Motorola E815 from Canada - Comments

No real complaints except:

Charger is definitely tempermental.

Flip feels flimsy (but time will tell).

The phone offers excellent reception, and superb voice quality. Camera is also good, video too - except in low light. 'Flash' is nearly useless.

In promotional material, the phone offers incredible potential, but functions are inexplicably stunted in many cases. For example:

The phone software is cumbersome, and button-intensive.

The phone lacks an 'Aircraft' (RF Off) mode, so that the phone must be shut off on flights, rendering the camera and MP3 player useless. Even much cheaper phones have this functionality.

The MP3 player only functions when the phone is open - limiting the usefulness of the feature when walking about.

The phone is capable of transferring data via 'Bluetooth' protocols, but often this feature is disabled by the provider. BT still works for accessories though.

The benefit is that the phone's firmware can easily be 'hacked' (at the risk of voiding the warranty) with tools available on the Internet. Such alterations will restore data transfer and BT file transfer functions, but will not provide aircraft mode.

Finally, Bell Mobility must be dinged for not supporting POP mail service on this model (despite claiming to support on all its Java-enabled handsets). Also large screen and GPS capability would be ideal for map to phone direction service, also not offered by Bell Mobility (stuck in 20th Century, in my opinion)

Finally traded this phone in for a Blackberry 8130 smart phone (Jan 2008). BIG IMPROVEMENT! See my post under the RIM manufacturer for details.