Motorola MOTOKRZR K1 (AT&T)

All right, so I'm just out of high school, right? I text. I talk all the time. I play games, I listen to music 24/7. I do all of that stupid teenage stuff. And I was looking for the phone to put all of those things together minus being stupid and teenager-ly.

So I looked into it, I did my research, and this and the Nokia 5300 XpressMusic were my last two choices. I chose this one because it had a 2-megapixel camera. However, upon buying the phone (new from T-mobile) I found that it didn't take pictures any better than my brother's Samsung Trace (another T-Mobile phone, and a pretty good one at that). In fact, in most situations, the Trace took BETTER pictures in all different kinds of lighting. Even the CNET review of this phone agrees with me on that.

As far as the mp3 player goes, the application for the mp3 player runs PAINFULLY slow. The speaker on the phone for the music is nice and loud though, and the phone is capable of holding 2GB of memory, which is nice.

But all in all, the absolute WORST (and I mean worst. Just awful) part of this phone is the RECEPTION. Dear God. Now, I know that T-Mobile isn't world-renowned in its reception capabilities, but when I'm standing in the middle of my house and I have five bars of service then suddenly none, something can't be right. Now, I used to have a Nokia 3220 (look it up. It's not even a flip or slider phone) and compared to the Motorola KRZR, the Nokia's reception was FAR better. I took up this problem with T-Mobile, and they gave me a new sim card, but to no avail. The reception is still awful. So I thought I'd try something, seeing as I'm looking to sell it - I got my phone unlocked. So I put in a friend of mine's Cingular SIM card just to see if the reception would be better - it wasn't. And I live in the city.

Another thing I cannot stand with this phone is when I'm simply trying to send someone a text message and at the start of writing the message, I have service. And at when I try to send it, my phone is suddenly searching for reception! Also, when it comes to texting with this phone - if you are someone who texts frequently DO NOT BUY THIS PHONE. Go into a local phone shop and try out the texting for yourself. Motorola's iTap text messaging system is downright awful in comparison to most other brands. When you write out a sentence, it takes the KRZR so painfully long to finish it. As you text out a word, each character takes roughly two seconds JUST TO APPEAR ON THE SCREEN. And, if you are misspelling a word, the phone will not stop you like my old Nokia did. You can literally press the '5' key ten times and Motorola's iTap engine will try and make a word out of it like "Lljlljllkj". Ridiculous.

Also, even if you don't text, you will notice how slow the phone runs. Simply going through your Contacts can prove to be a lengthy task.

I bought this phone when it was 199.99 with a two-year service plan with T-Mobile. And for a college kid, that's a lot of cash. And I regret it. I tried out the phone in the store, and the texting thing even annoyed me in there, but I had my heart set on buying this anyway. I told myself I would get used to it and like it. I don't. At all.

Sure, the KRZR has got some nice features with Bluetooth, a nice shiny exterior, and the "Motorola" name tag slapped on it. But if you're planning on buying this phone, I wouldn't recommend it.