This is my first attempt to review a product here on Ciao, so I hope that this is of some use to you.
Firstly, a bit about the Phone. I upgraded to this phone from a Panasonic X70, and before that I was a 'Nokia man', and to be honest, whilst this phone came close, i'm still into Nokia phones, having for the moment gone back to my Nokia 6310. Not because this phone is that bad, just because I really missed using my 6310. I believe this is one of the first mainstream phones to be readily available in Black, and I think that is what appealed to me most. Historically, most clamshell phones I have encountered have been in silver or variant of, whilst other types of phones where generally black or grey, till Nokia introduced the swappable covers. This, I believe, makes this one of the more unique phones on the market, and certainly makes it stand out.
Basic Apps/Functions and desciption
Internet Explorer
This is a variant of the desktop version, but you can view full webpages through a GPRS connection rather than the scaled down WAP versions. This can be expensive if you don't have a data bundle from your network operator.
Outlook
Again this is a variant of the desktop version. This seamlessly synchronises with your desktop PC version, and handles both emails and texts, using the similar folder layout of Outlook.
Windows Media Player
This is also a variant of the desktop version. I have only used it to play MP3 files, but I believe you can play video, using the SD card function detailed next. The phone does come with a set of headphones for this purpose, and you can also use the loudspeaker on the phone to play the sound, which is of suprisingly good quality.
SD Card
This uses the popular SD memory cards, which slot into the phone on its side. Mine came with an 8Mb card, but you can obviously upgrade this to 16mb, 32mb, 64mb, 128mb, 256mb etc, whatever you can afford. In buying a large capacity memory card, will effectively convert the phone into a good quality MP3 player, as you will have plenty of storage for MP3 files, and the sound quality is pretty good.
Task Manager
Again this is similar to the desktop version, and basically lists all your current running applications on the phone
Contacts/Address Book
This is probably the best one I have come across on any phone, including Nokia! You can store pretty much any information you want about each person in your phonebook. From Name, address, tel no, right down to company address, numbers and email addresses, persons photo, personal ringtone for that contact, their birthday.
Calender
This is a variant of the calender in the desktop version of outlook, and again seamlessly synchronises with that when you connect the phone to your PC, and is very useful, but doesn't offer any radical changes to others I have encountered on other phones.
To do List
Basically does what it says, gives you the ability to list tasks, and select them as completed when done. I've used it several times, and you could even use it as your shopping list!
Games
Comes with either on the phone or on the software disc supplied, a Tennis game, a management sim called Lemonade, a puzzle game called Slurp, and a version of solitaire. All are fun, the lemonade game is good but very limited, the tennis game is very good, with good graphics, slurp is ok, and solitaire whilst ok to play for a little while, soon becomes annoying as the screen is to small to play it. You have to use the buttons on the phone to move the cards and it becomes very fiddly!
Gallery
It does come with software, much like the picture viewer on a desktop windows, to show any pictures stored on the phone. You can also use this to manage and edit any photos you have received via MMS, or ones that you have taken using the optional Camera, which can be brought seperately, but is expensive (around £50-70 I believe).
Main Screen
This is the screen the phone shows all the time, and offers the navigation to the various menus. It is fully customisable, with the layout and colour scheme all able to be modified. It primarily uses symbols for the shortcuts to applications, but uses text for the links to texts, calender, and profile.
I think that covers the main functions of the phone. It has the usual mobile phone functions, such as call lists (missed, dialled, received etc) and timers. It does have an application which I have found useful, which shows how much memory on the phone is used, and how much is used on the SD card, and how much battery life there is left, all stated in percentages. The phone can be quite complex to use, and whilst the menu systems are pretty straightforward, this is probably the first phone I have had to read the instruction manual to any great length to learn about the phone. This may appeal to some, but others may not like it. It has a fairly competent selection of ringtones to choose from, with a selection of photos for backgrounds, but if you plan to download new games, ringtones and such like, it doesn't seem to be compatible with the various companies that offer these. That said, I do believe that you can save any piece of music as your ringtone, via your computer. New software such as games and applications, I believe, have to be specific to smartphone software, and Microsoft does have a limited selection on their website, at a cost. I assume that the selection of software available for smartphone software will increase as its popularity increases.
I upgraded to this phone after ditching my Panasonic X70 (a major disappointment compered to its predecessor, the GD87), I was very impressed with the MPx200. I think it is aimed at the business user, rather than the casual user. Although I think that anybody looking for the kind of functions this phone offers would be better getting a PDA. For the casual user, looking for the kind of functionality on offer couldn't really do better, and it certainly is unique, being the only clamshell design at present to use windows smartphone software. Texting on this phone, is very good. Using the T9 predictive text input that all phones seem to come with these days, is very useful. Whilst all phones manufacturers have a different way you select input methods and various characters when typing text and this phone doesn't buck that trend. I find the method of predictive text that Nokia phones utilise to be the best, and this phone comes closest to that. It apparently offers the ability to add new words to the dictionary, although I have to express doubts that this function works properley, as it seems very random in what new words it remembers.
This brings me to the downsides of this phone. And the major one for me is the battery life! It will last on standby for about three days if you make next to no calls, and only a few texts, and you don't do anything else. Start using media player and other functions, along with making several calls and you're looking at 2 days standby max, maybe less (with the phone on all day and night). Bearing in mind I was used mainly to a Nokia 6310, with a huge battery life, this was a major disappointment to me. I guess windows smartphone software is in its infancy, so currently hasn't been refined to use less power to run it. You can check the battery level using the above mentioned app, but there is one thing that annoyed me more than anything else. When the battery level reaches about 30% left, it starts to give you the periodic messages advising that battery is low. If you switch the phone off any time when the battery is this low, you will not be able to switch it back on till you have started to charge it. This probably annoyed me more than the short battery life. It effectively means that there is no point turning the phone off to conserve battery life.
After this, the next disappointment is the speed of the software. It takes over a minute for the phone to switch on. Thats from the moment you switch it on, to the point that you can actually use the phone. This, I suppose is a characteristic of Windows software in general, which has been carried through to the smartphone software, and probably is due to the sheer amount of functions and applications it has to load on startup. This is a small price to pay, when compared to the functionality of the phone. The software is also prone to the occasional 'lag' when you ask it do something. It does tend to leave me with the feeling that the amount of RAM in the phone is not enough to power the software! Much like running a state of the art computer game on a 3 year old PC with no upgrades, it doesn't run well!
Lastly, the receiption that this phone can pick up. Where I live, I have very poor levels of reception on the Orange network. This phone, like my Nokia 6310, does not have an external antenna. This would be ok, except for the low receiption areas. I would expect it to be of a similar standard to my Nokia, but it isn't. At home, the MPx200 can get some receiption, but generally states that their is no signal strength, meaning I cannot use my mobile at home. Now that I have gone back to my 6310 using the same sim card on Orange, I did a comparison. My Nokia, using it in the same place as I observed the lack of signal strength on the Motorola, gave me 3-4 bars out of the 7 displayed on the phone, meaning I can comfortably use the phone with this level of reception.
Overall, if you are looking for a basic phone, then I can't really recommend this phone, as it is quite complex to use, and is nowhere near a simple to use Nokia mobile phone. If you are a casual user wanting a few more functions than the basic phones proivde, I can recommend it, as long as you can cope with the battery life, although I do feel that there are probably better options in the marketplace. If you want the kind of apps it offers, but intend to use them to their fullest extent, I would recommend buying a PDA.
This may seem like a pretty negative review, but I have enjoyed using this phone, it just has too many negatives to make it better than other phones I have used. Any mobile has a novelty factor for a while after you buy it, no matter how muh it cost or what it does, but after a period of sustained usage you do start to realise its faults. I'm pretty sure that if you did buy one, you wouldn't regret it, as it is a unique phone. You just may start to hanker after your old phone as I have.
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