The Ming. Review on Motoming A1200

I was on the look out of Motorola A780, when I visited the dealer but unfortunately they didn't had a single piece there, then. What attracted me to the above model was its PDA (?like) format and the document viewer which I wanted much.The other phones in the final round were Nokia 6681 and the SE K750i for its camera power. The dealer actually discouraged me from Nokia eventhough it was dearer than the SE model. It seems Nokia is loosing its reliability reputation. He was in all praise for K750i. But I didn't want to take a decision until I see an A780. Just then he showed me a unique looking phone Motorola A1200.

Is it a PDA disguising as a phone or the other way around? He didn't had a clear answer. The first batch had just arrieved only. The looks were simpy irresistable with a transparent disply cover harbouring the ear piece on it and giving the phone the clamshell format. It is undoubtfully one of the most beautiful mobile phones around. And the price.. Rs 17500.00. Never too much for its appearence. But do this beauty have any material inside?? I decided to study before I take her home.

This phone had a pretty big disply- 36x48mm compared to the K750i's humble 28x35mm. But the A780 had a bigger one. All the 3 phones had a 256k color diaply. Both the motorolas had touch screens, but A 780 had additional numerical keys. Some might think, getting away them might be novel, but undoubtfully it is inconvenient to enter numbers with touch screen which require both your hands. So I think is is better to have them.

They say A1200 is a Smart Phone. But HOW without a 3G or EDGE? Can't understand why motorola had taken away the EDGE from this when their earlier model A780 had it. K 750i had neither.

SE have both IR and Bluetooth while the Motos are equipped with bluetooth only.

A780 have a 1.3 mp cameara. The other two had a 2mp camera. Actually its the camera thats the power of SE K750i. Isn't a camera fitted with a mobile phone? Not really, but they still try to make such an impression with all those features like flash, autofocus, lense cover and even an optional flash! ( To my surprise the autofocus is really functional!) I had seen a couple of sample photos and are pretty good. A1200 also have a 2mp camera. I had seen one sample photo, good but not as impressive as the K750's. The lense appeared too small just like the one we see in the VGA models.(My friends Motorazr VGA photos are much much better than my K300's snaps!) If any one argues that there is not much in optics, then why they provide bigger lenses on better cameras? Moreover the lenses are placed too suceptabily with no covers. Clearly they have not given much weightage for the camera part.

Both the Motos run on a 312 Mhz processor with Linux os. Both have Document viewer (Office document and PDF) but no editor. Sad that the SE have no such facility. But you can convert the text documents to JAWA application with freely downloadable softwares and read it on any Jawa facilitated phones. Still then the smaller disply is a limitation. Despite much search I couldnot find much downloadable applications for the Motos. So dont think these phones are going to be your hand held computers.

So the conclusion? Except for the looks and a bigger mp CMOS, A 1200 donot offer any thing bigger than A780 and actually it misses a couple of goodies like EDGE and numerical keypad. So why should you spend 3 grand more for less function. Now the choice is between A780 and K750. Here it depends on what exactly you need. If you are a mobile office freek go for the moto, but I dont think you can do much from that part. K750 have a camera worth carrying around. It packs some good music too. Better still, it is 3 grand cheaper than the A780 and 6 than the A1200.

SO I DECIDED NOT TO BUY THE MING!!!!