![\"Piece.](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/09\/motorolav170.jpg\" "\\"Motorola")
<\/a><\/p>\nI’ve used phones from Nokia, Ericsson and Alcatel, and I’d learned that though the different brands had their idiosyncrasies, they did their main jobs without much fuss. I assumed that the Motorola, a brand I hadn’t used before, would be much the same: a period of adjustment, and then business as usual.<\/p>\n
Silly me. Voice calls were straightforward enough but texting was frustratingly slow – each button-push required a half-second wait before anything happened or anything else could be done – and when I wanted to send a message, I’d have to jump through hoops:<\/p>\n
ME<\/p>\n
(finish txt message)<\/p>\n
Send<\/p>\n
PHONE<\/p>\n
Send Message? Y \/ N<\/p>\n
ME<\/p>\n
Y<\/p>\n
PHONE<\/p>\n
Send Message Now? Y \/ N<\/p>\n
ME<\/p>\n
Y Y! Y!! Y!!!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Navigating the menu was much the same – with the added frustration of the ‘Yes\/Confirm’ and ‘No\/Cancel’ buttons switching sides with no apparent logic to it.<\/p>\n
I loathed that phone.<\/p>\n
After two hair-yanking years of putting up with it, I eventually snapped that fucker in half (and then jumped on it) (several times) and killed it.<\/p>\n
Of course, I immediately needed a new cellphone – and thanks to my decade-plus-long patronage of Vodafone<\/a>, I scored this for a hundred bucks:<\/p>\n It makes calls – even two-way video calls. It texts – ooh, the button response is so quick! – with an intuitive functionality that harks back to the Alcatel, Nokia and Ericcson cellphones.<\/p>\n But that’s not all. I can take photos and short blocky video clips with it. The original Lalo Schifrin Mission: Impossible<\/em> theme has been set to ring out in the very rare instance that someone video-calls me. And I’ve finally caught the podcast-listening wave – I may look like I need stereo to make calls on the Z400 – but I’m enjoying working through my backlog from KCRW’s The Treatment<\/a> and The Business<\/a>, National Radio<\/a> and my favourite Vidiots<\/a>.<\/p>\n So this<\/em> is why they’re pumping cellphones full of features.<\/p>\n Anyway. The moral of this story?<\/p>\n Don’t buy a Motorola.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n (This post was supposed to segue into a rant discussion about appropriate screenwriting tools – does one really<\/strong> need Final Draft to be a screenwriter? – but my PTSD got the better of me. Another time maybe.)<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A couple of years ago, my wonderful Alcatel gave up and stopped working. Old age. And probably one drop too many. Money was short at the time so when I went looking for a replacement, the main criteria were the ability to make and take calls, and low cost. I got me a Motorola VZ170: … <\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n