T-Mobile - The Razr V3 and my Nokia 6600
Finally after 6 months, managed to get a cell phone without any deposits. I guess my credit history is starting to build up now. The last time when I asked for a cell phone service, I was told to deposit $750!!
I still say cell phone market in US sucks. The service providers dictate the market. No good handsets to choose too. You are kind of forced to buy from the limited range of handsets that the services providers have to offer.
After doing some major research, I opted for T-Mobile service. The service plan is pretty decent (Get More 1500), but is quite expensive compared to the mobile service back in India. With the plan, you are kind of forced to buy a cell phone, and T-mobile had very limited variety. Nothing compared to the barrage of cell phones available in India!.
I picked the Motorola Razr V3 (silver), since it was decently priced (keep in mind that I have an 1 year contract!). I had also read lots about its looks, and its coolness factor. Its supposed to be the Best and the “Most Happening” phone in the US of A currently in the market!.
The Razr V3 definitely has the looks! Its cool & sexy. Very sleek and slim. Its got a very beautiful finish, and a 260K color TFT display. It has a decent battery life too. And that’s where it ends. I being a Nokia 6600 user, feel like a total handicapped using this phone.
Here are some things which suck big time about the Razr V3…
- Its a flip phone. So, you need to open the flap to make/receive calls. And, the Razr V3 is designed in such a way that its next to impossible to open the phone with one hand. So, if you receive a call while you are eating or using your other hand, its a struggle.
- The phone is not at all extensible. Its got very little internal memory (5 MB), and there is no way to increase it. No slots for memory cards either.
- The phone boasts that it can play MP3 tones. Yes. It does have a great stereo sound, but with 5 MB of space, you can only store ring tones, and if you are lucky enough, you can store a MP3 song or two.
- It has a 4x digital Zoom camera - but the 640 x 480 resolution sucks big time. This phone deserves a better resolution camera.
- No Video recording. …….. and even if you could, you wouldn’t have enough space to store the recorded clips.
- Using Bluetooth, the phone could not detect most of the other Bluetooth devices that were around. But the other devices could detect and connect to the Razr V3. Once connected, I could transfer files as usual.
- There is an small stamp sized display on the outside (on the flap). But, you cannot do any customization specific to this display.
- The phone supports Java, but its very very slow. Again due to space constraints, you cannot load lots of applications
- The phone does not recognize WAV files!!! However, it plays Midi files, and MP3 files as ring tones.
- No support for .rm (real media) files when it comes to video. Neither can it play DivX encoded files (.avi).
Compared to the above, if you consider the features, my Nokia 6600 beats the Motorola Razr V3 hands down! While I came here to the US, I had brought my Nokia 6600 from India. So, after using the Razr V3 for couple of days, Now I am back to my Nokia 6600! I plan to use the Razr as a back up phone! Just in case. Or may be… just to ’show off’. hahaha…
7 comments | July 25th, 2006 at 01:14am