Too Much Motorola Bashing?

[Jerry Raia]

Perhaps it is time to clear the air here about a few things. It is true I have fun bashing Motorola for its poor quality phones. What readers might not know or surmise from what I write on this board is that I am a huge Motorola fan. Now before you choke on your saliva hear me out. I have been told to give it a rest by some of you. The reason I am so irritated with Moto is that they used to make such great phones. I have lost count of how many handsets of theirs I have owned. <!> I remember paying $800 for one of the early MicroTac Elite phones. I owned the early Moto flip phones where the mouth piece was actually in the flip down part. To the best of my recollection I have owned 3 of the MicroTac Elite Series, 4 StarTacs, 2 v60s, the v60p, the v600 and the v710. Each time I got a new one was because it had some new feature I wanted. Not to mention if anyone in my family needed a phone it was always a Motorola. I won’t even go into how many Motorola pagers I had. Why? Because I liked them all. I broke from them when I got my first Smartphone, the Samsung i600. I tried them again with the MPx220 and well we know how that went.

The whole time with those phones I noticed a gradual decline in quality. Little things at first like hinges wearing out faster. Later internal problems like the v600 and v710 had. If the Q ever sees daylight on Cingular I will probably get one. I want it to be good. I bash Motorola because they CAN make good quality devices and don’t anymore. I hope that changes. I will be the first one to write how great the Q is (if it is). If it isn’t or doesn’t even show up then I will continue to bash them. They can do better! Your thoughts are welcome.

[Pete Paxton]

I think the problem is that Moto needs to get serious about the smartphone market. And now with this whole "Q" delay, I don't know. Others are catching up so fast that the Q is going to get left behind if they don't release it soon.

[Kris Kumar]

What have you done to our Jerry? :lol:


I don't have much of experience with Moto, but I agree with your thoughts. MPx200 was the first Moto phone I owned and it had awesome build quality. The software was the limiting factor but that was because of Microsoft.

Like you I too had high expectations from Moto for their MPx220. But I believe after 3 returns in the span 3 months or so, and still not being satisfied, Moto was not high on my charts. The news about MPx100 and MPx300 being cancelled, and their new found craze with the RAZRs drove me nuts.

Motorola needs to learn to fix its mistakes. Making phones is no longer a big deal, HTC can do it better and faster. All they lack is the marketing arm and muscle of a established company like Motorola.

[Rocco Augusto]

...Now before you choke on your saliva hear me out...

::cough choke cough::

too late :( ;) :lol:

[edgar]

Jerry

Looks like Chandler stole your access - change your password.

My experience is much as Jerry's - going back before the microtac and hitting bag phones. yes, I am that old! I count probably 12-15 models personally and professionally over nearly 20 years.

I agree wholeheartedly with Jerry especially with my enterprise experience. I was responsible for more than 250 cell phones for my enterprise utilizing AT&amp;T. For five years we always used Moto until the V60 and beyond. Support started out ok 7 years ago, but migrated to horrible, devices were breaking right and left (antenna, hinges, screens, battery covers). We weren't getting replacements; when we did they were refurbished and broke within 2 mos and then wouldnt be replaced. But it wasnt just the hardware. Software got more and more cumbersome, more problematic calls, more failures. AT&amp;T were as frustrated as the end user - but they had contracts. But they reduced their buys in Moto.

In 1998, I got the chance to be the IT director for an AT&amp;T partner in the east. The Engineers that tested and approved phones hated the Moto's - not so much for design but because they said that Moto support had their heads "where the sun doesn't shine" they thought themselves superior I guess. And the failure rate was huge. So what happened? More and more Nokia's were approved for sale. Ask any cell engineer that has been in the business for more than 6 years, they'll confirm it.

As much as I am not a Moto fan I do have to say the DESIGN of their latest models are innovative and market leading. The MPX220 design was great, flip phone/smartphone - huge market in flip phones, the RAZR - flashy, thin, "cool" - the Q - nice, thin, good declared features. They just need to either stop showing cool devices, or actually release them when they say they will. The 220 took forever and slipped numerous times - then released with crappy volume, tons of bugs, scratched screen, poor battery life.

How is that possible? Delayed for nearly a year and have those basic problems? Do they test in a sound vacuum.

Ok, I'm moving to a rant. Anyways, I agree with Jerry - I want them to succeed - I like their designs, just hire a couple more QA and a couple UI testers. I think you all use non-moto phones - eat your own dog food - then you'll experience the flaws first hand.
In the interim? SUCK DIRT MOTO - Step up and lead again. Win us back.

[Mike Temporale]

The 220 took forever and slipped numerous times - then released with crappy volume, tons of bugs, scratched screen, poor battery life.

What I don't understand about this, is that all of those problems were common knowledge with the beta's. All the early reports and reviews complained of all the same bugs that ended up in the final product. Which really makes you wonder what the QA department was doing?!

In all fairness, I have never owned a Moto cell phone. I do have some other Moto products, and they seem pretty good. I did recently acquire a couple brand new MPx220's. But I'm passing them off to someone who needs them a lot more than I and I'm pretty sure they will be putting the lastest illegal ROM on the device. I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone using the phone with the last ROM released by Moto. :roll:

As for the Future and the Q; I have played with the Q for about 30 minutes or so. It feels like a great device, it seems pretty responsive. That was 4 months ago. I don't know what has caused the delays since then. But whatever it is, I hope they are listening to the early testers this time. The Q has potential, I hope Moto can live up to it.

[Jerry Raia]

You guys have convinced me. I should have named this "Not Enough Motorola Bashing" :lol:

[SassKwatch]

I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone using the phone with the last ROM released by Moto. :roll:

Let it be known there be at least one such fool in the crowd....me. I wasn't even aware of the existence of 'illegal' ROMs.

And though my MPX220 purchase was well after initial introduction, I have to say I've been *relatively* satisfied with the device. Of course, a lot of research went into the (semi)SmartPhone platform prior to purchasing one and hence, my expectations were ratcheted down from the git-go.

[Kris Kumar]

I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone using the phone with the last ROM released by Moto. :roll:

Let it be known there be at least one such fool in the crowd....me. I wasn't even aware of the existence of 'illegal' ROMs.


:oops: Cough! There is one more in the crowd. It is me, well actually it is my wife who has to suffer because of me. Luckily she doesn't the use the phone much, only for texting and calling me. :wink: So in a way I am happy if the phone doesnt work at times. :lol: But she has not complained except for the low voice quality.

[edgar]

Actually its not illegal. Just not distributed in North America.

It's Moto again. They release different ROM's across the world - fair enough, there are different needs and different styles across the world.

But to release "worldwide english" ROM's in Panasia and Euroland but not NA is just stupid. Anyone can get the Panasian releases if they want them. They do correct some things, or so the forums say.

I, too, am using the last official North America AT&amp;T Moto release - even though my device is unlocked. Mostly lazy, no other reason I haven't upgraded. I also felt the newer ROMs don't made that big of a difference. I'm not dieing - no dropped calls etc - just lousy camera, reboot twice a day and no speakerphone. The problems lie below the software - inferior speaker that when made louder it breaks up - the speakerphone is useless unless in a silent area - )yet Moto makes awesome speakerphone capability for the Nextel/Sprint line!). Not enough memory, a useless camera, etc. I was so excited about the possibilities of the MPX220 that I bought one even when I knew it had issues, expecting software to fix it. Remember the MPX220 is a second generation handset. Yet it is riddled with many of the same issues of the MPX200.

Why? There is no reason besides lousy QA and a drive to make quick money. Perhaps the marketing machine is running the engineering team - ala Dilbert. Who knows, but it is the consumer that loses and they drop confidence in a company, as shown here.

Yes Moto makes some great devices. Cable router - solid device, cable tv boxes, infrastructure systems, chipsets for everything from computers to toasters, tv's etc. A phenomenal technology R&amp;D shop. All pretty solid. The problems aren't systemic to all of Moto and I don't want to infer that. It IS systemic to their mobile line up.

[Rocco Augusto]

the last company i worked for has a repair center built into it, i was one of the "lucky" few that got to work in it. thats when i decided to stop using motorola phones after fixing, literally, 273 moto v60(i) antennas. it got so bad i could take the whole phone apart, fix the antenna and put it back together in less then 49 seconds. i held the record at our repair center... yes the problem was so bad we turned it into a game :)

[Jerry Raia]

Think you could work a Q that fast? They might need ya. :lol:

[Rocco Augusto]

im working on my imaginary one right now... since that seems to be all we'll ever get ;)

[Jerry Raia]

im working on my imaginary one right now... since that seems to be all we'll ever get ;)

I'm not sure, was that a bash? :lol:

[dh]

Like many people I've used Moto products for years - pagers, brick phones, cellphones etc. I can remember when they were the coolest company around - it was great when I got my first Startac.

They certainly seem to have lost their way since. The Scandinavian and Asian companies have really taken them to the cleaners in both innovation and quality.

I'd love them to make a comeback, just to be able to support a US business (yes, yes, I know that the products would all be made by one of the overseas contract manufacturers anyway!).

Maybe they are starting on the way back. My daughter has a Razr and it achieves everything it's supposed to. It makes calls, does text messaging, lets her get ringtones and (most importantly) impresses her friends. The build quality is actually ten times better than my plastic wonder SP5. Sure the SP5 does a gizzilian more things but my daughter wouldn't use it because she thinks it's ugly. Needless to say, she has an iPod too, I'm sure she is exactly the kind of person these guys all market to.

It seems odd that HTC can turn out functional mobile devices at the drop of a hat, while Moto never seems to get anything more complicated than a simple phone to market and if they do it basically sucks.

A Smartphone version of the Razr would be a great product (assuming it worked). I like the keypad much more than my SP5 one and there's plenty of room for a nice big screen. What's that? HTC are already coming out with one? Sorry Moto, looks like you're too late again!

David

[chandler]

Actually its not illegal. Just not distributed in North America.

It's Moto again. They release different ROM's across the world - fair enough, there are different needs and different styles across the world.

But to release "worldwide english" ROM's in Panasia and Euroland but not NA is just stupid. Anyone can get the Panasian releases if they want them. They do correct some things, or so the forums say.

I'd have to wager that it is illegal; distributing copyrighted software without permission is illegal in most countries. Sorry.

Anyway - the ROM upgrade that was released in the US went through Cingular approval, which is why it took so long. My guess is that Cingular is unlikely to release an update for the MPx220 with WMP10 and bug fixes when they're trying to sell the 2125, so don't expect to see any updates for the US again. By the way, the latest updates do fix many issues, including phone volume. My only issue with the MPx220 right now is the fact that I can't use voice dial over Bluetooth, which is Microsoft's fault.

Carriers are slow, and they hold up the last few months of any phone release or update. For instance, right now, I'm using the V3i (http://www.motorola.com/motoinfo/product/details/0,,130,00.html), which is rock solid - but not out in the US yet.

We can't do an end-run around the carriers and release software updates, unlocked phones, etc. in the US. I certainly don't like this, but it's better than not selling in the US at all.

[chandler]

Jerry

Looks like Chandler stole your access - change your password.

*snip*

Ok, I'm moving to a rant. Anyways, I agree with Jerry - I want them to succeed - I like their designs, just hire a couple more QA and a couple UI testers. I think you all use non-moto phones - eat your own dog food - then you'll experience the flaws first hand.
In the interim? SUCK DIRT MOTO - Step up and lead again. Win us back.

I don't think I would want Jerry's account :lol: Nor do I necessarily want to go around hyping Moto products. When we make something cool I'll point it out when appropriate. If we make something that sucks, I'll point it out internally.

As long as you're willing to be won back that's all I can ask for. Keep an open mind; there's a lot of cool stuff in the pipeline and product quality is improving. The RAZR is more than just a pretty face; it's a solid product too, notwithstanding occasional issues (like the recent component issue that stopped shipments for a while) that can be seen in any product that ships in such massive quantity. As far as UI - the next face of that can be seen in the A910 and the E895: a Linux-based UI to rival S60. I personally think Nokia made a big mistake by dropping Opera for a Safari/KHTML based browser in S60, and future Moto Linux phones with Opera will profit from this.

Speaking of that - if anyone wants to get their rant on, where is Opera for Windows Mobile Smartphone? I paid for this under the impression that I was supporting future development for the Smartphone platform. It turns out I was just bankrolling WM2003/5.0 touchscreen development. Opera 8.0 final still has a very annoying "double text" bug that affects users of iTAP on the MPx220 and bluetooth keyboard users.

[MobileRob]

At the risk of being pummelled, I would like to say that I really like the Q phone, and believe that it will be a very popular phone.

From my experience in using the phone, it's innovative approach to the 320 x 240 screen is very comfortable (like a small version of a desktop) and is extremely crisp in displaying pictures, text, and colors. When I use my i600 afterwards, it is dull and uninviting.

The keys are very easy to use, well placed, and have good tactile feedback on a keypress. Having a full keyboard on such a small and light phone is very useful to me. When you carry the Q, you actually can forget you have it on you (much like my original Palm V).

I personally am looking forward to it's release, and feel that Moto got this one right.

Ok, now you can pummel me. :)

Rob. 8)

[Jerry Raia]

Ok, now you can pummel me. :)

:twak:

Like I said, I will probably own a Q if Cingular ever gets them. Also I don't really care if Moto makes great Spaceships. I just care how good their Smartphones are.