vB Easy Archive - Just typical Moto, mpx220 is a disappointment

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Just typical Moto, mpx220 is a disappointment
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Posted by: Holishi

I just came back from San Diego during Canada's thanksgiving holiday. I was intended to bring a mpx220 to Canada so I would be the first Canadian to own a mpx220

, but I returned the product 1 day later the purchase.

1) It took frigging long to load OS. After I turend the power on, it took 5 minutes to get the phone ready for anything. I originally assumed I got the SIM locked because I used an ATT sim, not cingular one, but in the end ATT SIM just worked fine.

2) The ring volume is so friggin low. If moto v600 or SE k700 has a max volume of 10, then mpx220 has a volume of 5 in comparison with v600 or k700.

3) The voice control feature is pretty neat, but it's not sensitive enough. For example, I spoke "Aaron" then the phone could not find the contact while "Aaron" was indeed stored in my contacts. A lot of times I spoke A name mpx220 responded with B name... oh well...

4) I couldn't import contacts from SIM to the phone. I spent an hour or so to look for this function but it was nowhere to be found. You can only sync your outlook contact on your pc to your phone, that truely sux.

5) Mpx220's camera quality is really horrible. The colors are fading and the pictures are blurry, you HAVE TO take pictures directly under the sun in order to reach barely acceptable picture quality. And by the way, in the manual mpx220 supports picture taking while the flip is closed, however, I've tried million times and this is not working. It is either that the manual is lying or it is a serious bug on mpx220.

So I returned this phone to BestBuy the next day. For $500US I don't think it is worth it.

Posted by: Swami

Did you get it from the San Marcos store?

Posted by: KunoxS

What do others think of this, I am trying to decide between a k700i and the mpx220 right now but some basics have to be good. Things like Ring and call volumes have to be high also how is the os nice and easy to use as a phone?

Posted by: Holishi

Quote:

Originally posted by Swami
Did you get it from the San Marcos store?

yes.

Posted by: S.Y.N.D.

My comments are at the bottom:

Quote:

Originally posted by Holishi

1) It took frigging long to load OS. After I turend the power on, it took 5 minutes to get the phone ready for anything. [snip]

2) The ring volume is so friggin low. If moto v600 or SE k700 has a max volume of 10, then mpx220 has a volume of 5 [snip]

3) The voice control feature is pretty neat, but it's not sensitive enough. For example, I spoke "Aaron" then the phone could not find the contact while "Aaron" [snip]

4) I couldn't import contacts from SIM to the phone. [snip]

5) Mpx220's camera quality is really horrible. [...snip...] And by the way, in the manual mpx220 supports picture taking while the flip is closed, however, I've tried million times and this is not working. It is either that the manual is lying or it is a serious bug on mpx220.

#1 - First time way long, after that, it does not take long to power up.
Details:
First time I loaded the phone (after charging for about 4 1/2 hours) it took about 3-4 minutes to load.
Now it takes about 35-50 seconds before I see the actual WinGUI, and another 5-10 seconds for it to read the all the entries off my SIM.

#2 - Ring volume can be adjusted to be quite fine.
Default settings for the "Normal" profile are low. Especialy if the plastic shipping protector is still covering the speaker.
This can be adjusted by altering the settings for the actual profile.
Now if you work on a trading floor, or in a constuction zone it will not be load enough (but are they any that are???).
I had no problem hearing it a busy coffee shop with expresso machines going.
Vibration is fine for clubs and such.

#3 - Voice Control is ok for a free-bundled app. Not being able to recognize a double "Aa" sound to spelling should not be held against it.
Not being able to train it is more of problem.

Looking: Has anyone found how to train this? The manual implies there is training for the "Digit-Dial" feature. Does this training apply to voice commands as well?
(Obvisouly I have more experimenting to do)

#4 - HUH?
I have heard this a number of time. What is hard about this?
My SIM entries were pushed from the T39m to SIM, and are seen perfectly fine by the MPx220.
Now what is not there is bulk conversion into contacts, merging mobile, home, and work numbers into a single contact. (Since each will be it's own entry on the SIM).

Process to add a SIM entry into a contact is as simple as highlighting it, select MENU, and select Add to Contacts.

Anyway the phone sees the SIM entries just fine.
I would rather NOT see them unless I want, but they are all there.

#5 - Camera. Hmm.. Go buy one.
Taking pictures while closed was easy. Not sure how this was messed up for Holishi.
Step 1: Wake phone up (tap power button or hold Camera button)
Step 2: AIM
Step 3: Press Camera button (listen to the "snapshot" sound).
Step 4: Done!

As far was quality. I was not expecting much. However direct sunlight for OK 640x480 pictures has not been needed. GOOD light is needed.
Camera is just a "toy" feature anyway. Who wants to pay for good optics and a fast CCD. When good quality 4 Meg Pix cameras are $45-90 bucks, maybe this will be a good convergance. (IMHO)

Posted by: Bengalboy

You need to train the voice recognition....which is actually quite lengthy... you should refer to my thread on how to set it up. That way a dialect or brogue would not shake the program.

Posted by: S.Y.N.D.

Quote:

Originally posted by Bengalboy
You need to train the voice recognition....which is actually quite lengthy... you should refer to my thread on how to set it up. That way a dialect or brogue would not shake the program.

As I mentioned I needed to investigate more on the "training". Once Howard is stable I will try searching for your thread.

(Hint)
Is the training done on the PC like the Office voice system training, or done on the phone?

Note: I did find the 60-second training for digit-dialing.

Thanks!

Posted by: sclui56

IMHO, 1 day of use is not sufficient to get the hang of things, but here goes:

1. OS Loading - well, almost all of the MS SP I have used takes a long time to do the initial load (It actually formats & populate the "storage" folder). After the initial load, subsequent resets are not long. Then again, this is no Treo.

2. Ring tone is not low, did you remove the protective plastic on the outside that's covering the speaker for the ringer? OTOH, I do find the earpiece volume could be louder as I do have trouble in crowded area and not using BT headset.

3. Vocice control is ok, you can train the digits, but not the commands.

4. Contact from SIM is automatically loaded, that's how you get the voice mail # on the 220.

5. Camera? just forget about it. Pretend it's not even there. I can assure you that pictures can be taken with the flip closed, just may not be what you expected.

Like I said, you may not have given it the time. MS SP certainly is not like a normal cell phone.

Posted by: Wolfgang5150

How was the RF compared to other phones?

Posted by: Holishi

Quote:

Originally posted by Wolfgang5150
How was the RF compared to other phones?

I found RF and voice quality are quite good. mpx220 works excellent as a phone, it was just low ring volume (even with protective plastic removed) and poor camera that bothered me.

Posted by: mikesm

Holishi, what is your experience with the battery life? How many hours talk time vs standby time?

Thanks,
Mike

Posted by: SteveDu

I guess it's just different ppl have different experience on the MPx220. I am pretty happy with it, though compare to my good N 3600 it's fairly doing about the same.

I didn't have hard time to start up my phone, actually from off to on it took me about 45 seconds to a minute and I'm ready to roll. Contacts it just there the first time I sync it since I sync my contacts from the 3600 to the Outlook and it syncs back to the MPx220. Ring volume it's pretty loud for me, personally I suggest use some MIDI that has very high octive notes (Like the Tap Dance from Nokia) and if you crank it up it's pretty loud. Yeah with the viberation too.

Bluetooth excpet there is no voice dial and I still can't get it to sync with my laptop with XP SP2 (I guess that's why), the headset and the dialup/GPRS over BT are pretty good. Not everyone need those fancy stuff :P

The camera, yes it really STINKS, but hey it can't replace the real cameras, plus it kills your battery anyway... Battery, well yes it's an issue with all the smartphones... I am not going to talk about it here, we all know the story.

Overall if the other phone I want (7610) was as cheap as the MPx220 (with upgrade contract) I would jump on the 7610. Hey but I still have my 3600 here, it never hurt to have a backup.

BTW, They call it "Smartphone", I call them "Dumbphone", they are pretty dumb.

Posted by: LarryH

So many things about what we want and don't want in a phone are truly personal and, yes, subjective.

For me, so far, the MPX220 has been performing like a champ. I don't feel it has a "volume issue" (though, as I said, for some it might. ) I've had no problems whatsoever sync'ing it via cable or BT with my desktop. The hinge doesn't sound like the front door at Frankenstein's castle.

Yup, the camera stinks. But I have no use for a cell phone camera so I just accept the cheapo junk as "baggage."

In reading another SmartPhone forum (someone posted a link somewhere) there was a lot of user error and hysterical people shouting "this doesn't work," "that doesn't work." A few posts later, a blush and an "oh, it works, I just pressed the wrong button."

I've owned a ton of phones (not as many as some, more than others) and nothing really has me "bothered" about this one.

Of one note of interest -- on Cingular, I have the same problem with MMS receiving that I have had on NON-SUPPORTED Cingular phones. No audio. I do get a message that a "component has been removed by MMS adaptation."

I was surprised to see this problem on a Cingular-supported phone. I called Cing but we all know how that goes. It'd be nice if it would work but there's not a human being in my circle who even knows what MMS is! Still, wish it worked just for kicks. (I believe this to be a Cingular issue, not a MOTO one.)

With some of the premature shouting about this phone -- people should check for themselves and/or consider the source. One person's "this phone sucks" could be another's "wow!"

Posted by: Holishi

Quote:

Originally posted by mikesm
Holishi, what is your experience with the battery life? How many hours talk time vs standby time?

Thanks,
Mike

I can't give relevent comments on talk time vs standby time because I just played it less than a day, but I found mpx220's battery life is relatively good; after 4 - 5 hours of EXTENSIVE usage, it still got 2 bars left, and at the time I returned the unit, it had 1 bar of power left. That convinced me one thing.....at least mpx220's battery life is better than mio8390's.

Posted by: DeMeyer

I agree about different people having different experiences. Here is just my opinions. I spent considerable time checking out the MPX220 at Best Buy. I took it out of the box, used my ATT SIM and ran it through the paces. There was no protector on my ear piece, the sound was way low - at full volume. I agree with a comment above - if most phones are at 10, the MPX max vol is 5. Now if some people don't see this, perhaps there are some phones out there that have production issues and should be returned to MOTO. In comparison with the AdioV SMT5600, I felt that the MPX was slow. That and the fact that the MPX will not support Bluetooth headset voice dialing made me choose the SMT5600. I was not impressed with the MPX. In the same amount of time spent with the SMT5600, I was blown away. The size and weight are amazing. The Bluetooth features worked perfect. Voice dialing from headset has not missed a single command; not once. The phone is fast. Browsing internet is almost a joy! Earpiece and speakerphone are almost too loud. All this, and $100 less than the MPX. I also felt that the build quality was better on the SMT5600. It just feels more solid. Keep in mind that I have been waiting for the MPX220 with great anticipation for months. I just couldn't pass up the SMT5600. Again, my opinions.