Josey Puliyenthuruthel: A fun phone for the officer

GIZMO GALLERY

Motorola, under new CEO Ed Zander, an ex-Sun Microsystems veteran, had one big hit last year: the Moto Razr mobile phone. Even by the pace of new product releases in the world of rapidly evolving cellphones "" Nokia will release a new phone every week this year "" the Razr (pronounced "Razor") was truly avant garde. With its ultrathin clamshell design and anodised casing, the phone was widely recognised the coolest-looking phone of the year.

But, like any artist or sculptor will tell you: a masterpiece is one hell of a job to do in more ways than one. Creating a masterpiece is very hard work, but an even more difficult task is a repeat performance in sync with expectations of your target audience. So, the tough act for Motorola was to do a credible follow-up for the Moto Razr.

One of the "cool" phones it came out late-December was the Motorola A780. The phone has been introduced in India last month for a shade under Rs 31,500. The A780 phone is latest in what was initially introduced by Motorola as the "Accompli" series smartphones.

The phone has PDA (personal digital assistant) features to store data such as contacts, appointments and short notes. In addition, it offers email and Internet browsing, file management for audio and video clips, and virtual private network and Bluetooth functionality. All this "" and, some nifty games "" is packed on an open Java and a Motorola-customised Linux platform.

First, the PDA functions: the A780 has a calendar and appointments application, a robust contacts database, supports freehand and typed notes, tasks list, a voice recorder and world times-cum-alarm support. In addition, a document viewer allows users to read "" but not edit "" Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF files.

It supports both POP and IMAP email, besides allowing access to web mail through its Internet browser. The browser is a version of the popular Opera browser for PDAs that supports both HTML and WAP-based pages besides enabling VPN access. Another neat PDA application is the ability to synchronise data with a personal computer wirelessly.

The quad-band A780 phone has a mini-USB port at its base. When the phone is connected through this port to a computer, it shows up as a removable storage device allowing users to easily copy files from the phone (for example, pictures or video clips) as well transfer, say, music files to the phone. The ease of use of this "plug and play" functionality will come in handy for heavy video and audio users given that onboard memory is capped at 128 MB even if an add-on flash card is used.

Another feature that Motorola has added to the A780 phone is a numeric keypad on the face of the phone. This eases one critical pain from the earlier A760 which featured a soft keypad on the PDA screen for which a user had to open the clamshell phone. Now, A780 users can dial straight from the external keypad without opening the phone and using the stylus.

Also, two different earpieces "" one on the face of the phone and one when the clamshell is opened "" make that task easier regardless of whether the A780 is open or closed. In addition, it quite seamlessly connects with a Bluetooth headset. Messaging, though, remains a pain when using the soft keyboard on the PDA screen because the keys are just too small.

The A780 phone has a 1.3 megapixel camera which is promising but for the odd placement on the back panel. The lens is not sunk in enough to protect it from scratches or smudges, which can be a bummer if you're shooting that important picture at your daughter's birthday party or aiming for a quality video while parasailing under a bright mid-day sun.

A review of the A780 phone is not complete without the games that come preloaded with it. Three games "" a motorcycle stuntman, a basketball game and one built around a police SWAT team "" make for an engaging way to while time. Also, several third-party games can be downloaded on the phone. Overall, the A780 mobile phone is a sturdy phone for office use with some fun thrown in.

(The writer can be reached at josey@vsnl.net)