Vortex V3 4G LTE Flip Phone | Dual Display 2.4” Main + 1.2” Sub | Android 11 Go | Quad-Core 1.5GHz | 2GB RAM + 16GB Storage | Removable 1000mAh Battery | Type-C Charging

I have always been a die-hard fan of the Motorola Razr V3 and V3i. Back in the day, and even still nowadays, this phone has always been more successful for its thin, groundbreaking and futuristic design than for its technical features. When I saw this Vortex V3, I instantly loved it ! I LOVED : - The Vortex V3 is unlocked and works on all French carriers (I live in France, and I'm using it on SFR, one of the 4 major phone carriers). - The design is completely true to the original Razr. It has been upgraded with this beautiful Galaxy Gray color (even if it is all plastic, which makes it lighter than the original Razr). - The micro-USB port has been replaced by a USB-C port at the exact same spot. - The screen size has also been upgraded. - The connectivity still offers the Bluetooth, and they added the WIFI. - The storage capacity of 16Gb (expandable with a memory card). - The multimedia player (music and video) - The real internet browser (upgrade of the poor little WAP browser of 2004). - The camera with its 3 definition levels (VGA, 2 Megapixels, 5 Megapixels) is very decent too. - The menu is very intuitive and the apps are easily accessible. - There is an economic mode which allows to extend the battery life of 1000mAh, and I managed to extend it to 3 days without charging, because I use this phone exactly like I used the Motorola Razr V3/V3i : no browsing, no music, no video, or very little. Simply because the screen is not designed for this. I HATED : - There are 3 pre-installed apps (Facebook, WhatsApp, Google App Store) which I personally didn't want, and they can only be deactivated, not uninstalled from the phone. - It took me some time to find how to switch between the writing modes R9, ABC, Abc, abc, 123 (FYI : exactly with the same button as in the original Razr). I even installed the TT9 but removed it as soon as I found how to switch modes. - The backlight of the keypad only highlights the symbols and numbers, but doesn't include the famous iconic keyboard luminescence of the Razr. I don't know yet if the company Vortex Cellular will continue making this Vortex V3 and selling it on Amazon at the same price of $39,99. But I really hope they will because I really love this phone.

Great for nostalgia. Terrible as an actual phone. Bad battery life. Screen quality is not great. Feels extremely cheap. But it does look like the Razer phone which is an iconic device. Get this for fun. Not for actual use.

Seems like a great phone in theory. However, typing is miserable on this phone compared to other flip phones and most Android apps will not work the way you want them to. Some apps will even brick your phone. I downloaded Telegram and I am now stuck in an endless bootloop. I have seen multiple other users have the same issue. This is not a quality device, even at $40.

Finally, a nice to have flip phone. Let me start off by saying, the battery life is just fine. I have read the reviews, watched the videos and disagree with some: I have no battery life issues. If I'm using it in my car to listen to Spotify, it is plugged in and charging, which is probably why I don't have issues. I just wanted to address that right off the bat. I have used a multitude of KaiOS phones, Android based flips phones, and prior to the LTE flip from 3G in the US, I used good old fashion Nokia phones on 3G. Once we were forced to LTE, I have not found a phone worth using. The Nokia 6300 4G was close, but after owning several of those, they all had the same keypad and headphone jack issues. Now, we finally have a phone that is slim (it doesn't look like you have a stack of two deck of cards in your pocket) and can run Android with the Playstore. All I really needed ever was Spotify and it works. The stock homescreen is just fine by the way (I've tried others with bugs, the stock, albeit ugly and archaic) works just fine. Google Maps? It's a go. There is a finesse in using it, but once you get it down, Google Maps has actual Navigation in it. Aqua Mail for E-mail I have found is the best option in that department. Chrome I have found to be the best web browser to use. Netflix and Peacock both work too. Things that have not worked, probably mostly because of the small screen, have been Pandora, Max, and Hulu (just so you are aware). The SOS button on the keypad is more of a menu button, it should not be labeled SOS in my opinion. Things you should know: hold down the asterisk button to bring up the mouse pointer and for Bluetooth keyboards, if needed when setting up the device, they work best when the phone keyboard function is set to "123." Don't ask why that is, but that is what I discovered. Change the text input from "123" to "T9" to "Abc" by pushing the pound button by the way. Now, I need to throw out one caveat, I used ABD to remove a lot of crap on the phone. I enabled Developer Mode, then connected it to my computer and used the command line interface and ABD to remove a lot of apps that are not needed. I had a personal script that I used from Unihertz phones (there is a lot of stuff on there that should be removed right off the bat) to get rid of the initial fluff, then I further removed things like the Google Assistant, Whatsapp, and others. This does two things: possibly increase battery savings, but also gets rid of the annoyance of accidentally pushing the "voice control" button on the phone. I can't tell you how many times I hit that button accidentally: remove the app connected to it and it'll make your life easier and your phone more efficient. So, what are you getting? A fantastic, slim form factor with no touchscreen (I don't want a touchscreen), with Wifi calling (at least in the US on T-Mobile), wifi hotspot, Spotify, and true Google Maps Navigation (KaiOS users, and probably others, will know how awesome it is to have real GPS voice navigation on a flip phone). Just take the time, give it patience, to remove the apps not needed with ABD (there is a lot of stuff on here I removed, probably 20+ apps).

(EDIT - ONE WEEK UPDATE) Cool phone, smallest flip phone "dumbphone" on the market currently and I love that its a homage to the Razr. Call and text work good, you can download apps but it's easy to push it to it limit. Android is much better than KaiOs. One of the only phones that aren't designed for the elderly and for construction job sites. (Only other phones is the Sunbeam f1s) I'd spend more money if... - Made out of metal - Groupchats worked better (send a message in a groupchat and it'll send a individual message to each participant) ***EDIT**** Group messages work normally after tinkering with the settings -When T9 texting, words don't pop up in the option menu while messaging? ***EDIT*** Downloading the TT9 app from the Playstore and making it the default keyboard works; solves the issue and is a must. Cons - - Battery is poor but its a small phone running android so I can imagine fixing this is harder to accomplish - Bluetooth disconnects from the car randomly, easy fix would get a USB C/Aux adapter. (Haven't tried) - Some app notifications will also cause the device to crash Pros - Android 11 go with Playstore in a small/cheap flip phone is a first. - Design (Unashamed to say looks matter, it did in the 2000s) - Google Assistant - Much more capable than my Sonim Xp3+ (~$200 dollars new at T-Mobile LOL) Unironically the best phone in this company's line up. Great for 40 bucks, much better than others in this price range, but it has issues that need ironing out. I won't be returning despite it's flaws as I'm voting with my wallet to see more phones like this in the future, albeit of better quality. I hope Vortex/Xwireless LLC and others, take feedback and make more of these 4g phones that are homages to keypad flip phones that were prevalent in the 00s. I know it's a niche, but growing, market but I'll be hopelessly wishful.

Extremely short battery life? Limited processor? Can't do anything else but making short calls? Absolutely beautiful and super boring? Just like how I remembered it!!! Love it!!! 🥰 ***You will need some technical savviness to make even more beautiful and more boring. Get ADB running to remove factory installed bloatware, install TT9, Button Mapper, and maybe a custom launcher and such ....

This is an incredibly long-winded review but I want to give anyone interested in this phone a full idea of what they're getting before they buy it, because I myself was really excited. Out of the box this phone is terrible, I won't lie. CONS (and there are many): -It is $40 so expect a cheap, plasticky feel and a bad camera -The shift and space buttons are labeled wrong on the keypad; in reality their spots are flipped -The T9 that is included with the phone is horrible and not user friendly. When you press the 1 or 0 buttons—which you need for symbols and punctuation—it does not always show up on the screen, meaning you have no idea what character you're selecting. Do yourself a favor and immediately download the TT9 app from the Play Store, it allows you to customize as much as you want -There is an optional on-screen cursor that is controlled by the directional pad but it's bad. For some reason activating the cursor does NOT stop the directional pad from also highlighting things in the background as you're trying to select things with the cursor. A total nightmare -The stock launcher is ugly but it's a bad idea to change to another launcher (more on that next) -Because of the way the stock phone app is, there is no way to launch it in a way that opens to a dialer; you just start dialing on any page of your launcher. Unfortunately, any other launcher will effectively remove your ability to DIAL phone numbers which is very bad if you need to call 911 or emergency services or something. -Similarly the notification bar is toggled by the back button while on the launcher’s home screen so with another launcher you can’t check notifications -I had trouble trying to use a button remapping app for fixes like the above, but maybe that’s just me. Most buttons have multiple functions so it’s hard to reassign them. -Other phone apps like Google's Phone are not very usable because they're not built to be used by a keypad. In order to dial numbers with them you have to use the on-screen cursor which is impractical. And I wouldn't recommend using a different phone OR texting app anyway because their notifications will break the phone (more on that later) -Volume is quiet in calls as well as on speakerphone -Most apps are not formulated to be used on this small of a screen and/or without a touch screen, so expect varying degrees of functionality with all apps you download -Notifications for all apps that are not stock Android (think calculator, messages, phone, etc.) will break the phone. Yes, you read that right: NOTIFICATIONS FOR ALL APPS THAT ARE NOT STOCK ANDROID WILL BREAK THE PHONE. WhatsApp and Facebook are pre-downloaded and are usable but for some reason any time any app that is not stock gets a notification, it eventually crashes the phone due to a bug and for some people leads to an endless boot loop that requires restoring the phone to fix. If you NEED notifications from WhatsApp or any other non-stock app, this is not the phone for you. You must completely disable notifications for both the pre-downloaded WhatsApp and Facebook apps, as well as any other app you download to the phone. I guess this can be seen as a plus depending on the way you look at it because I’m no longer obsessively checking my phone for notifications -Bugs are unlikely to be fixed because a) the parent company is in bankruptcy proceedings at the moment and b) people online have deduced that this phone was not originally supposed to be commercially available, it was meant for the free government phone program which has since run out of funding hence why they’re being sold now on Amazon -It is very easy to push this thing to its limits; don’t download more than a handful of apps or you will eventually get a flashing effect on the screen that can only be fixed by restoring it. I only have 8 apps downloaded and one of them (Apple Music) hardly works at all -The thing that you’re supposed to be able to loop charms through on the right side of the hinge is fake, there’s no hole there like there was on the real V3. I was really sad to find this out after I had bought a really cute charm for mine, so I just ended up gorilla gluing mine and so far it’s stayed on pretty well -A bug sometimes prevents you from being able to type in your passcode when unlocking the phone so you have to close, reopen, and try again -People say battery life is bad but I’ve had no issues. There’s not much you can do with this phone other than texting and calls so if it’s dying on you before the day is up you probably bought the wrong phone. I get one day on a full charge -No RCS texting -The button for the outer screen doesn’t always work. I sometimes have to press it a few times to get it to work -It runs a security patch from 2022. Unacceptable for a phone that came out less than 2 months ago -The ringer/vibrate/silent toggle button is incredibly sensitive and it is very easy to accidentally press it without realizing. This is bad if you have an alarm set because it won’t go off. I learned the hard way -No headphone jack, and the type C charging port doesn't support using an adapter for wired headphones PROS: -It looks just like the RAZR V3 of yesteryear and is cute af. This is the first phone of its kind: a modern phone that is hypothetically capable of modern things like apps but in the form factor of a 2000s flip phone which is what I’ve been dreaming of for years. But I’m sure there will be better ones to come eventually -Good for a smartphone detox. I feel more present in social situations because I can no longer hide in my phone -Type C charging And that’s about it. I realize it may actually be clinically insane to keep using this thing after all I’ve just said but I’m going to because I just love the look of it. I put a bunch of stickers and some charms on mine for a Y2K look and I get a lot of comments on it. If you are okay with a limited amount of apps, sticking with the somewhat ugly launcher, and turning off notifications from downloaded apps you will bypass the vast majority of bugs and have a fine experience with this thing like I have so far. PS: Something I do want to address is a review from another user—they said this runs Android 8 instead of the advertised Android 11. It runs Android 11 Go.

Glad I got one because I doubt they will make more. Insane value for $40. It's no super phone but it has handled every app I've thrown at it so far and battery life is not bad if you limit your apps. I'm thinking they were contacted by Motorola because the item is now no longer available. Hopefully not though and they will make a new version of this in the same body.