| Motorola introduced latest design cell phone | | | | also quite usable. |
| Motorola A1200. The flip is anything but | | | | |
| flimsy, but to open this clamshell, you need | | | | Another peculiarity is found in the ringtone |
| to employ your fingernails as a shucking | | | | vibrate profiles accessible via the external |
| knife on one of the two shallow dents on | | | | volume buttons. You would expect that all the |
| either side of the casing left there to aid | | | | profile choices involving ringtones would |
| opening, but not by much. You will also need | | | | apply to the one ringtone you chose when |
| fingernails to pull out the plugs that keep | | | | setting up the phone. Instead you have to set |
| the earphone and mini-USB jacks dust-free. | | | | each of the five ring profiles to that one |
| | | | ringtone you want because they all default to |
| The lens for the 2.0 megapixel camera comes | | | | different ringtones. Motorola A1200's an |
| with a tiny flip switch to choose between | | | | annoyance you can work around once and forget |
| normal and macro mode. The zoom is purely | | | | about, unless you change your ringtone often. |
| digital, so you won't call on Motorola A1200 | | | | |
| often unless you're going for that pixelated | | | | You might wonder if a phone based on Linux |
| look. The zoom operates in 6 distinct steps | | | | works properly with a Windows PC. The answer, |
| from 1.0x to 8.0x. To store your images and | | | | surprisingly, is yes. But Motorola A1200 pays |
| other data, the phone uses a tiny microSD | | | | to have a broadband connection set up on the |
| card for memory expansion. | | | | machine when installing the drivers because |
| | | | the process involves downloading around 16MB |
| The phone comes with a telescoping stylus for | | | | worth of updates. Motorola A1200 comes with |
| use with the bright, clear touchscreen, which | | | | "phone tools" software that allows you to |
| doubles up as a virtual numeric keypad for | | | | sync your data and address list with a PC, as |
| normal phone functions, with keys generously | | | | well as drag and drop media files between the |
| spaced. As you can imagine, keeping the | | | | two. Motorola A1200 can view Microsoft Word, |
| screen and clear plastic flip free of | | | | Excel, Powerpoint and PDF files but there is |
| fingerprints takes commitment. Voice quality | | | | no way to edit them. The screen is definitely |
| is excellent and volumes of the polyphonic | | | | too small to read any normal-sized font even |
| ringtones can be set loud enough to annoy | | | | when maximized to the full width and rotated |
| people on the far side of the room. The | | | | into landscape mode. You will have to tap and |
| external buttons all give a responsive click | | | | drag the document around to read it. |
| when pressed and the tiny chrome joystick is | | | | |