My opinions on Motorola T720c (migrating from v60c)

[ARC]

My opinions of T720c as compared to V60
=======================================
Around 10 months ago, I had posted my user review of the
v60 in this very forum. Last week, I 'upgraded' my phone
to the t720c. While I was one of the 'early' adopters of the
v60, I understand that this time Im late with the T720c, but
hey, here is my opinion again, for those who care to read.

As before, each 'point' is associated with an IF (Importance Factor)
0 = not important, 5 = very important, * = geek factor
& Rating of 0=bad, 3= ok, 5=really good


********** OVERALL: Am I happy I upgraded from v50 to T720 ? Yes - with the 2dp upgrade of software. *********

Things that improved with 22.2dp upgrade
========================================
* Responsiveness of menu IF:5, R:4 (pre upgrade this was R:2 -> irritatingly slow)
* Signal strength IF:5, R:4 (pre upgrade this was R:2)
- I used to get constant drops of signal in places my v60 was solid. This was
corrected as soon as I upgraded.
* Battery Life IF:5, R:3 (pre upgrade this was R:2)
- My test consisted of dialing into a conference bridge and keeping the call
active. Pre upgrade, my phone died after 2:15min. Post upgrade my phone died
after 2:45mins. So there.

Beyond these three, each important, nothing else seemed to change. I read various
'blackouts' etc that were solved. Well, I never faced it so I dont know (I had .19c or
something)

I would definetely recc. the upgrade, based on the above 3 reasons.


Now the Good, Bad and Ugly of the phone (my opinion, ofcourse)

The Good
=========
* Excellent color display (IF:3, R:4)
- I love the color display. I dont see too much of font pixelation
and the pictures are fair for a phone. Nor do I see excellent font
smoothing - but combined with its response time and small display
I like what I see.

* Responsive menus (IF:5, R:3)
- significant improvement after upgrading to the 22pd

* Customizability (IF:*, R:5)
- we have GAGIN !! What else do you need ? I love the fact that I can
export the EFS to my PC and change what I want - ofcourse, one needs
to know what and how - but that comes with the game. I _wish_ v60
had anything close to this. The fact that it lets me customize a lot
of the interface including start/stop bitmaps is nice. I dont need to do it,
but the fact I __Can___ makes all the difference.


* Polyphonic Ringtones (IF:*, R:5)
- Honestly, to me, polyphonic ringtones are really a geek pleasure. But
do they rock ! I never thought Id be blasting ringtones other than normal rings.
I am fairly conservative on this - but after listening to mi2 and bond themes,
how could I not upgrade ? I love the fact these tones turn heads and are not
as 'monotone' as other tones.

* GAGIN (IF:*, R:5)
- I know ! I know ! I said it before. But heck - I love it !!!!

* Signal strength and Battery indicator on the external LCD (IF:3, R:5)
- Very nice touch. I travel a lot and always look at how the signal is doing :-)

* Better browsing speed (IF:2, R:3)
- Im not much of a phone-browser, but I did notice the speed is better than my v60

* Distinctive Ring (IF:4, R:5)
- I hated the fact that in v60 I could not customize my ringtone on a per contact
basic. This has been taken care of in the T720

* 'Smart Keys' inadvertent change (IF:3, R:4)
- I remember complaining abt my v60 that one could by mistake change the ring type
from loud to silent without even opening the phone (for example, if its sitting
in your pocket). In the 720, you cannot change ring mode unless you open the phone.

* Better antenna (IF:4, R:4)
- Better antenna than the v60c for sure. Still retractable, but more solid. Now it
does not wedge into my pocket

* Key size (IF:1, R:2)
- I felt the keys of the t720 are slightly easier to use due to its extended width.
Again, not that I had a problem with v60 - but its like , say, comparing vanilla
and cookies and cream - like both, prefer the latter, can live without latter, though.

* Software upgrades (IF:5,* R:5)
- I love verizon for allowing free OS upgrades. Bug fixes etc. Nice

* Replaceable Face plates (IF:2, R:5)
- Good for those who want to. I know v60i had it too - but I had v60c.
I have my eyes on a face plate from Australia which looks similar to the v60 frontend -
not yet launched in the US I believe. I dont like any of the current ones.

The Bad & Ugly
===============

* 'Smart Keys' inadvertent change (IF:3, R:2)
- Yes I know this is a dual entry. I actually now miss that feature. I loved
quickly flicking my phone to silent as I walked into a meeting without taking it
off my belt hook. Now I need to open it. Also, after over a year of usage of the v60,
I never really managed to 'change mode by mistake'

* Still no calling card association (IF:4, R:1)
- I make a lot of international calls. Nokias has a wonderful feature where I can enter
calling card info and I can associate numbers with it. In the motorola, I have to manually
enter the sequence each time for my address entries or do ridiculous stuff like DTMF/inset tone.
Do you really think one will be interested in doing this in the middle of a call ?

* 32 character limit (IF:5, R:0)
- I dont know *why* they have still retained the 32char limit for numbers. I could live
without not being able to associate callingcard info to numbers if atleast they allowed
me to enter the full seq for each no -> As luck has it, if I were to enter my password
as well, it runs over 32. Bummer. As I mentioned, 'linking' is a stupid user-unfriendly
concept - more of a hobbyist feature than usable.

* Display without the backlight (IF:3, R:0) - with my v60, with the backlight disabled, the screen
was still readable. With the T720, its totally unreadable. So when the backlight switches off in
between something (eg a download), I press a key to revive it - but I dont know if that key would
interfere (eg mapped to cancel, for example). I am not ready to keep the backlight on, since
I am batt. conscious. I know I know - why go for a color then :-) But thats me.

* I never noticed it in my v60 (maybe it was there too) , but I find it irritating that if I set
mode to say Vibe and plug the phone into power, it switches to Loud and then switches back to Vibe
when i disconnect (IF:2, R:0)

* Bleep ! Bleep ! (IF:3, R:0) - I hate the loud noise when I press the smart keys on the side. I
wish I could reduce these. Reducing keypress volume has no effect on this.

* Truesync (IF:5, R:2) - I disliked the fact that I had to upgrade to TS3.1 to get sync support
for my T720. Because 3.1 removes support for a host of apps that the older verison supported. Luckily
though, it still syncs with palm and Lotus Notes.

* Cable connector (IF:4, R:1) - I dont know why the motorola connectors have such 'brittle sounding'
connection points. For example, every time I 'shove in' my datacable, its like asif its
crunching the gold pins inside. Not to mention, I always need to adjust it to connect properly.

* Greasy Greasy LCD (IF:3, R:1) - I wish they treated the LCD better - gets too greased too easily.

* Icon animation (IF:2, R:1) - I wish there was a way I could disable icon animation. Im sure
that would make the menu even faster.
I much prefer the Nokia connectors.

* Mechanical detection if flip close (IF:*, R:1) - if you see the top part of your keypad,
there is a small rubber button. When the flip closes, it presses into this button. This is how
this phone detects if this flip is open or closed. I dont like it - not that it affects anything,
but I find it primitive. And the fact that I can take a pen and poke it to make this phone believe
its flip-shut does not impress me. But I dont really worry too much about this, admittedly.

The stuff I dont care about (but evidently others do) - hence no IF, nor R
================================================== =======================
* Downloadable BREW games - nice for ppl who like it. Not restricted to what motorola provides.
Anyone who is a BREW developer can just download the SDK and get cracking . I wrote my usual
Hello World app on my phone (like I did for my palm), felt great and left it at that ;-)

* Tone editor - even v60 had it - never used it - but its there for ringtone maniacs.

*Getitnow - never used it , dont want to, not really sure I like this interface. But hey
its there.

* Location update - I know verizon does not support it, but I like the location feature.
I am a big proponent of Internet based presence and like the feature, as long as I am convinced
security is well taken care of (you know, you advertise your presence => location based services
and also implies stalking possibilities etc etc -> you get the drift). For example, the fact that
I have ALI on and Im in NYC (say), and I ask for a Sushi restaurant and the phone automatically
suggests one around the block is cute. Hope verizon brings support for it soon.
Thought, if I see it degrades battery too much, I _will_ switch it off. Gee, I can even call
assistance today and ask someone when I need it :-)

[ARC]

An important change to my opinion:

Even after the 2dp update, the reception is significantly inferior as compared to the v60.

regds
arjun