Yo,
It’s almost an year since I got my Motorola A780. I had been looking for a PDA phone for quite some time, and I had come down to 2 choices - Motorola A780 and Sony Erriccson T901i. Granted that T910i has more features, but it has 2 distinct disadvantages - (1) It’s touch screen is always exposed and you tend to rub it against your face and whiskers while talking on the phone, AND (2) it has a pathetic VGA (0.3 Megapixel) camera. I opted for Motorola A780 because:
(1) Once I close the flip screen, I can use it as a normal phone - make calls, send SMS, check phone book, activate my mp3 player, shoot pictures on its 1+ Megapixel camera etc. My touch screen is well protected under the flip. I need to open the flip and access the touch screen only when I want to write something or read a large document.
(2) The phone has a slot to add a mini SD card (upto 512MB). The phone comes with a useful 128MB card. Addtionally it has 48MB internal memory. The phone can connect to your computer’s USB port like a thumb drive. The windows explorer will show 2 external drives - one for the phone’s internal 48MB memory and the other for the removable SD card... pretty neat, eh? You can just drag and drop your files, images, and create directory structures
(3) It has a neat speakerphone, which also plays your mp3 file - using real player
(4) It has bluetooth, EDGE, GRPS etc. etc. What it lacks is infrared and Wi-Fi (FYI: T910i has infrared)
(5) I can read word documents, excel sheets, PPTs, and pdf files. So I keep my important files (my resume... hehehe) on the phone. However I can’t edit any of these files or create new ones from the phone (FYI: T910i lets you create and edit word and XL files)
(6) I keep my favourite 20 songs on my external SD card, which I can listen on the go using my headphones.. very good sound output too. I haven’t tried a bluetooth headset till now though.
(7) The phone also plays video files, which is cool
(8) It is java enabled and has cool games, but I haven’t used it yet
(9) Runs on Linux OS
To be fair, It has disadvantages too:
(1) It is heavy... not suitable for ladies... My wife complains of arm pain whenever she lifts it :-)
(2) Battery life is poor. It has to be charged often... once in 2 days at least (FYI: T910i battery is supposed to last for more than 10 days)
(3) It can’t edit word/XL docs (FYI: T910i can)
The good part is the attention it gets... when you are sitting in a pub or restaurant, the cool dude with the sleek phone snicker looking at your heavy thick phone. The waiter also smirks thinking you have some huge prehistoric brick of a phone. You sit back, relax, flip open on the phone, pull out the stylus and start writing some messages on the touch screen. Now watch the effect.... the cool dude’s sleek phones suddenly seems inadequate... the girls lean over to see if you are actually writing on a phone, and the waiters jaw has dropped a few inches :-) Works every time.
So. if you are planning to buy one, go ahead and get it an enjoy... I saw an ad in Times of India, Bangalore that the phone is now only 15K. Enjoy
CK