I got hold of the RAZR today. It arrived by FedEx while I was at the office, and FedEx didn’t leave a notice on the door. So I drove over to the FedEx facility and asked them to find the package. I gave them my home address but they couldn’t look it up in their system. I’m guess they misplaced the punch cards.
At which point I’m guestimating the probability that FedEx has an open Wifi I can tap into and get the notice e-mail using my computer. Half way reaching to my computer bag, I realize there’s got to be a better way. I open up the phone, go online, access my GMail account and hand it over to the man behind the counter.
Five minutes later I’m in posession of a brand new phone. From there on the process goes like this:
- Open the box to find a huge collection of pamphlets and documents, most of which are waste of dead trees. First thing to get recycled tomorrow morning.
- Find another box holding the phone, wrapped in plastic with a threatening overlay. Red and black. Do not open unless you agree to the terms, rules, conditions, stipulations, provisions and all governing laws and fine print.
- Though, if you do open up, you still have 15 days to return it. Thank god for governing laws.
- Read service agreement one more time, just to make sure I know I’m only signing up my first born.
- Open the phone. Some assembly required. IKEA envy? Remove non-recyclable sticky plastics. Turn on.
- To activate your account, says the pamphlet, you need to provide us with the following five (5!) numbers. Phone number, zipcode, order number, order location and last four digits of your mother’s maiden name. Is this for real?
- Fortunately, you can activate it online (progress), and then dial *228 into an automated system. At least they got this part right and saved me from waking up one of their call center people.
First impression. It’s a slight improvement over the V710, but an improvement in every noticeable area. Thinner, lighter, better buttons, new features, more responsive. Better camera — the V710 is the first picture phone that can’t take pictures, so anything is better. Unlike the V710, no video, even though it has 5x the memory.
The UI is much better, especially for text entry. So is the address book and camera setup. A lot of small improvements that add up. It still sucks. Motorolla can learn a thing or two from Nokia and Samsung. Or maybe partner with Apple to do a useable UI, instead of overpriced downloads. Just a thought.
You can’t notice it vibrating in your pocket. That’s because Motorolla chose the default setting of near silence. Maybe they were afraid it will be considered a novelty item and banned in the south. Easily solved by setting the volume from the ringer styles menu.
And while I’m at it, turn off alert reminders, or it keeps vibrating every few minutes when I decide not to check my messages (I get dodgeballed a lot). At least, unlike the V710 it doesn’t beep by default. That beep was a month long government sanctioned tortute until I figured out how to turn it off.
The manual that comes with the phone is small, nicely printed and great for balancing table legs. Otherwise it’s impossible to read, and skips on some of the more valuable information, like how to turn the alerts off, or use the Web browser. Fortunately, a year of figuring out the V710 by trial and error saves me from reading it.
No more Motorolla cables. Gone. For good. USB baby. Which means I can charge it from my computer, I can use the iPod car charger*, and I can dialup without Bluetooth. One less thing to carry around.
The browser feels snappier. I’m guessing EVDO. Great for checking e-mails while out and about. I’ve yet to test Bluetooth dialup and headset, but that’s one thing the V710 was good at, so I don’t expect any problems. And the voice activated is now human useable.
But I wonder, why the odd placement of the volume keys on the flip piece. Does frequent use of SMS lead to extremely longer fingers?
Correction: It does have video. I can now finally record my life in low-res 15-sec intervals. Motorolla found a creative way to reduce menu overload by moving some features to far out places and non-standard key combinations. It pays to RTFM.
* I don’t really have an iPod charger, but a USB charger with a spare iPod cable. Still I’m down to one charger in my car and two cables in my bag, one for the iPod and one for the RAZR/Canon.
** One last note about pricing. The contract termination fee is $175 for one or two years. The discount is $150 for the additional years of contract. I think it’s a reasonable tradeoff price-wise, though I know I’ll resent the contract lock-in two years from now.