:: My Divided Soul ::

As mentioned in my last post, I have recently decided that using a cell phone is in my best interest. It’s been nearly a week now that I have had my Motorola SLVR, so I thought I’d take the time to review it in the hopes it will benefit someone out there who is considering one. When I invest in a new piece of technology, I tend to investigate the options extremely thoroughly and the quest for a cell phone was no different.

I have been perfectly content using a landline for my voice conversations for the past four years. Therefore, I was searching for a phone, not a miniature computer, not a digital camera. I had four basic criteria, in order of importance:

1. Good phone call quality: This is a function not just of the phone, but of the service provider one is using. Cingular tends to have good reception in my home and office, so the phone needed to be able to take advantage of that reception. Thanks to years of drumming without earplugs, my hearing isn’t the best, so call quality and volume were that much more important.
2. The ability to use a headset easily: I see a headset as very useful for a couple reasons. First of all, having my hands free to do other things mean I’m much less likely to drop the phone. I broke one phone I had on my landline because I dropped it while holding it between my face and shoulder and wanted to avoid such situations. Secondly, I figured not having the phone next to my brain was not a bad thing. I’m not saying it’s proven that cell phones cause brain tumors, but I’m quite sure that holding the phone away from one’s head does not cause them. I wasn’t so concerned about having a Bluetooth headset, but I was not opposed to the idea.

   You might be saying, “every cell phone can use a headset, what is your issue here?” My research led me to discover that some flip phones require the phone to be open to talk, even if a headset was plugged in. This was unacceptable to me.

3. The ability to synchronize the address book on the phone and my computer: I use the Mac OS X Address Book to keep all my contacts. I find the integration with the rest of the computer’s applications to be beautiful and I wanted my phone to share in that beauty.
4. A good feel in the hand, particularly with respect to weight: This criteria is pretty obvious. However, my situation was a pit special in that having been used to a landline phone, I wanted a phone with a pretty good weight to it.

As I first stated, I didn’t want a miniature computer or a fancy camera. I had a PDA for awhile and found it was more trouble than it was worth. I toyed with the idea of a Treo or Blackberry, but decided to remain adamant in my wish to avoid such devices. This also meant I was not concerned about data transfer or internet access for the phone.

As for the camera, since I consider photography a hobby, I didn’t need a camera phone that boasted awesome 6x digital zoom. I doubt a camera phone could produce the images of my current digital camera nor the one that will be in my possession in the near future.

In my week with the SLVR, I have to say that it has met all of my criteria perfectly. Allow me to break it down based on the criteria set forth above.

1. Audio quality: Call quality is just fine. I dare say I’m starting to get used to the way calls sound despite it initially seeming horrible compared to my landline. I have seen complaints about the call volume being too quiet, including in the CNet review. When I purchased the phone, I made sure that they would allow me to return it if this were a problem. While finalizing my plan, I was required to give some information through a call on the phone via an automated system. My comment when I made this call: “Whoever complained about the lack of volume in phone calls must have been completely nuts.” The volume on this phone is just fine, even for someone like me who has lost some of his hearing.
2. Headset: For me, this is an area where the SLVR wins big. Because of the integrated iTunes player, the headset provided with the SLVR is stereo; they serve as the headphones for the player as well. This means that the voice of the person with whom I’m conversing comes through in both ears. That’s something I didn’t even have with my landline. I really like the fact that the phone comes with the stereo headset.
3. Address book syncing: I plugged the phone in via the provided USB cable, I opened up iSync, I told it to search for new devices, I clicked the Sync button. All of my contacts loaded into the phone without any problems. Some people have complained about the fact that the Motorola address book lists a contact several times, once for each phone number. You can easily turn this off by going to the address book, hitting the menu button, going to setup, and changing “View” from “All Contacts” to “Primary Contacts.” Then, each person is listed in the address book once, with alternate numbers for contacts accessible with the left and right buttons.

   Through the USB interface, one can also load custom wallpapers for the home screen and mp3s to use as ringtones. With the phone connected to the computer, you simply drag jpg images (mp3 files) to the mobile/picture (mobile/audio) directory on the card, disconnect from the computer, go to Pictures (Audio) under My Stuff, move the files to the phone, and then change the wallpaper (ring tone) in the appropriate Personalization options. I currently have the Skype classic call in sound as my ring tone and Alex Grey’s Dying as my wallpaper.

4. Size and weight: The SLVR is a nice and heavy phone, particularly for its size. I’m sure it’s not going to be too heavy for anyone to carry or use, but it is heavier than other phones. Nevertheless, it is a great size: less than half an inch thick and pretty tall. I held other phones in the Cingular store and found none had as comfortable a feel.

The SLVR has a built in camera and calendar functions, but I have not used these. The camera is only VGA, which some people see as a con for the phone. I see it as a plus; it means that more attention was paid to other more important phone features.

One of the major selling points for the SLVR from Cingular is the inclusion of iTunes. I wasn’t sure I’d ever use this feature of the phone much, but after having experimented with it, I am extremely impressed. One can synchronize a playlist of up to 100 songs from iTunes on his computer. The phone acts just like an iPod Shuffle, including the ability to auto fill and auto convert music to AAC format. Since I keep all of my music in Apple Lossless, this automatic transcoding is great.

Most noticeable is the incredible sound quality for song playback. The audio is crisp and clear, putting my third generation iPod to shame.

The iTunes interface on the phone is well done. It looks and acts like the menu on an iPod, minus the scroll wheel. Artwork and artist/song info appear on the screen when playing a song. A nice touch is that you can hide the iTunes interface and go back to the main page. In this state, the album artwork and track information show up on the home screen and the four buttons on the circle control iTunes.

iTunes interface	Song info on home screen

The phone has a couple setbacks. They are issues that do not make me regret the purchase of the phone at all, but they do leave some room for improvement. First of all, silent mode should mean that the phone is completely silent. With voice dialing set on the phone, whenever I enter the address book and select a contact with a voice name saved, the phone says the name, even when the phone is in silent mode. I wish I could turn off its repeating of the name completely, but there does not seem to be an option to do so. The only other problem I’ve had is that transferring songs can be a slow process. Because I had to transcode from Apple Lossless to AAC, putting 100 songs on the phone took 45 minutes. I believe if the files had been AAC to begin with, it would have done the transfer in around 10 minutes.

Overall, I am extremely happy with my choice of cell phone. I would recommend it to anyone who wants a phone with good audio quality and a useful set of features as a phone. It does carry a hefty price tag at $200 with a two-year contract, but I’m glad I spent the money.