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Mpx-220, no thanks!

Finally got my hands on the Motorola Mpx-220 Windows Mobile Smartphone and was well...massively unimpressed.

I'm a fan of clamshell phones, they are usually smaller and the screen has better protection from scratching etc. I plumped for my SPV e200 back in the summer as A) it was a free upgrade and B) the Mpx-200 was only Windows Mobile 2002 - no .NET CF support.

So after running with a candybar phone for about 6 months now I was keen to see how a clamshell felt again and how it stacked up against the awesome
c500, the latest SPV offering from Orange.

Initial impressions of the 220 are that it's an ugly phone..big ugly phone. I liked the 200 design and you can see
here how much bigger the 220 is from the previous version. The 220 design is very fussy and the bit where the aerial is makes it look like a shaver IMHO! (now there's another great idea...mobile with built in shaver!).

The nails in the coffin were the small screen and the build quality - the battery cover is fairly loose fit and rattles - not really a problem, you could pad it out or something but the general impression when the phone is in your hand is that it feels cheap. It looks and feels like a phone from 2 years ago...

Ok it has some serious specs and a great camera but the sort of photos I take with my phone are really few and far between and the VGA cameras you get now are easily adequate for fun photos. Right now if you are in the market for a Windows Smartphone there is only one solution - the c500, incredibly small, light and very well built...good battery life and brilliant screen.

Look out for the SPV3i - a variant with a central joystick control like the e200 rather than the weird bar control.


Comments

I like the weird control bar - I don't understand why everyone else has such a problem with it?

C500 is my first non Nokia, and it's great.

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