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stars
"C139 can't walk and chew gum at the same time!" on by EnqMindz
Pros: Outstanding battery life! WAY up there.
Cons: Calendar-reminder function does NOT work DURING a call! Why NOT? I *RELY* on this feature--or rather I DID rely on it with former Nokia phone.
Summary: Cingular "upgraded" its GSM network to dual-band (850/1900MHz), and forced former AT&T Wireless customers such as myself, to abandon excellent basic phones, like the Nokia 3590, for the rather disappointing Moto c139.
Sadly, every user menu in the c139 is both less friendly and less intuitive than Nokia's. And the printed manual for the c139 is an abomination, with many outright omissions. I rate the manual a 1, whereas Nokia's was a 9... night and day difference in user documentation.
Then one day, for no reason, ALL of my user-specific data, NOT in the SIM, just EVAPORATED... POOF! Phonebook was in SIM, so OK, but all my User Settings, Recent Calls, Speed Dials, Calendar appointments, Tone selections, Shortcuts--GONE! Spent a couple angry hours re-entering it all... GRRR!
(Cingular tech support was clueless. They actually said they had NO bug reports on the c139! As an engineer of similar products, I KNOW this is just not possible! GRRRrrr!)
The voice quality is also slightly inferior, sending and receiving. Phone or new network? Not sure. With the Nokia on single-band 850 GSM network, people on the other end often thought I was on a landline. Nobody makes that mistake any more. Boo-hoo.
But failing to sound, or even display/vibrate, calendar-alarms just because a call is in progress, THAT is just boneheaded and unacceptable, since there are no technical obstacles to this. A DEAL-BREAKER. I will soon be trading out the c139, and good riddance.
- 3 replies to this review
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I thought AT&T took over CINGULAR within the last 6 months
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Finally! Someone noticed that the user's manual is abysmal...and then some. Who the heck writes these darn things anyway? Are they ever reviewed by the engineers that design them or do they just slap a bunch of words on a bunch of pages and assume that nobody reads them anyway????????? Bummer!&$%<br><br> I also have had settings, functions, etc. just disappear from the phone like they never were there. The only thing I like about the phone is that, at least in my neck of the woods, had real good call quality. Basically, I use it to take and receive calls. Beyond that it is completely useless. For the time being I am enduring this little candy bar with buttons on it but will soon be shopping for another.
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He's absolutely right. I was forced to switch from the old AT&T system to the new Cingular one, and I traded in my Nokia for this Motorola. It was a downward move in every way. <br><br>Every Moto menu IS less intuitive than the corresponding Nokia one.<br><br>The Moto manual IS an abomination. <br><br>Cingular tech support has ALWAYS been clueless. It is the worst company in the world. (So there was no degradation by switching systems.)<br><br>Voice quality on the Moto is pretty lousy, and, like Enq, I don't know if it's the phone or the network. I suspect it's the network. <br><br>People have raved about the battery life on this phone, but I haven't seen it. Mine lasts about six days on a charge (I use the phone maybe 8-10 minutes a week), which is just about what my old Nokia (don't remember the model) did.
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