybar cell phone starts with the minuscule 1.6-inch 128x128 pixels resolution display, capable of showing only 65k colors. Below this is the navigational cluster, with a round 5-way d-pad in the middle. Each direction on this d-pad is clearly defined and responds with a very confident click, making it quite nice to use. There are four buttons split on either side of the d-pad, as well. On the left, you'll find the Music shortcut key, which takes you directly the W233 Renew's music player, as well as the call send button. On the right, there is a softkey, which helps you navigate through menus, with the end call button just below.

Below the navigational cluster you'll find the standard alphanumeric keypad, which features individual buttons positioned roughly 1mm apart. This keypad is silver, and has an extremely bright blue backlight. Each key is evenly lit, and offers a nice tactile feedback when pressed, making this a great messaging phone if you're comfortable with Motorola's iTap predictive text input system.

On the top right edge of the phone, you'll find the miniUSB port, which is used for charging the phone. In order to charge the W233 Renew through your computer, there is a dedicated driver that must be downloaded directly from Motorola's website. However, I was unable to use this driver on a laptop running Windows Vista. On the top left edge is a 2.5mm headset port, and there is a pair of stereo headphones conveniently included in the sales package, along with a standard AC power adapter. Behind the small 910mAh battery, you'll find the SIM card slot and the microSD card slot.