Yay. Today was a big day in Mobile Phone Land when I got a little pissed with T-Mobile (okay, I got a lot pissed) very recently. Nothing frosts my balls more than people who don’t return calls.
I have been a loyal T-Mobile customer since the Jamie Lee Curtis days. Yeah, okay, so maybe she’s the one that made me notice their company. Just shut up. Anyway, between the failed return call and the bad experience with their customer service (corporate not personal), I made a decision.
Our company is switching from T-Mobile to AT&T. I need GSM so those are my only two real choices here in the USA and I’d much prefer T-Mobile. But a principle is a principle, so we’ve started switching our phones over. Four down, two more tomorrow, and the rest a few days thereafter.
As part of that, I bought a new phone. And it’s not an iPhone and it’s certainly not a Windows Mobile phone. Many of you thought I was secretly plotting for an iPhone and though I considered it, I’m just not a fan. My main requirement for a phone is that it’s a phone and possibly a camera and a customized ring tone. I don’t need much in a phone. The rest is fluff.
I now have a Motorola Razr2 v9. Yay. I am pleased to report I got a hack for iSync to talk to it via Bluetooth as I have no cables and was able to easily log on and put files on the phone. My contacts are loaded. Tomorrow, I have to see if it’ll play nice with my car, though I am skeptical.
As such, I spent most of this evening hacking into it and uploading my custom ringtone, desktop/wallpaper, and so forth. It’s amazing how difficult the carriers make this since they, of course, want you to buy them. Fie! An MP3 must be 300k or less and under 128bits and 30seconds to qualify as valid ringtone file on an AT&T phone, but it was easy to do. A program named Switch (Mac only) made the editing and scaling down of my audio easy.
The wallpaper size is 240 x 320 and once I figured that out, I was able to upload a temporary until I decide what I want. (Free tip: go to the paid websites where they charge you for wallpapers, view their sample image and figure out the file size for your phone, and then make your own with whatever you find on Google Images.)
I can call out but no inbound calls yet. They still go to my T-Mobile number. Oddly I can call out on both numbers which is theoretically impossible. But it works. And I can send SMS from either. One hopes tomorrow this is fixed.
This phone is a lot more complicated to use, but I’ll figure it out eventually. I even got the 24hr clock to work by outsmarting their stupid override feature.
I have a T-Mobile (locked) v330i Motorola for anyone who wants one. Free to good home. SIM and Service not included.