The Motorola MPX220 is a cell phone with a lot of features...many of which we will review in more detail in the future.  In this article, we wanted to give a quick tour of the phone

There is a color screen on the front of the phone.  That makes it convenient to check basic info like the time and who is calling.  Built into the lid is also the lens for the camera/flash. 

The phone's antenna is integrated into the case.  We like this design because it gives the phone a much smoother appearance.  It also will not not break off.  The headphone port and volume controls are on the left side.  The camera trigger and IR port are on the right.

The main reason we are interested in this particular cell phone is its support for Microsoft's SmartPhone 2003 OS.  The SmartPhone OS is needed to run the CoPilot Live GPS software.

The SmartPhone OS is basically a piece of your Microsoft XP desktop that you can take with you when you are away from your desk.  It has a bit of the look of the XP environment, but because of the limited navigation capabilities of a cell phone, the interface is fairly cumbersome...lots of scrolling.

The screen and the overall construction (keys, buttons, case) of the this Motorola MPX220 is excellent.  Nothing felt cheap or plastic. 

The back opens when the bottom button (blue arrow) is pushed for access to the battery and the SIM slot (red arrow).  The MPX200 is about the same size as the Motorola T-720 but noticeably heavier.

Another reason why we picked this MPX220 SmartPhone is because this phone will use all of the same cables and accessories as the older Motorola phones...meaning we don't have to get a whole new set of parts just to try out the CoPilot GPS application :-)

We have been using a version of the CoPilot GPS software with our iPaq for about 4 years and have been fairly happy with it performance.  We have not kept up with the software upgrades mostly because it worked "well enough."

However, we knew that GPS hardware has had significant improvements in the past few years (faster satellite acquisition, Bluetooth, etc...) and we wanted to see if it was time to upgrade.

The ALK folks have always been at the head of the pack when it came to GPS software, so when their 6.0 version was released, we decided it was time to take a look.

In this series of reviews, we will take a quick look the SmartPhone version of the CoPilotLive software.

We also have a series of reviews that will take you through the steps needed to get this GPS to work with an iPaq 3850 PDA.

Reviews:

1. MPX220 SmartPhone

2. GPS and Phone Setup

3. MiniSD Storage for SmartPhone

4. SmartPhone software Install

5. SmartPhone FirstUse

6. InTheWild

Review Summary:

Initial Impression- Solidly built

Usability- SmartPhone 2003

Durability- TBD

Price- Depending on your plan

Other CoPilot GPS Reviews:

1. GPS FirstLook

2. Bluetooth Install

3. Software Install in iPaq 3850

4. Loading Maps onto iPaq 3850

Other Phone related Reviews:

1. TransFlash Memory

2. Motorola E815 Cell Phone