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Motorola's i95cl
thefalconer writes "MSNBC has a very detailed article about Motorola's new all-in-wonder phone offered by Nextel. It is a PDA, has a Walkie-Talkie, phone, web browser, instant messaging, addressbook, it has a high resolution Color LCD screen, and it's running on a Java Based OS! It even comes in a variety of styles and colors just to your taste. There is so much to this phone that it makes you ask "how'd they get all that, into this tiny little thing?" Makes me want to ditch my old phone for one of these right now!"
Great. They have managed to pack even more features into a tiny package. Despite the posts compaining about the large size, with all the stuff that's crammed into this thing it is tiny. This is a technological marvel, to be sure but, let's look at it from a slightly different angle.
This thing is primarily supposed to be a phone. It can do so much more but, it is supposed to be a phone. As such, it is a very poor phone as are all of the Motorola ixxxx series. Its design is not at all ergonomic. It doesn't fit well against the face and its ear piece is angled such that it does not cover the ear. This means that it is difficult to hear in a noisy environment, such as a moving vehicle. Pressing the ear piece against the ear tightly enough to develop a seal is extremely uncomfortable and also puts a great deal of stress on the hinges. This very frequently leads to the cracking or break of the flimsy hinges.
The reception quality of these phones has changed very little. Frequently, calls are garbled or dropped completely. This is especially true when using the two way "Direct Connect" feature. These two way converstations often are interrupted by @#$@!&*%$#%@##^%@@#$@&^%%&. Very annoying.
There is also the issue of the beeps when using the two way mode. Even when you select to turn off the speaker and use the two way like a regular phone, there is a very loud beep if the other caller takes more than a couple of seconds to respond. This beep not only negates the point of turning off the speaker so as not to disturb the people around you, it is also deafening when the phone is held to the ear.
Then there is the key pad. The keys are small, naturally. But, they are also flush with the case, almost recessed, which makes dialing difficult. Not to mention the convoluted key presses necessary to use the gee whiz features that they keep adding. Countless other phones, especially Nokia, have much better buttons to allow easier dialing. Also, many phones offer voice activated dialing, eliminating the need to dial completely.
To be frank, there are only two redeeming features of this phone from a usability stand point. One of course is the "Direct Connect" feature, for obvious reasons. The other is the speaker phone feature. This allows half duplex hands free speaker phone use for cellular calls. This is an excellent and very usable feature that few other cell phones offer.
The gee whiz aspect of these phones is very high but, they seem to forget that this is a phone! I'd really like to see these companies, especially Motorola, invest some more time into increasing the reliabilty, usability, ergonomics and durability of these devices. These things are portable. That means they are going to get banged around. They are small and WILL get dropped from time to time.
If I wanted toast I'd buy a toaster. I don't need my phone to make toast, regarless of how cool it is that they can make it do that. I wanted a phone. I wanted to make phone calls and that is why I bought a phone. Make my phone calls better and I'll be very happy. Everything else is just fluff and is often an annoyance.