Last year, I updated to a smartphone for my birthday. I had been using my trusty Motorola Razr for 4 years, and it was just time to move into the 2010s. I had been contemplating over the iPhones for some time, but also wary of them—so many friends had cracked theirs, lost them or had them stolen. There was also the problem of dropped calls.
After much deliberation, I decided upon trying the newest thing—Motorola’s first Android phone for AT&T called the Backflip. The first deciding factor was that it was insurable, unlike the iPhone. The second was that it was a cute little thing with very interesting form function—the keyboard flipped out from the back instead of sliding in. It had a 5 megapixel camera with flash, (compared to the iPhone with 3 mp and no flash) , video camera, and Motoblur, for quick access to social networking and email.
Alas, its cuteness was soon spent with the first one because it kept rebooting itself after I took a picture, or sometimes just at random. I was still within the first 30 days though, thought I had a lemon and traded it in.
In about a month, I traded in the second one because it lost its ability to receive 3G, or internet connections at all.
In a couple of months after that, I had to get another one, because it had started freezing up or rebooting. It also was calling people at random.
I kept with the phone, though, and AT&T’s warranty system because when it did work, it worked really well for what I need. It was a breeze to text on it. I loved the camera. It had low radiation levels compared to a lot of other phones. It didn’t drop calls.
But this month, after one year of the Backflip, I decided it was time to get rid of the darn thing. The latest one started slowing down to a crawl, was overheating, and was still calling people when I wasn’t near it.
I had followed the warranty rules, and agreed to get for the rest of my 2 year agreement, a Motorola Flipside. Instead, I was mailed the Motorola Flipout.
Neither of these two phones were perfect, (but were adorable looking) and I did call warranty and told them that if the Flipout didn’t work (customer ratings on AT&T website were frought with frustration with both replacement phones,) I wanted to be able to do an early upgrade without penalty. I gamely worked with the Flipout. It was faster, it fit easily into my pocket, but it had a 6 hour battery life with moderate usage. It was adorable and small, but with my over 40 year old eyes that still don’t need reading glasses, it was a little eyestraining to use its screen. I could live with it though, it made phone calls and didn’t drop them….except that within two days, it shut itself off and would not turn back on again.
I went to my local AT&T store, where they know me quite well now, and they helped me get the upgrade I was looking for—one without penalty, to a beautiful monster of a phone, (cue dramatic music) The Motorola Atrix.
Yes, I stayed with Motorola. Why? A few reasons. My husband works for Motorola. I don’t HAVE to buy their products, but I like to be supportive. Also, as much as I think the iPhone is sexy, their ads are snotty. The Motorola phones that I have had the troubles with were out of a group that is no longer working at Motorola. It’s a shame, because the interesting form factors were intriguing, but suffered mightily from a lack of support. The Atrix though, is moving towards the future of these smart products, and has been painstakingly designed and supported.
When Motorola makes a high-end phone, it is a quality instrument. Its duel-core processor and speed are a marvel to behold. No calls so far have been dropped, and I can be heard crystal clear on the other end. I can multitask several aps at once. If I wanted to secure the phone to only work with my fingerprint recognized, I could. It doesn’t have a slide out keyboard, but the touchscreen version is sensitive and it’s not hard to type accurately. Back to a 5MP camera with flash and night vision. It works with Adobe Flash Player. I will get a dock for it and a Bluetooth keyboard that will make it possible to turn the darn thing into a computer with any HD screen. Battery life—I got 18 hours out of it despite intentionally heavy usage. It’s a smartphone work of art.
The thing I worry about though, is that it’s too much power. It does so much and I just STARE at it! It can be insidious, the attraction of this phone with so much computing power and easy access to information. I don’t want to be one of those people who gets stuck into their machine. That truly would be like going over to the dark side.
