...and back to AT&T it goes
Posted by Scott Laird Sat, 31 Jan 2004 10:35:17 GMT
I’ve had it with the MPx200, and I’m going to be returning it to AT&T, thanks to their 30-day refund policy. It’s a cool phone, and it has a lot of interesting features, but no matter what I do, it won’t last longer then 8 hours before the battery dies. I’ve deleted every program that I installed, removed the SD card, replaced the battery, and it still runs down its battery astoundingly fast. Cool is nice, but it’s got to be a usable phone. And a phone that’s dead isn’t very useful.
Plus, the PocketMac people still haven’t been able to fix my sync problems. As it stands, I need to reboot my Mac every time I want to sync the phone. Allegedly they’ve handed me off to their “driver guru,” but I haven’t heard anything from them since then.
So, what am I going to do? I have no idea. I’ve been tempted by the Treo 600, but it’s over $300 more then I paid for the MPx200, and it has a lousy LCD display. I’ve had Palms with 160x160 displays before, and I don’t really want to go back there again.
So, I’ll probably get their cheapest Bluetooth phone (this week, it’s the Sony-Ericsson T616) and start looking for a new PDA. I’m leaning towards the Palm Tungsten C for reasons that I’ll explain shortly.
How did you make the mpx200 play wav ringtones from the SD/MMC Card?
thanks in advance
You need to install a utility to help with it. Take a look at http://smartphone.modaco.com/viewtopic.php?t=66676 for an example or two. Since I returned mine, I’m a bit hazy on all of the details.
You can make WAV files play ringtones.. I have had this phone and returned it to ATT also… you know what is really completely ridiculous about this phone and why I returned it:
The custom ringtones add about a 6 second delay to the actual ringing of the phone on incoming calls: this is over half the time before voicemail picks up and about 3 rings on the other user’s end. You have to be a quick draw for this to not bother you (and it will always annoy your callers)
Battery lifetime is completely RIDICULOUS I never lasted longer than 7 hours.
MP3 player is the main marketing point of the phone: it won’t even play MP3 ringtones.
The phone must be rebooted to swap out SD cards reliably
The flip is buggy. When you hang up, it causes a very VERY VERY loud feedback sound loop in the phone (earpiece to the mouthpiece) before it deactivates the mic. The user on the other end of the line gets an earfull every time you close your flip.
The phone takes an AMAZINGLY long time to boot
The phone will not play VBR or higher bitrate MP3’s without skipping
The phone will not even play standard CBR 128kbps mp3’s without skipping here and there randomly (probably something to do with multitasking)
The phone will not close programs which you opened. It only switches between tasks. You must go into a seperate task manager to force quit any program you want to free up memory.
After adding about 100 names to the address book, callerID stops working (name database is too long and it crashes the callerID program)
menu scrolling in this phone is laggier than I have ever seen in a phone.
In all, this phone is a total POS and I would recommend to not buy it. Most of the above issues are admitted problems and most people I know with this phone have ditched it. Now ATT has discontinued the phone due to its poor performance. If you ask me they should replace them all as they are defective pieces of trash.
I am surprised by your battery experience. Mine easily lasts 24 to 36 hours, depending on signal strength and talk time.
Forest’s description of the closing programs is inaccurate. It is not necessary to close programs, so most developers do not include that functionality. The OS manages the “closing” of programs when space begins to get low. This eliminates program launch time for frequently used apps.
The feedback loop on hangup is a hardware issue that AT&T was replacing handsets over. Considering you got that problem and a super weak battery, I might suspect AT&T of selling you a refurbished model without even bothering to repair it first.
I actually went through a couple phones and batteries; the very first time I charged the first phone, it made it around 24 hours. After that, they were all 7-9 hours per charge.
is there any way to use the speaker phone option withou leaving the phone flipped to open
To everyone reading this, DON’T BUY THIS PHONE unless you want the hassles I’ve had.
Shortly after getting it, it would no longer “boot” and I had to take time off work to go to the Motorola office (and back to fetch it).
About 1 in 10 times I answer the phone, I get an error message and it fails to pick up the call.
Last night, my phone wouldn’t switch off properly or back on. THis morning I’ve seen that ALL my contacts on the phone are gone - only ones still there are the ones on the SIM that I could never figure out how to delete.
In my opinion, this is a horrible phone and I can’t believe it when people say they like it. Back to Nokia I go.
To everyone reading this, DON’T BUY THIS PHONE unless you want the hassles I’ve had.
Shortly after getting it, it would no longer “boot” and I had to take time off work to go to the Motorola office (and back to fetch it).
About 1 in 10 times I answer the phone, I get an error message and it fails to pick up the call.
Last night, my phone wouldn’t switch off properly or back on. THis morning I’ve seen that ALL my contacts on the phone are gone - only ones still there are the ones on the SIM that I could never figure out how to delete.
In my opinion, this is a horrible phone and I can’t believe it when people say they like it. Back to Nokia I go.
i had that prob
then i stubled on this thing - updated firmware - http://bplondon.org/mpx200
choose the 2002 version (this one also includes the program to update its (sorry windows only program doe not work on wine)
i can get 2 weeks out of it (if i dont touch it)
2003 is quite interesting (it include jaw breaker)
Do yourself a favor and turn off IR Beaming under “Beaming” in your Settings icon. The battery will last at least twice as long with IR Beaming off.