June 16, 2008

Motorola no more

If you know me for some time, you'll know that I am, or used to be, a Motorola fan on cellphones. The first time I bought a Motorola cellphone the choice was easy: I wanted a cellphone from a company that wasn't lobbying in Europe for the adoption of Software Patents, which discarded the chance of Siemens mobile phones, which was what I was used to use, despite not being really fond of them. Buying my C650 was a really cool choice: I really liked that cellphone, and it was that cellphone that made me think more about cellphones as mobile devices - mobile computers. At the end of 2005 the phone was getting ill, and in December it made me really pissed off. I decided that C650 was older than it should, and that I should put it to rest. Sonaecom (where I work) helped that decision, deciding to give me a cellphone. That time the choice was not so easy, but I knew I wanted a Motorola. I wanted to choose one inside my budget, and E1 was the only one with a music player, so I quickly went for it, replacing both my C650 and my portable music player. It was also a good bet: I both liked the cellphone and the company that made it, with their strong relationship with Open Source et al... and then using it as a modem via bluetooth made it an important piece of my digital life.

With all the hype around iPhone (curious this post being today, after an afternoon talking about this exactly), I even wrote about why, for me, E1 is better than the iPhone. Heck, I'll say it again: if E1 was from company A, and iPhone also was from company A, where A is a company I like, I would choose E1 over the iPhone.

Last March I decided that I should replace my E1 phone, and, once again, the choice was being made around several Motorola models. Other things stepped in the way of choosing one (basicly I've been dedicating more time in this blog - which is almost abandoned - than to choose and order a new phone), so, until today, the choice was postponed, with thoughts going to V3xx or K3.

But today... I read at Last100 that Motorola launched an online store, "selling" both music and movies for cellphones... crippled with DRM. Well, as you might already know by now, I don't support companies that like to spit on their costumers freedom. After this years, my relationship with Motorola as a cellphone costumer is now over.

So, I'm still searching for a new cellphone. The decision about the vendor is already made: it will be a Blackberry. I only have now to decide which one: Blackberry 8100 or the more powerful Blackberry 8800. Oh, and for those talking about the iPhone, here's already why BlackBerry is better than the iPhone, even the 2nd version of it ;-)

5 comments:

  1. What about OpenMoko?

    http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/TeamANSOL

    I guess it's cheaper than the crackberry.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yeah, OpenMoko is great (I already played with one - and man - it's a geeks dream the way it behaves like a cellphone if you want it to, or like a computer - a REAL computer if you want to see it that way!), but since this is the company sponsoring the phone, it has to be one phone being sold by its operator, Optimus... And there's still no OpenMoko vendor in Portugal.

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  3. Anonymous9:55 AM

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=sQXsuAey-NE

    ReplyDelete
  4. To be an OpenMoko reseller you need to be able to buy (for sale) 50 unit packs.

    This creates a sort of egg & chicken problem.

    Some people claim they need an OpenMoko vendor in Portugal so they don't register as interested, but no vendor wants to buy several 50 unit packs without demand.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous4:48 PM

    We ship OpenMoko to Portugal, no problem. Postage 15 EUR with DHL.

    Chris
    www.pulster.eu

    ReplyDelete