First debuting at the Academy Awards in those decadent goodie bags the stars get, the Motorola V600 is finally ready to meet the masses. With a sleek design, easy-to-use interface, and Bluetooth capability, it is indeed a classic beauty.

The V600 is a slimmed-down version of the popular Motorola V300/V400. The black-and-silver flip phone has an external monochrome screen that displays the time and Caller ID info. For a touch of flash when a call comes in, the external Motorola logo lights up in your choice of colors (like Nocturne, Solar, or Passion) to suit your tastes.

The 4-directional keypad inside is more comfortable to use: The round pad surrounding the center button is not as prominent and the center button is larger. The number pad is a tad uncomfortable: The keys are not raised enough, there are no gaps between them, and they are a bit slippery.

The V600 is a worldwide quad-band GSM phone. And when it comes to staying connected sans voice, the phone also supports SMS, EMS, and MMS as well as POP3, IMAP4, and SMTP e-mail.

The audio quality of phone calls we placed in testing was fine. The look and feel of the menus is very similar to the already easy-to-use V400. The V600 does add some spice, though, such as the ability to play short video clips. However, don't expect to record any video even though there's a VGA (640-by-480) camera. The pictures taken with the camera looked okay, but there's no flash.

Overall, the Motorola V600 is a nicely designed phone ideal for both personal and business use.