Motorola MPx220
Average Ratings
Excellent Phone
Have had this phone now for 10 months and since loading 1.4 FW NO issues. Not that I had many before except occasional freeze ups (windows OS go figure)
Pros:
RECEPTION...this phone make syou think you are on the Verizon network. (I also have Verizon service on another phone)
PICTURES...look great for a phone
VOICE DIAL is fantastic and does NOT have to be taught,
BT Flexibility file transfers are a breeze with or without a cable. Sync is fast and automatic.
Battery life is good for such a powerful Smart Phone. But this is subjective.
MP3 ringtones.....no more cheezy midi files.
SPEAKER PHONE is acceptable for a tiny speaker.
NO antenna
Solid build I have dropped this phone alot and dropped it in water. Dried it out and it worked fine. Little paper "giveaway" is now red though.
CONS
Cannot make voice call from BT.
If it were not for that I would have given his phone a 5.
MPx220 is like a handheld pc!
PROS:
-Volume is great!
-You CAN change the bluetooth name by changing the name of your phone in start/more/settings/more/more/more/phone settings. At the very bottom under "device name" you can give it your bluetooth name.
-reception is wonderful, even with only one bar. It has not dropped a call for me.
-You can customize many more things than the older motorola phones, including background pictures and the external lcd.
-It has a very professional look and feel.
-Internet Explorer is great for getting to any website. The browser is faster than my Nokia 6600 and looks like my pc's browser.
-OS is fast.
-home screen is so nice, and you can customize that too.
-There are just so many options on this phone!
-battery lasts forever
-keys are large enough & spaced far apart too
-It has FLIGHT MODE, so you can still use your pda, games on a flight without the RF being a factor.
CONS:
-They're right, the camera isn't all that great unless you have spectacular lighting.
Very Nice
These comments are of course subjective. More I use it, More I like it. Not perfect though. I don't have any bluetooth to try out, so I cannot comment on that yet.
Pros:
Windows - Best feature. Awesome for a phone! Very clear, well laid out. Scroll through list of recently used apps across top. Shows upcoming appointments. Was able to load 200 contacts easily by syncing with Outlook.
Appearance - The silver version looks cool and sophisticated
Weight - lightweight plastic vs my old heavier i830, but I like it
Fit and Form - Fits in my hand well, I wear XL glove size as a reference. Buttons well laid out and respond well. Internal antenna is nice.
External display - goes off after a few seconds to conserve battery. Just click a side button to turn it on when closed to see time, signal strength, battery level, GPRS icon.
Camera - just like others said, flash is almost useless. Picture quality is what you would expect from average cell phone. Nice that you can control zoom, darkness/lightness, shows % of space left for pictures.
Ringer - Easy to hear. Good vibrate feature shakes the phone. Good list of installed ringers.
Games - Comes with Billiards and Skipping Stones. Billiards is fun, you have to be precise with your shots. I only played Skipping Stones once, it's OK.
Menu - Lots of options. Easy to navigate.
Signal Reception - Have not dropped any calls unlike with Nextel.
Windows Media Player - Seems to be very good. I haven't tried much yet.
Calendar - Easy to use.
Battery strength - Much better than the i830, but that's easy to do. One charge should last at least a day for even a heavy user.
Cons:
Ear-piece volume - Adequate, but could be louder. Don't turn it all the way up and it seems to work better. Voices "vibrate" at high volume. Sometimes hard to hear when driving with windows down.
Weight - Not bad, but the metal and plastic on the i830 felt sturdier.
Did I miss anything?
Solid phone and PDA, but the camera...
I got my MPx220 in black, unlocked, and unbranded. I installed the 1.43 firmware immediately after it arrived and I must say I'm impressed! My reception is very reliable and I've yet to drop a call. I'm a Cingular customer in SC.
PRO:
- Performance is very speedy, and it's been reliable (i.e. not crashing). GPRS is decent, in my limited usage.
- Great reception, even in some places where reception has been historically iffy for me.
- Battery lasts a couple days, which I guess is par for the course for phones like these. I'm a fairly heavy user so I expect this.
- Earpiece volume is not a problem for me.
- Windows Mobile 2003 SE for Smartphones has been well refined, and it shows.
- Vibration is strong and very noticeable, the way it's supposed to be.
- Bright LCD screens, even readable in sunlight.
- Decent speakerphone, though the speaker itself sounds a tad overworked sometimes.
- Bluetooth support is pretty good. Works mostly seamlessly with my HS820 headset.
- IrDA and MiniSD are nice, nice touches. The Smartphone software does a great job taking advantage of the storage card. I've beamed several appointments from my work iPaq to the MPx220 with no issues.
- Looking forward to taking the phone overseas thanks to its support for all four GSM bands.
CON:
- Camera is substandard by camera phone standards. It takes a lot of work to try to make something look halfway decent. The flash has a little impact on night shots, but not much. If good camera quality is an overriding concern, I might suggest the RAZR or a Samsung, as Motorolas in general just don't seem to cut muster.
- The big screen is somewhat susceptible to smudging. Comes with the territory, I suppose.
- Needs to ring a little bit louder.
- Earpiece and speakerphone sometimes crackle.
- Bluetooth voice dialing is still nonexistent.
- The speakerphone still can't operate with the flip closed.
If you can find one, it works well as a phone and PDA, but don't hinge on a great camera.
Great phone
Pros- Better Blue tooth sound then my 551
V. 1.43 Seems to work perfect.
Pic's look great
Speed of the OS is great
Battery life is great
Cons- No edge
A few glitches with external
Ear piece volume is sometimes difficult to hear
This phone is by far the best i have had. Internet works great. Just make sure you get the Update v 1.43
I like it.
OK so after I heard these thing were out at Bestbuy I had to go out and get one. So far every thing is great. Sound quality is fine. I read a few posts on how it was hard to hear anyone or hard for others to hear me, however I don't notice any of those prolems. There have been warrnings of those who may have bought pre production models, but I wouldn't know if they were founded or not.
As for the features, yes the camera isn't the greatest, but hey its a cell phone..... what do you expect? If you want high quality pictures buy a digital camera. Both external and internal screens are nice, and its also nice that I can sync this with my Outlook contacts. It is a bit bulky for a modern phone, but the big screen and memory expansion slot make up for that.
This camera had everything I was looking for:
Color external display
Bluetooth (full functionality)
Memory Expansion (miniSD card)
Camera w/ flash
Video record and playback
IR
Quad Band GSM
JAVA game support
etc.
Running off of a Microsoft OS may not be a plus.... I guess we will see how buggy it is. Anyhow the first 12 hours have been great.
MPX220 is very nice
I have used this phone now for about a week and share the following for others considering the MPX220.
This updated version of the MPX has alot of new features, such as Quad band, speakerphone, camera, mms, better button arrangement, etc, but it also has alot of the same feel as the orig MPX 200.
Pro's:
[] Very attractive and professional. The finish is bronze matte which doesn't show finger prints & smudges. Well built.
[] Speakerphone is easy to use & more than loud enough. But it is a bit "tinny" when turned up loud.
[] Bright/crisp display screen. Although it can be a bit difficult to read in bright sunlight. Nonetheless, much better than the MPX 200 and many other "high end" phones out there.
[] Navigation keys are very comfortable and intuitive to use & along with the keyboard layout and size, this phone is quite handy to navigate and use.
[] Easy of synching with your PC is second to none; almost effortless.
[] It has the ability to send/receive virtually all types of text based messages including email, sms, mms, and IM.
Con's:
[] The quality of the camera leaves a bit to be desired. It does not seem to reproduce colors as crisply or accurately as you might suspect for a 1.3 megapixel camera. My belief if the lens is inadequate, but lets face it, ALL cameras on phones are marginal at best. So for snapshots it suffices, its just my expectation was higher because of it being 1.3 mp.
[] Battery life is less than expected. Even so, on the bright side, it charges via USB whenever connected to your PC without the need to carry a charger! That's gotta be worth something. :-)
[] Price is high...no, REAL high. Unfortunately, I don't think it'll be that much cheaper once released for sale at AT&T.
Overall, its a very nice combined device that offers strong PDA, voice, and text messaging features but be prepared to pay just short of an arm and a leg for it now. If you get one, I don't think you'l be dissapointed but don't buy it because of its camera.
The Glory of the Motorola MPX220
This phone needs a good review and to be defended from previous reviews that didn't deal this phone justice. To start, the first version of this phone was a disaster. I am one who has had contact with both.
The main improvement on the second version is the camera upgrade. My friend got this phone and the weakness that came along with it which would cause the phone to have poor quality with the high quality (1240x960) setting and also caused it to glitch up making the picture to show a stringy screen of a garbled photo that entirely messed up the image. He bought his from a cingular store. I bought mine on Jan 16th 2005 from NBS (National business Services) which is just a line group for Cingular formerly AT&T wireless that sells most the phones that AT&T carried before the merger went through. My phone came without a Cingular or AT&T tag because Cingular has phased out the AT&T logo on new phones and has chosen not to include their logo on those phones either (I suppose because it only confuses customers who think they can call up NBS regarding their Cingular acct when all NBS is is an AT&T line group operating only w/ AT&T's billing systems).
The phone I received had no camera glitches as my friends did.
It's true that to compensate for volume problems on this phone you just select "Outdoor" profile.
Pros:
*This phone does everything.
*The Cable is glorious for transfering files between your computer and the phone. The high points for me are the *MP3 player (I use an SD card for lots of MP3's) *Bluetooth, & games. There isn't a program designed for a phone that I wouldn't expect this phone to handle.
*Very simple to use.
*Camera is better than the moto v400, 500 and 600 series but isn't better than a high megapixel digital camera.
Cons: It has exited out of the games folder after I clicked on it a few times. I don't know why but the 2nd try has always been successful when this happens.
Bruce - 2G / 3G NBO Rep for Cingular formerly AT&T Wireless.
so much promise
Nice layout and bundle of features
Speaker phone pointless, not usable unless you hold it close to your head. Low volume at highest setting.
Internal speaker also low and poor in sound quality.
Camera average, don't bother with the flash, it's not strong enough to light the subject.
phone could be 20% smaller, and I don't care for tiny phones.
Piece o' crap!
I have owned several Motorola phones, and this is the ABSOLUTE worst yet. Not sure if it's Moto, Cingular or Windows causing the problems. My guess is a combination of the group.
Pro's
* Nice size for larger hands
* Intuitive button placement
* Windows interface makes it easy to use
* Nice size screen - easy to see
Con's
* Poor speaker quality
* VERY poor camera quality
* Glitches (or as Microsoft likes to call them, "features")with the OS
* Speaker phone almost unuseable - volume is low even when turned all the way up, and you can't use it with the phone closed at least as far as I can tell
* When using the web browser, I can only navigate to one or two pages before loding the ability to navigate and having to power off and back on
I have one of the "updated" firmware models and have most of the same issues and a few new ones. I will be switching back to a Nokia 6230 after this debacle!!
