Introduction

As the latest addition to the Cingular smartphone line-up, the Motorola MPx220 succeeds the popular MPx200. Powered by the Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition, the mobile variant of the desktop OS, much of the functions are similar to the Audiovox SMT5600.

With comparable personal information management (PIM) functionality, the Motorola MPx220 features over-the-air access to Outlook Calendar, Inbox, and Contacts; allowing one-touch synchronization between corporate e-mail through Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 and third-party middleware providers.

Design

The MPx220's design has a high-tech futuristic appeal. Its clean lines, metallic casing, and sleek and refined finish will surely attract attention both in the club and in the boardroom. At 100 x 48 x 24 mm in size, the MPx220 is a bit larger than the MPx200. However, weighing at just 115 grams, it's significantly smaller and lighter than the Treo 650 and BlackBerry line.

As a clamshell form factor, the exterior features an outer color display allowing users to quickly glance to see who's calling without opening the phone. The speaker grill is located below the screen; used during handsfree access and music playback. While the lens and flash of the integrated 1.2 megapixel camera sits along the bottom, allowing convenient access to capture photos of business and personal encounters.

When flipped opened, the brilliant 176 x 220 px internal screen is revealed, capable of displaying 65K colors. A slightly oversized directional keypad is flanked by the Home, Back, and Left and Right soft keys, used for convenient shortcut navigation. Below the Home and Back keys are the Talk and End keys respectively. In the dark, a faint blue glow illuminates the recessed numeric keypad, used with iTAP predictive text input for trouble-free messaging.

Against the left side contains a 2.5 mm headset jack, volume keys, and power button. While the right side features a built-in infrared port, dedicated camera button, and miniSD card slot; for when the MPx220's internal memory runs out. Connection ports for charging and synchronization are located on the bottom.

Out of the box, the Motorola MPx220 comes with a standard 1000 mAh Li-Ion battery, mini-USB data / sync cable, AC adapter, and a companion software CD including Microsoft Outlook 2002 and Microsoft ActiveSync 3.7.1.

Camera

Gone are the days of the 0.3 megapixel 640 x 480 px photos. When pictures are needed to save a thousand words, the Motorola MPx220's 1.2 megapixel camera is able to capture images at up to 1280 x 960 px in resolution; actually high enough in quality to reproduce prints. Other resolution settings include 640 x 480 px, 320 x 240 px, 174 x 144 px, 160 x 120 px, and 128 x 96 px.

When taking pictures, the internal screen becomes the viewfinder; with the lower portion displaying useful information such as resolution, storage path, and available memory. The directional keypad controls the 3x Digital Zoom (Up / Down) and Brightness Level (Left / Right). And should users want to be included in the shot, closing the MPx220 activates the external monitor viewfinder.

Additional camera features and controls include image correction (Brightness, Contrast, Hue, Saturation, White Balance), ambience settings (Auto, Sunlight, Incandescent, Fluorescent, Night), multi-shot, and self-timer. Post-production tools allow simple editing such as rotating, resizing, and cropping photos, adding text, or overlaying fun frames. Encoded in 3GPP codec (H.263 and AMR) format, video clips take advantage of MPEG-4 for delivery of video and audio.

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