acetuk
12-24-2003, 05:35 AM
Well... it was that time of year again when one contract comes up for renewal and yet again the desire for a new mobile phone was too much for me to take!
A little history of my recent mobile phones...
My position in the company that I work for brings with it a fully funded mobile phone. Great you may say but there is a problem - the company takes a stance that you can only have a Nokia 6310i and nothing else.
For me this is not a great phone. Good for corporate users with long battery life but not enough of the nice features that I require.
So a couple of years ago I signed up for a contract on a SE 68i. Nice phone but I soon got bored of it. The phone was unlocked so I could use either my works sim card or my own without a problem.
As soon as that year was up I had a look around at what else was out. At that time the SE P800 had just arrived and was receiving great early reviews. So I cancelled my original contract and signed up (and paid £150) for one of these, again unlocked from any network.
I have used that phone for a year and once again got bored. I am an iPaq user as well and the P800 was never going to replace that for me as it couldn't run software powerful enough. Don't get me wrong it's a nice phone but not what I needed.
I soon became obvious that I needed a phone... simple as that. Not a smartphone that tried to do a bit of everything but a nice simple phone with good battery life, bluetooth for my headset for the car, good contact management and ideally a nice messaging facility.
As I travel quite a bit as well I decided that I also needed a phone that was well built and strong. One of my worries about the P800 was that the fantastic touch screen would take a knock and break (as it had once before). A flip phone looked ideal but by no means my only option.
Having decided that I wanted a standard phone I did have a look at a couple of Microsoft based smartphones. I even took an E200 out for a 'spin' for a week and although it's a nice phone it wasn't what I wanted and was missing a couple of key features (voice dialling being the most important).
At the same time as all of this was going on my wifes contract also was up for renewal and she also wanted a flip phone with bluetooth. We looked around together and she was smitten with the Panasonic X70. After having used this for a little bit I agreed with her that it was the best phone for her (very 'girly' in my opinion with lots of rotating colours and funky ring tones) but not corporate enough for me.
So I looked around again and found the V525. I have had one Moto phone in the past (the Flaire if anyone remembers it) and quite liked it. However Moto have a good precence in the UK and it was definitely time to check them out again.
As always at a time like this I did a little research and discovered the pending arrival of the V600. However I am settled on the idea that I only want a phone so the extra video features of the V600 (the main addition I can see) are not really needed.
So I went looking for a V525. In my local area the V525 was not readily available... comments about short supply (as mentioned in this forum reguarly) were common. However the local Link store had one phone in stock! So I bought it immediately on the usual 14 day return period.
I have now used the phone for a few days and I have to say that this is the best phone I have personally used. The menu system is very quick to go through and everything works as you would expect.
What makes it special are the extras that I am not used to on the P800. The shortcut system works like a dream and I have my major features at no more than two keypresses away. The screen is superb and far better than my wifes X70. The camera is as good as the one on the P800 and is perfect for my needs.
Even the 5mb of memory is plenty. I am not into games so all the memory really needs to do is hold my contacts, some photos and the odd ring tone. So far with everything set up and a few photos present I am using just over 1mb.
The messaging system is very good. The P800 did not have T9 on it so to get a phone with predictive tap input and iTap has been a breath of fresh air.
I can go on and on with the praise! I really can!!
It is only a phone afterall but it is a superb little beast. I have about 10 more days to return it if I want to but I can't see why I will want to. Unless it crashes or goes mad on me I have a feeling it will be staying for quite some time.
Anyone else feel the same?
A little history of my recent mobile phones...
My position in the company that I work for brings with it a fully funded mobile phone. Great you may say but there is a problem - the company takes a stance that you can only have a Nokia 6310i and nothing else.
For me this is not a great phone. Good for corporate users with long battery life but not enough of the nice features that I require.
So a couple of years ago I signed up for a contract on a SE 68i. Nice phone but I soon got bored of it. The phone was unlocked so I could use either my works sim card or my own without a problem.
As soon as that year was up I had a look around at what else was out. At that time the SE P800 had just arrived and was receiving great early reviews. So I cancelled my original contract and signed up (and paid £150) for one of these, again unlocked from any network.
I have used that phone for a year and once again got bored. I am an iPaq user as well and the P800 was never going to replace that for me as it couldn't run software powerful enough. Don't get me wrong it's a nice phone but not what I needed.
I soon became obvious that I needed a phone... simple as that. Not a smartphone that tried to do a bit of everything but a nice simple phone with good battery life, bluetooth for my headset for the car, good contact management and ideally a nice messaging facility.
As I travel quite a bit as well I decided that I also needed a phone that was well built and strong. One of my worries about the P800 was that the fantastic touch screen would take a knock and break (as it had once before). A flip phone looked ideal but by no means my only option.
Having decided that I wanted a standard phone I did have a look at a couple of Microsoft based smartphones. I even took an E200 out for a 'spin' for a week and although it's a nice phone it wasn't what I wanted and was missing a couple of key features (voice dialling being the most important).
At the same time as all of this was going on my wifes contract also was up for renewal and she also wanted a flip phone with bluetooth. We looked around together and she was smitten with the Panasonic X70. After having used this for a little bit I agreed with her that it was the best phone for her (very 'girly' in my opinion with lots of rotating colours and funky ring tones) but not corporate enough for me.
So I looked around again and found the V525. I have had one Moto phone in the past (the Flaire if anyone remembers it) and quite liked it. However Moto have a good precence in the UK and it was definitely time to check them out again.
As always at a time like this I did a little research and discovered the pending arrival of the V600. However I am settled on the idea that I only want a phone so the extra video features of the V600 (the main addition I can see) are not really needed.
So I went looking for a V525. In my local area the V525 was not readily available... comments about short supply (as mentioned in this forum reguarly) were common. However the local Link store had one phone in stock! So I bought it immediately on the usual 14 day return period.
I have now used the phone for a few days and I have to say that this is the best phone I have personally used. The menu system is very quick to go through and everything works as you would expect.
What makes it special are the extras that I am not used to on the P800. The shortcut system works like a dream and I have my major features at no more than two keypresses away. The screen is superb and far better than my wifes X70. The camera is as good as the one on the P800 and is perfect for my needs.
Even the 5mb of memory is plenty. I am not into games so all the memory really needs to do is hold my contacts, some photos and the odd ring tone. So far with everything set up and a few photos present I am using just over 1mb.
The messaging system is very good. The P800 did not have T9 on it so to get a phone with predictive tap input and iTap has been a breath of fresh air.
I can go on and on with the praise! I really can!!
It is only a phone afterall but it is a superb little beast. I have about 10 more days to return it if I want to but I can't see why I will want to. Unless it crashes or goes mad on me I have a feeling it will be staying for quite some time.
Anyone else feel the same?