Motorola's MPX200 has become wildly popular despite its basic specifications; Anthony Newman finds out if it has what it takes to stand up to the competition.
The MPx200 is the first Microsoft Smartphone from Motorola, the first widely-available
clamshell Smartphone and was the first Smartphone to be released in the important US
market. The design therefore has a lot riding on it. We discovered that although it doesn't
disappoint, there is something missing.
 | The MPx200 is a good-looking handset
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Design
Motorola have certainly done something different with the looks of the MPx200, and
everyone we showed it to expressed the view that it is not only very good looking but also
exceedingly well built. The clamshell handset is finished in glossy black plastic, with other portions in dark grey - nice, but difficult to keep clean. The front of the unit features an external screen surrounded by metallic blue and chromed highlights. Overall, the MPx200 strikes us as a high-quality item.
Unfortunately, it is also quite big. When closed, the unit is over an inch thick (2.7 cm), with the other dimensions sitting at 8.9 x 4.8 cm, and a healthy 118 g, with total a total volume of 96 cc. When opened, the phone feels nicely balanced in the hand, although the screen has a disproportionate size and weight to it, containing not only the display but also the external speaker.
The display we actually found to be disappointing - its viewing angle is not very wide, resulting in a negative effect, and colours were quite dark in comparision with other smartphones. This is odd, as we'd have expected the 220 x 176, 16-bit TFT to be comparable to those found in recent members of Orange's SPV line-up. Clearly not.
The usual array of Smartphone buttons is available inside the clamshell, allocated plenty of
space although without a backlight. The numeric keypad is 'clicky', comprised of flat black plastic buttons with limited travel which worked well in use. The D-pad was unfortunately not too comfortable, since as well as being too big to rock around without moving the thumb it also made uneven clicks. The separate 'enter' button at the centre of the pad provided more of the same.
Motorola provide a recessed power button on the left side of the device which proved unreliable: quite a violent press is required to bring up the Smartphone 2002 Quick List, if it appeared at all. Thankfully, a saving grace appears in the form of a jog rocker on the left side, which provided positive operation throughout for the volume control and voice recording. Unfortunately, the OS rarely takes full advantage of these buttons.
Motorola provide no LEDs at all on the MPx200, allowing the blue backlit, 80 x 48 pixel STN external display to take care of important information. The monochrome screen displays battery and signal strength, the time and the GSM operator, as well as missed calls and suchlike, although we found the contrast to be poor and the backlight weak. Furthermore, the external display doesn't appear to display proper caller ID sometimes, only the phone number of the caller. Motorola at least allow users to set the external display to show various clocks and alter other options such as contrast.
The external speaker of the MPx200, mounted below the external screen, proved to be one
of the best we've heard: it managed to be both loud and clear for music and ringing.
Annoyingly, the handset doesn't appear to be able to ring and vibrate at the same time except in certain ring tones, so it's a good thing too.
Voice quality on the internal speaker proved adequate although not luminous, but signal reception could have been better. This could be due to the lack of an external antenna, however our reports from U.S. networks painted a better picture, so obviously this isn't a cut-and-dried issue.
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