Another phone gone

So I donated the V635 yesterday. This is the phone that was Motorola’s flagship phone in early 2005. Megapixel camera with video capture, memory card slot, EDGE network speed, quad-band, bluetooth and speakerphone and changeable metal covers and a color LCD display on the outside. Basically the last great V-series phone before the RAZR became their one golden calf (and the RAZR didn’t pass it in features until just this year, I believe). I saw it on the honeymoon, and I wanted it bad…but I was saving my money in case Apple released an iTunes phone.

Which they did, six months on. I took one look at it, and immediately spent my saved money on importing a V635 instead.

The biggest problem with this phone was one indigenous to all Motorola flip phones until recently: the side buttons, when pressed while the phone is shut, bleep and change your ringer settings. Moto didn’t think to implement a key lock that affected the side buttons for TWO MORE YEARS. It didn’t help that the phone was pretty bulky, even by the standards of its contemporaries. And the battery life wasn’t great either – I could barely get into a second day before it went south fast. By contrast, the SonyEricsson Z520 that I got when my corp account switched to Cingular will go for at least 3 or 4 days normal use before it needs a charge, which is why it’s going to Europe with my Virgin Mobile SIM in it.

I hung onto that V635 for a long time – largely for the novelty of owning a phone which was not locked or branded in any way, not betrothed to any carrier. But the sad fact of the matter is that even with a smaller screen, no EDGE and a mere VGA cam, the little SE just runs frickin’ rings around the Moto. So it went into a bin at a Verizon store where it will be refurbed and donated for use by victims of domestic violence, which is what happens to all my old phones instead of trying to recycle them. Now I am down to just two phones: the iPhone for the US, and the Z520 for Europe. And I can’t go back to the Z520 domestically. Indeed, if there were any way I trusted, I would have unlocked the iPhone, put the Virgin SIM in it, and donated the Z520 as well. But I know enough about the guts and behind-the-scenes of the iPhone to know that all the unlock mechanisms have the potential to cause serious nightmares down the road, and I also know that in a pervasive 900/1800 coverage area, I may well end up getting six days between charges on my Z520, so do the math.

Either way, I find it oddly comforting to just have “my phone,” not “my four phones that I keep switching between for lack of focus.” I guess the iPhone really is just that good.