Liberty's Blog

New Cell Phone

I got a new cell phone this week, the Motorola V300. I've upgraded from the Nokia 3390 which was pretty reliable and performed pretty much as expected. The new phone is sexier it has a built in camera, sexy ring tones and a kewl look. Ever since I saw my first episode of Star Trek I always wanted a flip communicator, so far Scotty hasn't beamed me up yet. The Camera works and although the camera can take pictures under fairly dismal lighting conditions, the pics can be muddy. T-mobile gets $0.25 for each photo message. They do have a package to reduce the cost if one wants to transfer a lot of pictures between phones. One can also buy a USB data Cable and transfer the photo's to a computer. I think the photo phone will be nice when I have togo on trips without Equality, and I can now share some of the places I visit with her.

Its not all roses with this phone. I don't find it as intuitive as the Nokia phones I have used., and some of the operations don't work quite as well.

1. Using a headset on the Nokia involved plugging the headset in the phone still rang on the phone (not through the remote earpiece) One just taps a button and it answers. The Motorola gives this tiny little ring that I often don't hear. The Mototorola also can auto answer after a few seconds(programmable time) This can be confusing when one neither the caller or receiver doesn't realized the connection has been made. Its not all that bad once your used to it, but can be disconcerting. The Motorola uses the more common 3 element connector for the hands free piece. The Nokia used a 4 element connecter, making them a little harder to find, and a lot of them don't work very well.
2. The appeal of a flip phone was that I can put it in a pocket without dialing a number or putting trash into my phonebook. So far this hasn't happened, although the outside buttons do change change my ring settings, and occasionally beep at me. I could lock out the keyboard on the Nokia. Locking out the Motorola invoves a password and would be awkward. Still the flip phone does the job of preventing me from unknowingly and accidently calling my family at odd ours and checking the ring mode is pretty easy.
3. Ease of use. The Nokia might seem easier to use because of my familiarity with them. I've been using Nokia since 1996, but I do believe that they are a little more intiuitive. The Flip phone aspect of the Motorola makes answering a snap. Text messaging is a little better using Motorola's iTap predictive text entry. The new phone has an excellent speakerphone mode it is clear and works even if the phone is closed up.
4. The camera is the biggest reason I went for this phone. Although the camera takes only a 640 x 480 pixel image it's handy and with me all the time. Its just to risky to and akward to carry my good cameras with me all the time. T-Mobile has a Web based album to post photos they even support a blog of sorts called "Journal". Although I haven't set it up yet, it might make it a little easier to post to my own blog. by linking to the Journal.

Well so for in spite of a few quirks, I really like the new phone, I still haven't determined the usefulness of all the features, but they are fun to play with.

posted by Liberty @ 4:41 PM