Dave Donaldson

Motorola SLVR Sucks, Motorola Smartphone MPx220 Rocks

Friday, June 16 2006

A couple months back I decided I needed a new cell phone. I was carrying around a Sony Ericson that I really liked but it was a brick. Just too big. And at that time I really fell in love with the look and feel of the Motorola RAZR. Yes, the same one that litters the TV commercials. It's a cool phone, no doubt about it and I really wanted one. But about that time I had lunch with a friend who had the RAZR and hated it. It always dropped calls, couldn't hold a signal to save its ass, was very weak, and had a terrible battery. Keeping that in mind when I went to the Cingular store, the store manager told me pretty much the same stuff about the RAZR that my friend had. He then proceeded to show me the SLVR. Oooooh... so thin, so nice, so sleek.. want to touch the hiney (thought you needed a little Billy Madison). So I bought it. I completely abandoned all logic and was swept away by the marketing and the obvious cool factor of having that phone.

And cool I was. I was all the rage anywhere I went. “Oooooh” people would say. “Can I touch it? Can I hold it? Can I play with it? Can my sister touch it? Can my sister and I both touch it at the same time?” I'd walk into work and all the pregnant ladies would swoon over how cool I was and how they couldn't have me and my sleek phone because they were impregnated by some slouch who was still talking on his 1989 Zach Morris portable phone.

But alas it was too good to be true. Soon the dropped calls starting happening, and the weakness, and the short battery life, and on and on. It turns out the SLVR is just as crappy as the RAZR.

So a couple weeks ago I'm venting my frustration about this phone to Drew and he asks if I want to try out his old Motorola Smartphone MPx220. I tried it and was hooked in about 5 minutes. It's ability to sync with my exchange server to be constantly updated with my contacts, email, and calendar is just pure gold. It runs Windows Mobile 2003 and is just flat out the best cell phone I've ever used. The engineering that went into this phone is really top shelf. Being on the road a lot I don't know how I ever lived without it.