Josh the Aspie’s Blog

For those of you that don’t know, I’m one of those people that actually names his computers and other networked devices. I don’t mean that I just randomly assign names to differentiate the computers, I christen them with a name that reflects their qualities. For example, my main power-tower is named Kusanagi-Makoto.

Well, since my phone is capable of being hooked up to a Bluetooth network, and needed a device name, I included it in this trend. It’s a small device that I keep on me all the time, and includes a wide selection of built in tools. Remembering Bob’s little bracer side kick from the Computer Generated (CG) TV show Reboot, I named my RAZR “Glitch.” Unfortunately I couldn’t have come up with a more appropriate name.

I got my new Silver RAZR when it was on a huge special. I, and my brother James were both added to the family plan as additional lines in a deal that got us one RAZR on sale, and the other for free, as well as getting a discount on our cases. I had wanted the RAZR for a while because I hate using a corded headset in my car and tend to get it tangled with my seatbelt. The RAZR was the least expensive phone with Bluetooth available. In addition, I was looking forward to creating custom ring tones, and using a Bluetooth expansion on my computer to send them to my Phone.

Bluetooth has the ability to communicate using different profiles. One of them, for example, is the headset profile, allowing you to use a Bluetooth headset with your phone. Another is the file transfer profile, which allows you to transfer files between your phone, pda, computer, camera, and any other Bluetooth devices that support the profile.

Unfortunately, while the RAZR is designed to be capable of using this profile Verizon, my service provider, always disables this Bluetooth profiles in their phones. Of course, even if you talk about wanting to use Bluetooth for this express purpose, the sales reps won’t always know about the profiles being disabled. Even if they do, they might neglect to tell you in order to make a sale. One of those was the case with me. And of course, if you use third party wares to re-enable the capability, it voids the warranty.

Unlike most phones, there is no 1/16″ (2.5 mm) mini-phono stereo plug for headsets, and no separate power plug. Instead the phone uses a single 5 pin mini-USB B connector, which allows it to transfer data and power through the same port. This single port can be used to recharge your phone, through a conventional power plug with the chosen adapter, or by hooking it up to your computer through a USB A to 5 pin mini-USB B cord. The same cable can also carry data from your computer, or from a USB headset designed for use with the RAZR. In case you want to use a standard headset jack, the RAZR comes with an adapter to let you do so — or at least the model I got does.

You’d think that the USB cord would be all you need to transfer data between your phone and your computer. Unfortunately, for your computer to be able to communicate with a USB device hooked up to it, it needs a piece of software called a “driver” which drives the interaction between the two devices. Many devices these days can use default drivers that come with most operating systems. Most version of windows after windows 98 have the ability to interact with most thumb drives, for example.

The RAZR does not have such automatic drivers available. Worse, they do not come with the RAZR. In fact, in order to connect your phone to the computer, Motorola wants you to buy a special connection package that doesn’t treat your phone as a storage device, but rather does special “transfers” much like hooking an iPod up to a computer with iTunes installed. Except that iTunes comes with your iPod, and Motorola wants to sell you the software separately.

This means that the only ways to get pictures off your RAZR, which includes a digital camera, are to either buy a cable package from Verizon or Motorola, or to send it as a part of a multimedia message, one of the newest and most expensive forms of messaging available on Verizon’s network.

Further, the network doesn’t have any real coverage at my work. If I keep it on while at work so that people who need to can reach me when I’m not at my desk, the chances of them doing so are quite spotty. Due to the low coverage, my phone burns through excessive amounts of battery power trying to find and strengthen its link. By the end of the day, when I get out of the building and have a signal again, the battery is on it’s last legs. By this point, the phone’s ability to connect with Bluetooth devices is shot. The only time I want to make calls using my Bluetooth headset is when I am driving home. Thus, the Bluetooth feature of the phone, the main reason I wanted it, is useless to me.

Finally, when people can’t reach me on the phone due to the bad coverage in my area, and leave a message, the phone doesn’t automatically alert me to the fact that I have a message when I am able to get back into contact with the network. Being told that I have messages is almost always delayed by at least an hour, often it’s a few days, and on occasion it’s taken over a week to get that fact.

I got fed up with this last problem when it was part of a problem that caused my family and I to be out of contact, and caused them to become very worried about me. Because of this, I took the phone to Versizon to have them take a look at it. They said it was likely my phone needed a software update. I let them update the software to the newest version. When I got the phone back, most of my settings were erased. Worse, the speed dial functionality was nearly gone as well, and I had no idea if the original problem was fixed. They tried re-flashing it again, and Glitch functioned even worse.

On the up side, Glitch was within warranty, so they will be sending me a new phone shortly. In addition, to try to make right the problems with transferring ring tones and the like to my phone, I’ll have until October 1st to send multimedia messages to my new RAZR. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get some custom made ring tones into place. I’m currently planning on putting in some video game based ring tones, and am considering adding in the melody that Jean-Luc Picard played on the Ressikan flute in Star Trek the next generation.

If anyone has any other suggestions for ring tones, please let me know. I’d also appreciate any ideas for new, hopefully more auspicious names for my new RAZR.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 11th, 2007 at 12:44 am and is filed under Technology, Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.