My Motorola Life
A list.
Panasonic Allure
Nokie 3360
Motorola v60
Motorola v400
Motorola v555
Motorola Razr
Blackberry 6280
Blackberry 7290
Blackberry 8700g
Motorola L7 Red
That brings us to today. My cellphone journey has been a long, and storied one. I think I have them all in there. There was a horrid Palm Treo experience in there, but it was less than a week.
I have always liked the Motorola brand. I think that the v60 is the thing that drew me in. At the time, cellular phone use was still not like it is today. No one talked about the OS on a phone, or the apps. It was a black and white screen, and some of them could click on these other faces, like the Nokia, and that is how we personalized these phones. But the flip, man that was cool at the time.
I think the flip is why I went to a Razr. It had been out for a while, and I was using the v555, and loving it, and it was time to have a larger cellular experience, and I just thought it was cool. So one day, I renewed my Cellular One contract, and bam, it was right there in my hand.
It was a little before this time I returned to Apple. I had bought a ibook g3, and was using that while I was at NTC. I was awakening to technology, slowly. And suddenly it became clear that I could put my life in a handheld.
I met my friend Dennis Novak, and he told me about Palm Pilots. You see Dennis had a stroke, and his short term memory is not that good. But he bought Palm m100’s in bulk on Ebay. And he took them apart, and he used them as tools unlike anyone I had ever known. He used Yahoo, and the calendar, and the sync thing, and it was a revelation. I could put down my day planner, and it could all be in a palm pilot. It could have everything. ALl the addresses, and all the calendars, and all of it.
So I became a palm guy. I had a palm, and a motorola flip, and then I had an ipod, and a notebook, and finally I had to think of the next thing.
You see, the ipod, it sync’s my calendar, and it syncs my contacts in a better way. The Apple way. It worked better. So I jettisoned the palm.
Then I was down to my phone, just a phone, and my ipod as a handheld back up and a music device, and my laptop as the hub of my life.
Then I wanted to change that. I wanted something else. So I got the razr. I had read that the razr connected with OS X through iSync. So then I could just use the ipod as an ipod. So then I was down further.
I sent the v555 to Kari, and the v400 to Melissa.
Then it happened. I found blackberry. And blackberry changed everything. My complaint with Motorola by that point was rather sophisticated. I had thousands of contacts, and I needed to have some sort of context. For example, I know and often work with two men named Mike Brown. But on my razr, I had no idea which was which.
On my blackberry, I had context. I could see the company name, I could see the notes. I could see it all. The phone book was customizeable. And it was awesome.
I have bought many blackberries, and passed them along. When I was done at NTC, I spent a couple of months on the road with Scott Holt, and I had every moment of information of that tour in my palm, in the blackberry. No more paper contracts, no more paper hotel confirmation. I had one device. It was amazing. That tour of the west showed me that the blackberry was the right idea. That I could not go back.
I knew it. I totally knew it.
But my blackberry was UGLY. Its screen was bad, it was a generation old. Then I got my 8700, and it was bright, and perfect. Bluetooth, speaker phone, loaded up some photos. It was customizeable. I love it.
But my eye wanders. I found myself with a motorola slvr in my hand. It was all about The Bourne Ultimatum. I love the movie, and the phone was there, and I had to have one. So I found one on ebay, and it is awesome.
I have returned to the candybar. It seems so foreign, and retro, and almost European. Or something. It is differant, everyone has flip phones, and everyone has blackberries. Not a lot of people have candybars. Especially red ones.
And it syncs with my powerbook. So that blows me away.
But, really nothing matters as much as the iPhone. It is out there. Lurking. Several hundred dollars, a change to AT and T, and data plans and all of it. I know it is a perfect phone for me, but it is so costly. So I hesitate. I rock the slvr and razr on weekends. Sim Cards make it so easy.
My buddy Jim got the motorola Q, and it seems to be perfect. Customizeable, google apps friendly, and he has made it part of his life. I need to respect that. I think it is a truly pretty thing to hold in my hand.
But I can’t own one. No matter how much I think it pretty. It has Windows Mobile, and as a result, my Apple life is in conflict. So, Apple wins.
I want to take a hard look at Nokias Smart phone, for GSM service. But I won’t. I just bought a car. And that I think means that my wandering cellphone eye has to close.
Night.