You know I worked for Motorola for about 9 years and in all that time, not once did I get a discount on a mobile phone, let alone a freebie. We did have an employee incentive program that was quite good in the US, but even then I could go down to the local Verizon shop and pick up the same Motorola phone for free (rather than pay the discount employee price !).

I’d had a couple of business phones, but never a personal phone. Now I didn’t work for the sector that makes the phones. For all but the last 2 years I worked for the group that was responsible for the base stations that your phones talk to. We did get a number of new phones for testing them out, and a select few were able to ‘borrow’ a few of these for ‘testing’ purposes.

So two weeks after getting laid off by Motorola for the second time, what do I do? I got buy a Motorola V3 Razr.

It is one of the smartest looking phones on the market at the moment and one of the best phones I have ever owned.

Configuring the phone to work with my Bluetooth headset (the Jabra BT 250BT) was painless.
I must also admit that Motorola bundled software isn’t usually the best, but even this installed first time on both my laptop and desktop PC’s. The bluetooth connection to my computers was again easy to set up and works fine. If you want full access to things like Outlook syncronisation, then you have to update the software to the full package for around £40.

I was so tempted to go buy a Nokia out of spite, but I just couldn’t bare to do that. I don’t know if it is that Nokia ring tone, but over the last 9 years, I cringed everytime I heard it.

My last phone which I bought on returning to the UK was a Siemans. The RF side of the phone had been degrading over the last 4 months or so to the point where getting a signal in my village was hard to do.
For a simple phone to make calls, it was ok, and to be honest, that is all I look for in a mobile phone. Although the V3 has a camera, I don’t usually go for a phone that has all the whistles and bells. But in saying that, the V3 camera has surprisingly good quality and an equally impressive digital zoom feature.

I’d better stop singing the praises of the phone now before they think I’m after my old job back. The phrase “not for all the tea in china” comes to mind, which considering the amount of work that Motrola is transferring to China, would probably be what I would get paid in if I did ever go back to them. Being laid off twice by them in 9 years is all the motivation I need to work somewhere else for a while now. My own business is taking off quite well so I might consider not working for anyone else again.
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Either way, check out the V3 if you are looking for a really good functional phone that not only looks good, but works well too.