My love with flip phones started the same year "My best friends wedding" released.
Two of my best friends had the same instrument and I was struck up with a Motorola D628 - in todays language we can call it a brick for sure.
Motorola is a synonym of mobile phones at least for me. It is like “Thanda bole to coca cola, mobile bole to Motorola”.
Although my first flip was a Sony Ericsson T29 - If I remember correctly. Yeah that was a great tashan at that time, flip it open - talk and flip it close with that awesome noise "Khatttak" - I loved it - I love it still.
Again another of my biking maniac friend’s fantasy of crossing 140 KMPH on his Bajaj Eliminator broke my phone into two pieces when we crashed into a cycle Rickshaw in Sector 20 crossing of Noida right in front of the Corporation bank.
When Motorola launched its first Razor phone – I remember it was not available in stores and it was advertised that it is available for privileged few. You had to call them up on their call centre number and they will send somebody for a demo and that was the only way to buy the same.
We indeed called up and the guy came with a flashy hot chick – yeah he did brought the phone too but the gal was pretty hot who was accompanying him – I guess that was the sales technique. I was pretty damn impressed by the metallic feel of it. The guy was adventurous enough to throw the phone on the floor from a height of 5 feet and I was surprised that it was still working – no scratches.
The only reason why I never bought it that day was that it had an inbuilt memory of just 5 MB and no option of upgrade – it was priced at steep 34K. That was about a 1000 bucks less than my monthly gross salary.
I shifted from GSM to CDMA about 4 years back when I got engaged and realized that none of the company’s make a good CDMA phone. Had to live with a Nokia flip as Motorola had none to offer in CDMA.
Surprisingly none of the company’s making CDMA phones is offering anything good. Even the earlier version of Razr was not that good. I waited quite a long time to have this one and I am glad that they finally launched it.
The new one which they call as Razr 2 – is even sleeker and meaner when it comes to functions and options. Although phone for me is strictly calls and SMS but I don’t mind when it comes with an extra MP3 player for my darling princess who loves shaking a leg every now and than on all her favorite songs – this one comes with an inbuilt memory of about 90 MB and one can upgrade it up to 2 GB with memory card option. I got a 512 MB card with phone which according to me is more than enough to hold all my favorite songs and can still hold a good number of pictures taken by its 2 Mega Pixel camera. The results of pictures are quite ok as I am sure you must have seen my snaps here and on orkut too.
The one I got is the darkest form of Purple and it almost looks likes a black. Sharp curves and it’s really sharp when I call it sharp. Someday I may throw it towards the wooden door and see if it really gets into it J as they show it in the ads. But that will take about a year or so – when I plan to change it yet again.
MP3 player with a touch pad option is good – don’t need to open the phone to listen to songs, check the calls, and make calls by speaker phone or to check the sms’s too. Volume of speaker phone is quite ok.
Reliance has really spoilt the phone in a big way. The software they have installed over the Motorola one sucks big time. Say – if you play songs and hide the player – than I can bet there is no way you can switch again to the player without hanging the phone. The only option left is to switch it off and switch it on again. I have tried it too many times and it always hangs in between.
Second turn off is the “Switch off” button – as it is shared with disconnect call key. Every time my daughter runs with the phone while its playing her favorite song – the phone switches off as that key is at a strategic location from where she holds the phone.
Third turn off is that even if you make groups in your contact list – you cant send group messages – now THAT – is one of the biggest negatives as its really a pain to select 10 guys from the list of 250 odd contacts when I am sending an sms to all. Now you know why you are not getting those junk smses from me anymore? Mails will continue don’t you worry.
Fourth turn off is the battery cover – its so damn fragile that once out of three times you throw your phone on floor – it opens up. Why would one buy a metallic phone if we can’t use it roughly?
That reminds me of a joke – I mean a practical joke – I was sitting with a close friend of mine who shares the same passion – we both had our new moto razor’s and were discussing the great metal bodies and all – suddenly his wife says “If you throw this phone nothing will happen – right?” and I said “Yeah – that’s why we took these na”. Next moment – I really threw both the phones from a height of about 4 or more feet’s – and bang they bounced on the cemented floor. We were literally proud and relieved to know that none of them turned off – the expressions on her face were worth watching. Even my wife sitting at a distance was quite shocked but as I say **“Anything karega for a Motorola”.
*It has all those other features too – that today’s genX looks for in a phone like Bluetooth, Voice Recorder, Video Recorder, Reminders, Alarms etc. While you do the data transfer either ways – from PC to phone or vice versa – the phone starts charging itself with your computer’s power.
Now the fifth and the biggest turn off of this one is - even the screensaver of the phone only takes up one picture at a time, that means if you have a 100 pics in an album – you cant run them as screen saver – only one pic can be chosen at a time. What a shame – Reliance. Why do you need to mess up with the phone?
Sixth – Ghost in the phone book. At times my contacts suddenly disappear and guess what – the only option to see them back is to restart the phone. That’s about it.
Now these are some big bluffs that they have done with this great phone – there are some smaller problems which I am unable to state due to the space constraints.
The way you open the flip and move it to your ear is something I really like. Second the best thing is when I keep it on my office table with the flip open balancing on the side – it really looks awesome.
Surprisingly the battery life is good – it lasts me a day and a half with my usage and the phone doesn’t gets heated up even after long calls as was the problem with earlier versions of CDMA phones. Stereo Headset with mike, so many cables, converters and even card reader comes with the box. I love the fantastic car charger that Moto has given, the inbuilt light in the same is so damn good, even the mobile wallet is quite good – although I don’t keep it in it but still free hai to achcha hai.
But whatever said and done – the steel finish and the sleek looks and that perfect noise “Khatttak” after every call is more than enough for me to go for this one.
Ratings and comments are more than welcome as always.