Motorola MPx200

Have had the Motorola MPx200 for more than a year from upgrade (2004).

Always Motorola mobile disappoints me but I cannot help myself buying it as it has a strap hole...

Battery doesn't last more than a day, not easy to use internet/MSN messanger (somehow it always loses the connection after 1 month of internet use), resets itself frequently. I guess it's high time to upgrade to another maker's phone.

I had this phone for 3 weeks, and I found it to be one of the worst phones I have had, although I think mine was faulty.

The battery life was 12 hours on standby. I took it back to Orange, who would not give me a new one, or a refund.

I had it "repaired", and when I got it back 6 weeks later, I still had the same problems, so I had to write to Orange, and I got a P800, which is a much much better phone.

Also, the signal was really bad. Whereas, other phones had average reception, the Motorola, had 1 bar or none.

There was a dead pixel on the screen, which was also meant to be repaired.

I was sent a Motorola MPx200 as an upgrade from Orange. This phone is very clever - a bit too clever for its own good. The battery can't cope & drains within a day & it has a tendency to freeze if you change something such as the time zone. Pressing the off switch will not help, you need to pull the battery out which can't be good. I have had many friends say that they have sent me messages but because the phone has frozen whilst on standby, almost "gone to sleep" without my knowledge - the phone was unable to accept messages & they don't even arrive later, just not at all. Apart from that, the phone isn't that bad or else I would have launched it out the window. I am going to be sent a Nokia 6630 as an upgrade in the next couple of days & there are mixed reviews for that handset too.

In general the Motorola MPx200 has served me well for last 12 months albeit I have had a few frustrating occasions with it locking up. It looks the part and gives the impression of a robust phone. Unfortunately it has a poor design in that the sim card locating tab is probe to snapping off. Twice it has happened to me, your sim card begins to lift away from contact and gives allsorts of problems. Orange dealers knew exactly what the fault was when I reported it giving the impression it is a known defect.

Having owned this phone for a week, I can say that it's perfomance is generally good, with many features in it. I paritcularly like the windows media player and Windows based architecture.

A really negative point is its battery life, which is appallingly small. It takes 2 hrs to charge and ONE day to be completely flat. An this without using the phone intensively, just sending sms's and general use, maybe playing the odd MP3. Motorola should address this problem very soon.

The Motorola MPx200 is a fabalous phone - I see a lot of gripes here from people who have had the phone for 2 days or so - I have had it for a yr & it's the best I have ever owned!

The screen is a gem, the OS intutive (the calendar & contacts sync with outlook as do the mails - something which is great when I am travelling on work). The games are good - the solitaire addictive.

Battery - it's a lithium Ion battery - similar to a laptop battery - if you sync the mobile with the cradle like I do - you will charge it.

I am now upgrading to MPx220 next week.

Motorola MPx200: The software synching is slow and very un user friendly, the arrow key function sticks all the time also. It's a really badly designed phone. Battery life is a shocker as well -24 hours.

I have taken my phone back 4 times already, once it was away for 9 weeks. The battery is not lasting 1 day, even if I do not use it again. Orange customer services being very unhelpful.

I got my Motorola MPx200 free as I'm on an Orange contract, and I also got a free plug-in camera worth £60. So I guess I have no right to complain about anything. Not that I've found much to complain about.

It's nice to look at. Real nice. Black with the gloss of a grand piano, it has chrome effect highlights and a gorgeous, full-colour screen. The buttons are fairly easy to get at (with the exception of the power button, though this may be a good thing) and glow blue. The screen is worth its own paragraph, really, if I was a good writer. It's 65,000-odd colours, bright, large and very clear. You couldn't ask for better with current technology levels.

The phone is capable of taking photos and even recording small movies. However, it doesn't incorporate the necessary equipment. The necessary equipment being a camera. This is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that the camera you can slot into the side is very high quality so far as mobile phones go (although it obviously doesn't match a true digital camera), and this also allows for some surprisingly decent movies to be recorded. However, the curse comes in the form of a big camera sticking out of the side. Because the part you plug in is just as thin as an SD card, you can hardly leave the camera plugged in while you carry it around -- you could snap it fairly easily. And it wouldn't be too comfortable in your pocket. So you have to keep removing the SD card, plugging the camera in, taking some pictures, then putting the camera back in its case and putting the SD card back in. It's a hassle that could've been solved with a built-in camera.

The afore mentioned SD card is where the phone gains a lot of credit. I've got a 512MB card in mine which is housing many MP3s and images, and is barely a quarter full. Thanks to its USB connection to a PC, you can upload or download these files easily.

The speaker on the phone, the MP3 speaker that is, is surprisingly good for something that small. Don't expect bass boost or amplifiers or anything, it's a tinny speaker. But it's loud and clear. There's a headphones port on the side if you want better, or private, sound.

The afore mentioned connection to your PC, by the way, allows you to synchronise your PC with your phone, and vice versa. If you have MS Outlook installed on your computer, it will download any e-mails from your inbox into your phone, and down/upload any appointments too. The phone incorporates a portable version of Microsoft Outlook, which is responsible for storing your SMS messages AND e-mails.

The phone also incorporates MSN Messenger and Internet Explorer, which makes it very versitile indeed. Though, these can rack up your expenses very fast. I was surprised at how similar these two programs are to the PC versions.

It should be noted that the MPx200 only has a stripped-down version of the standard portable Windows. Don't expect to find Microsoft Word or Excel installed on here.

There are some games though. I'm not sure what other networks provide you with, but mine came with several puzzles, a tennis game, and 'Lemonade Tycoon', which can provide some degree of fun. They are all full colour and with sound effects.

Some drawbacks: Windows has a reputation for a reason. This phone has frozen on me twice; one time I had to switch it off and on again, another I had to pull the battery out. It is also fairly slow to boot up initially. If you've been in an accident and you need to switch your phone on before you can call anyone for help, you might want to start looking for a phone box while you're waiting -- you may find one sooner. It also lacks Bluetooth, which was disappointing but I can live without it.

All in all though, it's a good phone with a lot to offer if you can overlook its minor flaws. I vote 10 on 'Value for Money' because I got it free :D, but otherwise I would say it was an 8 or a 9.

I received the Motorola MPx200 in November 2003 as an upgrade from my trustworthy Nokia 6310i. In short, I wish I hadn't. SmartPhone is a misnomer - writing text messages (the second, if not first, most important function of a mobile phone) is often frustrating, as they keys are far too sensitive, resulting in strange words like "tunneabz" when you were trying to type "today". The address book insists on initally storing names in "Last, First" order (an annoying result of its Outlook-esque birth), forcing you to go back and change each name. The signal strength obtained (on Orange, at least) is also patchy.

But the most unforgivable thing is the battery life: after 9 months of use, the battery gave up holding charge for more than half a day. A full discharge followed by an overnight charge tops it up, but after about seven hours it is nearly out of juice - and this is without actually using the phone for making calls/texting/anything! Shocking. Neither Orange or Motorola will offer any comeback, meaning I am left with a phone that is useless for half of each day. Thanks, guys.