Motorola e815 review

I was going to hold back on this until it got resolved, but it’s geting me very frustrated.

I’m a Verizon Wireless customer, and my “New Every Two” deal just came up. I got my $100 off and a new two year agreement along with a shiny new Motorola e815. On paper, it’s an extremely cool phone, the screen’s big, the buttons are large and easily pressed, the memory card slot (I have a 512 MB card in there) is an awesome addition as now I can watch movies and mp3’s on the phone (not that I do, but I COULD), the 1.2 Megapixel camera is pretty good quality (check out my flickr account for more proof of that, the bluetooth works just fine and sync’s good to my computer and headset. It’s got EVDO capability although I don’t use it.

But…

When I first got the phone, it couldn’t send or recieve photos. I pay $5 a month for unlimited text and photo messaging to Verizon customers. So this is an issue because it’s a service I pay for. It just couldn’t send them. I took it to a store, who attempted to update the phone (by dialling *228, something I already did) and then told me to go to a service center. I went to a service center, who told me that I need to go through phone customer service first. I called customer service and spoke with 6 people over the course of an hour and a half. Eventually I was told to go to a service center to get the phone replaced. I went to a service center and it took 45 minutes to get a replacement. It sent pictures for a while.

Then it stopped one day. This is my second e815 and it’s stopped being able to send pictures. What the hell. I do NOT want to ssit on the phone with Verizon again for ANOTHER hour and half to find out that I need to takt ehe phone in to wait another 45 minutes to get another new phone.

The phone is also capable of OBEX transfers, which are transfers from a file system to the internal memory of the phone; which were disabled (the word people liek to use is “crippled”) by Verizon, so you will buy their games, their ringtones, etc. They’ve also disabled the ability to use the phone as a bluetooth or USB modem. I’d gladly trade the ability for the phone to “VCAST” for the Object Exchange (OBEX). Who gives a crap about VCAST anyway? I don’t care about music videos to start with, let alone watching them on my phone. I had my memory card filled up with episodes of My Name is Earl and Family Guy anyway.

Speaking of the video, it’s not too bad if you load it yourself. Quicktime will convert to the file type (.3gpp2) and you can get a minute of 15FPS video under 1 MB. I got 24 minute episodes of My Name is Earl down to about 16 MB if I remember correctly. Not too shabby all things considered. It’s no HDTV or even a 5G iPod, but it’ll do if you’re stuck and want to watch a show or two or the train or wherever.

Bottom line is that I’m PISSED about it not working for a second time on a new phone.

As soon as I get a new one or this one starts working again I’m hacking it anyway.

edit: this problem seems to have fixed itself somehow with a power off, power on. I think that might mean I’m an idiot.