Released for Sprint Nextel, the Motorola i870 is the update to the popular i860. Fully loaded with all the latest features such as a 1.3-megapixel digital camera with flash and 4x zoom, MP3 player, Bluetooth connectivity, and MOTOtalk off-network push-to-talk capabilities, the Motorola i870 is for work and play. In today's business world where image and status are just as important as productivity and results, the i870 helps consumers express their distinctive style to stand out among the crowd.
Motorola i870 Features
Built-in 1.3-megapixel camera with 4x zoom, flash, self-timer, and video clip capture and playback capabilities
Integrated MP3 Player with convenient front-plate controls
Advanced Push-To-Talk functionality supporting MOTOtalk off-network digital walkie-talkie service
GPS-enabled for location-based services
WAP 2.0 compliant browser with WiDEN technology for high-speed data transmission
Bluetooth wireless technology for hands-free connectivity and OBEX enabled for file transfers
TransFlash memory expansion slot for additional storage with optional card
Motorola i870 User Reviews
1. Posted by Gatman857
Thu Apr 06, 2006 3:42 am
One of the newer additions to the Nextel Phone Line is the remarkable I870 made by Motorola. Just like all the other Motorola made Nextel phones the features and menu list are pretty much the same but the additional features is what sets it apart. I mean the design itself is just so stylish and comforting there isn't many flaws to this phone. The color screen is just a sight to see. The Phone ITSELF with the Push-To-Open button is just so stylish and very very appealing. One of the better built parts on the phone is its HUGE Button Dialing, so as calling, adding numbers, and texting is so easy!!! Unlike the average I860 the I870 has a 1.3 Mega-Pixel Camera for some really good picture taking. I'm not saying this phone has the greatest camera but its really good. Then its other new addition is the MP3 capability . The MP3 Player is pretty basic to use, you just have to purchase A Trans-Flash card. The biggest add-on to this phone is its Bluetooth Feature !!! Even though the phone doesn't quite capture the best quality for the Bluetooth its still a great feature to always have. To really breakdown the I870 is to best describe it as basically Eye Candy....The Bad Parts is basically the little bothering aspects. I'll Break this down so you can understand.
The Goods!!!
1. The Design is FLAWLESS!!! Just A Beautiful Phone!!!
2. Bluetooth Feature!!!
3. The Screen and Buttons are so hot to look at!!!
4. Holds ALOT OF RINGTONES & WALLPAPERS!!!
5. NEW MP3 PLAYER FEATURE!!!
The Mediocre!!!
1. The Camera Could've been a bit clearer!!!
2. MP3 is a bit confusing to use!!!
3. Pretty Basic as the other Motorola Nextel Models!!!
The Bad!!!
1. Batter Life SUCKS!!! Gotta keep like 2 batteries on you boooo!!!
2. There is no feature that really stands out from competition!!!
Overall, I rate this a 9 because of its Stylish Design mixed with the MP3 & Bluetooth Features, but if I had to rate it on being something both rare and creative on the feature side I'd give it a 7!!! Motorola & Nextel really needs to try something new not have the basic menu and features on every phone!!! BUT I Do RECOMMEND THIS OVER THE I930 because its less of a stress and sometimes simplicity is better!!!
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2. Posted by braines641
Mon Jan 23, 2006 1:45 am
I'm a long-time Nextel customer that recently acquired the new Motorola i870, while re-signing for another two year contract. I was looking for a phone to fit my business needs. I needed a a phone that could get email, and keep appointments, but I didn't want the oversized palm type phone or blackberry. Due to the new laws in Chicago governing cellphone usage, I wanted a bluetooth, so I could use my existing Jabra BT250 headset, without the additional black box to make it work with non-bluetooth phones, and voice activated dialing. After researching all of Nextel's current offering, and subtracting out the Blackberry models, the i870 seemed to have everything that I wanted and more.
I have had the phone now for 1 month, and I am really pleased with the performance. It was easy to port all of my existing phone numbers over from my old phone using the motorola phone book software. To my suprise the i870 uses some of the accessories that I had purchased in the past for other motorola phones, the i90c and the i730. The batteries from the i90 are the exact models used in this phone, and I had a external 2-slot battery charger that I can now reuse. Additionally, both the car and home chargers, and the USB cables from the i730 are reusable for the i870 too...Bonus! I have started putting pictures of all my contacts in so when they call, I dont have to squint to see who is calling me. I also was able to download my own company logo for a screen background.... way to easy.
The unit comes with a small 32Mb SanDisk Trans Memory card, and I was able to get a 256mb from ebay for $40 with shipping. The software comes with Roxio rip and burn software that copies your favorite cd's to MP3 files, and with the handy Secure Digital card reader, it is so easy to download music to the phone from your computer. I think this phone is amazing and I highly recommend it to anyone needing a excellent business tool.
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3. Posted by jymlewis
Mon Jan 23, 2006 4:46 am
I've had the i870 for several weeks now...long enough to have tried every feature and used them all several times.
I like it better than any other Nextel phone I've ever had - and I have had a LOT. (I've changed phones every 4-6 months for the past 5 years.) But to say that I love this phone is a little bit of a stretch. I like it better than my other phones only in the sense that it has way more features. But as far as workability goes, it leaves a little to be desired.
As a phone it seems to work pretty well. I get decent reception and don't drop calls.
The screens (both inside and outer screen) are amazing. Much more clear and larger than any other phone.
They've fixed some of the problems that previous high-end phones had. Even minor things like the connection flaps not opening and closing easily) have been fixed.
The number of things this phone does is amazing. AGPS works great. Java Games are nice on this phone. MP3 Player is a little difficult to learn how to use and difficult to figure out how to put songs on the card. But once you figure it out, it's pretty cool and it works well. If you plan on storing lots of songs on the phone you'll want to toss the crappy 32MB card the phone comes with and get at least a 256MB or a 512 MB. They are fairly cheap.
The camera is great. Love it. It even takes video clips, which is amazing.
Blue Tooth is just okay. I bought the Blue Tooth wireless earpiece that Nextel sells to go along with this phone. It works. But not so well. If I am in the car driving, it works well. But if I sit the phone on a desk and walk away 5 or 10 feet, it doesn't work that great. You have to keep the phone within a few feet of you - and at the same level - in order for the bluetooth earpiece to function well. Even if the phone is in my pocket and I try to answer a call on the headset, I won't get a clear conversation unless I take the phone out of my pocket and place it in my hand and hold it up in the air. That's pretty lame. Bluetooth is supposed to be better than that.
The thing that is really really really annoying is how difficult it is to create your own ringtones. It's said that with this phone, you won't have to pay for ringtones because you can just make your own with your MP3s. HAHAHAHAHA! That's pretty funny. I've spent quite a lot of time on the phone with customer support and on the internet looking at pages and pages of info. on how to create your own ringtones and nothing works. As far as I can tell, this is not possible with this phone.
As far as I am concerned, you should just be able to select one of your MP3s and make it a ringtone. It should be just that simple. But it's not. It's actually 10x more complex than you'd ever think.
Once you've done it a few times, it's real simple to add MP3 songs to the card. I added about 10 just this morning and it only took me a minute or so. Here's how I do it.
1) Insert small SD card into the TransFlash Adapter
2) Insert TransFlash Adapter into SD Reader, which is attached to a USB cord.
3) Plug USB cord into an open USB port into your computer
4) Go to MY COMPUTER and find the open removable drive, open this into it's own folder on your computer screen.
5) Go to MY COMPUTER again, find the folder that contains your MP3s and open that folder onto your computer screen.
6) Resize each open folder so that each folder takes up 1/2 of the window on your computer screen
7) Right click on the MP3 you want to copy onto your SD card, keep holding the right mouse button down, grab the MP3 song you want, keep holding right mouse button down, drag the MP3 over to the SD card folder and then release the right mouse button. A set of options comes up, choose "Copy Here"
When you are done, remove card from Transflash adapter and insert it into your phone.
I've made it sound fairly complex with these 8 steps. But it's really not. Once you've done it a few times it takes literally a minute or two to go and load up several songs.
So overall, I'd say it's a nice phone. But it does have it's flaws, that's for sure.
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4. Posted by supersexy
Wed May 03, 2006 5:51 am
I just got the i870 from nextel and i love it!!!! There so many things that i like that i narrowed it down to this: the 1- the screen is beautiful, 2- batttery life is great! 3- the stuff that comes with the phone ( clip, memory cards and more) are great. To me the most fabulous thing about this phone is the reception i get It is the very Best Did I mention it has exallent camara and video? Well it does and that works great. To me this phone is by far the best phone nextel has made. I highly recommend it !!!
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5. Posted by jymlewis
Sat Jan 27, 2007 3:19 am
I'll try to give you a step by step.
First, you put the card into the slot on the right side of your phone. Next, go to Media Center on your phone, from the menu choose "memory card" and then from that menu chose "Format Card". Once the card is formatted, chose "remove card" from the menu. Once your phone says, "Ok to remove card" then remove it from the card slot on the right side.
Now put the mini-SD card into the SD Adapter, and plug it into your SD Reader on your computer. From the desktop, go to "My Computer" and find the SD Card and open that folder. Once there, you should notice 3 sub-folders. One says Music or Audio. Drag and drop all your MP3 files into that folder. Make sure the names of the songs are not too long. If they are, you'll need to shorten the names. For instance, if the file name is, "God Must Have Spent A Little More Time On You - NSync.mp3" that will be too long. Just click on the file name and change it to something shorter like, "God Must.mp3" For some reason these phones don't recognize file names with long titles.
Also, make sure your MP3 is one that you ripped yourself from a CD. And make sure and it's just a regular un-coded MP3. Not some copyrighted song you downloaded from the iTunes website. It just needs to be a regular, old-fashioned MP3. And one that was originally ripped from a CD. It also needs to be one that has all of the data that a normal MP3 would have encoded in it. That is; Artist, Song Title, Genre, etc.
Once you've uploaded about 10 songs from your computer into the music (or audio) file, then remove the mini-SD card from the SD Adapter and plug it back into your phone. Your phone will then recognize the card and give you some options. Just chose the option that says, "Do nothing".
Now go to the main menu on your phone, find the Audio Player, and let it load. Depending on how many songs you have, the Audio player can sometimes take up to 3 minutes to load up. Once it's loaded, it's fairly self-explanatory to use.
Give that a shot and if it don't work, tell me which part you got hung up on.
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. The MP3 Player is pretty basic to use, you just have to purchase A Trans-Flash card. The biggest add-on to this phone is its Bluetooth Feature 
!!! Even though the phone doesn't quite capture the best quality for the Bluetooth its still a great feature to always have. To really breakdown the I870 is to best describe it as basically Eye Candy....The Bad Parts is basically the little bothering aspects. I'll Break this down so you can understand.
I'm a long-time Nextel customer that recently acquired the new Motorola i870, while re-signing for another two year contract. I was looking for a phone to fit my business needs. I needed a a phone that could get email, and keep appointments, but I didn't want the oversized palm type phone or blackberry. Due to the new laws in Chicago governing cellphone usage, I wanted a bluetooth, so I could use my existing Jabra BT250 headset, without the additional black box to make it work with non-bluetooth phones, and voice activated dialing. After researching all of Nextel's current offering, and subtracting out the Blackberry models, the i870 seemed to have everything that I wanted and more.
