Motorola Rival A455 hands-on review

I got the motorola rival a455 and i couldn’t be happier it is a great cell phone and has great voice quality. The slide out keyboard is huge compared to other slide out keyboards. it also has great battery life.

I got a motorola rival a455 yesterday and so far I have found it to take great pictures. It has great voice quality and I haven’t had any problems with it so far.

Just got my rival from Telus the other day =).

Positive: Great qwerty keyboard
Touchscreen dial
Long battery life
Good voice quality

Negative: MicroSD card slips out constantly without any notice
Sometimes have to tap the touchscreen more than once to press a desired key

I purchase a Rival on August 6th. It had a memory full error by the weekend of August 23rd and no amount of hours on the phone with Telus would fix. Returned the phone (told it was a software issue) and got exact same phone. This phone worked from August 25th to Sept 5th and then had exact same problem. Telus did refund my money but has been DOWN since last tuesday so I have been unable to contact them in anyway for the past 5 days. I have been a telus customer for 11 years and I will be leaving Telus after this little adventure. Not acceptable customer service. I understand the handset software issue, I just don’t understand how I have been unable to contact them for a week to get my daughter a new phone/setup.

This is a common issue with the motorola rival. The way to fix the issue is to restore the phone to factory defaults. Make sure to move any pictures to the memory card and take it out when doing the restore as it may delete the saved items. One other thing i have noticed with the rival is sometimes the license for the ringtones expire. Still no idea how to fix this if anyone does please let me know thx ^.^

How do you restore the factory defaults on the Rival a455? I have the memory full error but don’t know how to restore the defaults.

Its easy. Go to Setting,then Phone, then Security (if you have yet to change your password then it is the last 4 digits of your phone number), then restore phone.

i hate this phone it suckz

I got the motorola rival and was very happy the first month or so. It included many smartphone features including the touch screen dialing.

I am a bit of a klutz and drop my phone a lot. If you slide the keyboard out too far then it starts flipping screens and begins to “spaz” out. The touch screen sometimes malfunctions as well. The battery life is good…for a day.

The size and the setup are nice though. It’s not too light and not too heavy; just hefty enough that you’re aware its there. Its not a very big phone and easily fits in most pockets. The small keys on the keyboard are surprisingly easy to handle, but no t9 feature is available.:( The sound quality is also fantastic.

All in all if you are one to treat your phone nicely and love to text this is a good phone. If you’re like me and treat your phone with respect, just not enough respect well…go with a sturdier phone.

Hope I swayed your decision.

I’be had to replace this phone once already, the screen just stopped working and they weren’t able to pull my contacts which was bad. I got a new one about a month ago and about two weeks ago the buttons on the front stopped working and now i cant answer or end a phone call. I will definatley not be getting another rival.

I got the rival , Oct 16 , a week later exactly I stopped reciving texts from everyone on my contact list , I have restored it to factory settings several times , and I still do not recive anything . I will be going down to telus , we shall see how this goes <.< This phones a piss off , people have been having WAY to many problems with it . My first phone and I am already ready to trash it .

my buttons stopped working i love the phone sooo much and i will be very upset to know that i cannot use this phone.
is there any way to fix the keys?
please tell me cause i love this phone its amazing its my first phone with a full keyboard and i was sop excited now im really upset.

i agree iv had the phone for three mouths and have had it repaced 3 times and its broke again and the same problem every time

I bought the Rival for my daughter Oct 13 and Nov 6th she stopped receiving text messages and couldn’t send any. I called Telus and they said it was a software problem and to take it to a Telus outlet and they would upgrade software. She did that but the memory was still full. She said to delete all pictures from phone & memory card. Did that but memory was still full.

I read KAITLYN’S instruction to reset to factory defaults, but it deleted all contacts (bummer). But so far she can send texts.

Thanks for your help.

What kind of problems?

I’ve gone through 2 motorola rivals in the last 2 months. The first one the screen completely went white out. And yesterday… a complete black out. I took this second one to the store yesterday and they are retail only and can’t help me. I’m at work in oregon and there is not one near by. I can wait to have one mailed to me but then i go completely without a phone and lose everything. Verizon has shitty customer service and very disappointed. And the rival is a piece.

i got the rival just last night.
and then today i sent 2 texts to my friends,
and she sent 3 back, and i didn’t receive any of them.
does anyone know how i can fix this?

dial 611 and click the last option… its a technical problem and can only be fixed by calling this number and getting them to mail you a cord that hooks up to your computer and then u have upload this new software and it completely fixes thes the problem… thats what the best buy guy said when we asked.

I bought this phone around the end of August. It lasted until the start of October, where it had the “memory full” issue. I deleted a bunch of things off my phone, and it let me send 1 text at a time, and recieve only one. Then it completely crapped out. I sent it in, got it fixed, everything was good.
It’s Christmas Eve, and it crapped out again. You notice that when you send and recieve text messages, the screen wigs out, and it freezes. Or, it completely turns off, and turns itself off again.
I love this phone. It works perfectly fine until you over-use it (it might work differently for others. But texting really takes a toll on it, expecially the flipping of the touch screen when you use the QWERTY every 5 minutes, like I do. It’s a shame, since most people BUY this phone for texting purposes.)
I’ve re-set the phone, and it let me send a text message. So hopefully things work out.
Again, I love this phone, but people seem to have an issue with the ‘memory full’ problem.
I wish it could be fixed easily.
it’s awesome for Moto’s first keyboard cellphone, though.
Everything else is spectacular.

im pissed
my phone is just giving me the loading screen, its still taking a charge but the customer service person i talked to said all my vids/pics/contacts are gone
anyone else have this problem?
Able to recover contacts or pics???

yes!! it worked!

Ok, I have had my motorola for 4-5 months, and it recently started acting up.

Problem#1: it won’t let me send forwards to a group of people, I have to send it individualy.

Problem#2: The touchscreen and buttons like to stop working.

Problem#3: White screen appears for a few seconds when I open a new txt message.

Can anyone help me out with this? I have no idea what to do, but I will go to walmart next weekend and ask if I can fix it. O i might have to get a new one.

I liked my phone… for two months. i got it december 23 and now feb 26, it got the white screen. i really really really really want to fix it without taking it to the store or getting a new one. i want to fix it myself. any suggestions?

my phone has done the memory full thing about 5 times now, and i've gotten to the point where i don't want another motorola phone!! everrrr!!! its brutal..i got the phone to text and i can't even do that anymore..

at first, i loved this phone but now it is just pissing me off hugely. i've had it since october and this is the second time i've had to restore it! it is such a pain in the butt to restore all of my contacts and end up losing any videos and pics i've stored. absolutely hate this phone. plus, it scratches and brakes so easily. i could definitely go for a new phone as soon as possible.

To save all your contacts when you reset the phone, you have to go to Media> Browse & Download then there should be a "Backup Assistant" Option and you just download that. It will save all the contacts in your phone and you can reload them after you reset your phone.

The rival was AWESOME for me at first, no one else had it! Touch screen and keyboard! No way! Sounded, and looked awesome. Until' i reply to my Dad's text and it says "Memory Full" I freaked out. I had only had it for a few months! i erased EVERYTHING all my pictures, contacts, music and sounds. Still saying, "Memory Full" I get fed up and call Koodoo. They said it was a programme mal-function and if i paid 15 dollars i could get a USB cord sent to me and I could download the new software. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! You knew about this malfunction, yet you still are making ME buy the USB cord to fix your problem!? I don't think so! My dad calls Koodoo and says, look we aren't paying for a USB cord that could get here in who knows how long! My daughter needs to be able to use her phone NOW! We need a free solution now.

The clerk walks us thru how to 'restore' the phone. I lost everything, fine. But it happens again.. and again.. and again. Now I'm livid. I am a HUGE Text-a-holic. I got a QWERTY keyboard phone to TEXT! They eventually sent me in the USB for free and I downloaded the new programme onto my phone. That problem is fixed, but here we go again with the problems. 1- The battery life lasts a good ONE DAY! Pathetic. 2- My Charger crapped out, (Good thing I have the USB to charge it now, until it craps out on me). 3- It goes to Stand-by randomly! The little 'Motorola' Symbol pops up. it takes almost 2 minutes ot get back on. 4- It always has signal, but for somereason it takes forever to send, and then it says "Message Failed" Dammit. Now i go to my outbox and resend, resend resend until it either works or gets to the point where i have to turn off my phone, turn it back on, and try again. This happens quite a few times a DAY. 5- Sometimes my phone will send blank messages to people :S! I will touch the screen to reply, and it will just start sending a blank message! WHAT is this !? It does that, OR i will get to a message, start writing a message, and it just sends a blank one.

That's all the problems i am facing SO far, 3 and a half months into having this phone. Who knows what will happen next. All I know is i do NOT recommend this phone to anyone. The negative features overthrow the positive ones. Too much to handle. I will definitely be getting a new phone soon. This is ridiculous. I am so pissed. Any one else having ANY of these problems?!
Thanks for listening to my cell phone problems.

Yes I would have to agree with most of the comments out there that although this phone looks impressive & you think it would be awesome especially at the price (from telus only $69.00 new) it is not all it is cracked up to be.

The first day I had it I quickly realized Telus had limited the phones software (no changing the theme's / pictures are saved as only small thumbnails / can't download games unless directly from them (which in itself is ridiculous, the game selection sucks & its so expensive for ancient games) etc…) Seriously why would they do this, I know they are just money hungry but come on.

With regards to the phone, I find that it does quite easily send blank texts as you open the slider it sometime clicks on the send button (the first person on my contacts was getting pretty pissed as he was getting like 8 blank msg's a week due to this problem). I also found the reception not to be that good & it would drop calls even though it had full signal. Then just last week after only having it for over a month, I got the white screen of death. Luckily I was still able to connect it to my computer after a few hours of turning it off then on to download my contacts but the screen is just white & would not fix, so it has been sent back to motorola.

The thing I don't understand is that I have had Motorola phones since the beginning of time with the old school models as big as your fist & have never had a problem. But this phone will definitely make me question any phone purchase of there's in the future. I mean they can clearly see that there is major issues with this phone, why would they still sell it? Also all the carriers Verizon/telus/koodo with all the complaints & returns why would they still sell such a product as it ultimately only looks bad on their company.

Doesn't make any sense to me. They should seriously just do a mass recall & replace them with a comparable product.

Yes I would have to agree with most of the comments out there that although this phone looks impressive & you think it would be awesome especially at the price (from telus only $69.00 new) it is not all it is cracked up to be.

The first day I had it I quickly realized Telus had limited the phones software (no changing the theme's / pictures are saved as only small thumbnails / can't download games unless directly from them (which in itself is ridiculous, the game selection sucks & its so expensive for ancient games) etc…) Seriously why would they do this, I know they are just money hungry but come on.

With regards to the phone, I find that it does quite easily send blank texts as you open the slider it sometime clicks on the send button (the first person on my contacts was getting pretty pissed as he was getting like 8 blank msg's a week due to this problem). I also found the reception not to be that good & it would drop calls even though it had full signal. Then just last week after only having it for over a month, I got the white screen of death. Luckily I was still able to connect it to my computer after a few hours of turning it off then on to download my contacts but the screen is just white & would not fix, so it has been sent back to motorola.

The thing I don't understand is that I have had Motorola phones since the beginning of time with the old school models as big as your fist & have never had a problem. But this phone will definitely make me question any phone purchase of there's in the future. I mean they can clearly see that there is major issues with this phone, why would they still sell it? Also all the carriers Verizon/telus/koodo with all the complaints & returns why would they still sell such a product as it ultimately only looks bad on their company.

Doesn't make any sense to me. They should seriously just do a mass recall & replace them with a comparable product.

I really love my motorola rival. Good touch screen. Excellent call quality. Long battery life my friend owns one its been 8 months no problems and he recommend one to me. I give this phone 5 stars and recommend it to anyone

This phone is HORRIBLE .
I had mulitple issues with it in the short time period i had it.
– it would turn off and on at random times
– if i recieved more than 1 text at a time it would turn off
– my phone said that the memory was full even after i deleted everything , and it wouldnt let me do anything after
– it constantly sent blank messages
– the screen went black and wouldnt turn back on
– i had to charge my phone every 12 hours or else it would die , and it got a point where it wouldnt hold a charge for over 5 hours
– the slide part of it wasnt attatched very well and just 2 days ago it broke in half
this phone is a complete waste of money , dont buy it .

sounds exactly like what happened to ,
except my phone split in half 2 days ago .
youll never be done dealing with these problems . i just suggest getting a new one . youll never be done with it.

I HATE this phone and I've only had it for 6 months. The other day I took it out of my bag to send a message. It turned on, but the screen was still black. I've taken the battery out and everything… do I need to bring it to the store?

yeah. i have a motorolla rival with verizon, and ive had it since august of last year. i love it, great key board and everything, but tonight, i pulled it out of my pocket and the screen was black. i turned it on and off and it still wouldnt work. i even took the battery out. is it repairable? or do i need a new phone?

i am gettin one on tusdaii i think can someonerate it from 1-10

Ok sooo.. I bought this phone and I hadn't even had it for 24 hours and I noticed it was freezing and than the next day i flipped it open and the screen went completely white!! I don't even understand why it did that my phone wasnt even two days old and than it breaks!!! The screen started working for one second and i tried texting and than my keyboad stoped working. so I returned the phone and they gave me a new one. so today was day one with the second phone and guess what it broke! when i turned it on it would freeze and than it would be normal. so i just ignored that… Than sometimes when i would flip open my phone and sometimes it would do the number six. That was annoying! and than not even 2 hours later my end button stoped working and it started calling people for no reason and i couldnt end my call. so i took the battery out of my phone and now i can no longer turn on my phone.im returning it and calling telus that they've waisted my time twice. I had to put all of my contacts onto my phone twice and program my phone twice and set it up twice. I am no longer buying any motorola phone and if telus doesnt do anything about my problem than I will not be returning to telus!

you guys know how itb comes with the cd that lets you put music on it it stops working after a while

I Dont have any of these problems except that it sends blank texts to my friends then they get mad at me…

I think Its very poor business for Verizon and Motorola to let this problem go on.I personally
think this is A scam. Its funny my phone was fine the first fourteen months of my two year contract. Then the screen goes black but then it comes back on so i can get a text that reads tired of your old cell phone from Verizon.Now I have a blank screen and 10 months on my contract and to get a new phone now will cost me money from my pocket.And this all happens when the Verizon finally gets the I phone.