Ok, let me start by saying that I got this phone for my wife because of her love of her old Motorola Startac.

After the first few days, she started complaining about how horrible the phone was. I attributed it to her lack of techno-savvy and essentially ignored her complaints. After all, it was a Motorola....how bad could it be.

The first time she left it out in the van on a hot day (not even on the dash, in the sundry bin under the dash), the battery was history. It went from the poor 8-9 hours of standby on a charge down to under 30 minutes. Ok...replaced the battery pack. Strike one.

Two months later, the car charger went kaput. Strike two.

A couple of weeks after that, my wife left the phone in the car overnight on a very cold winter night and *poof* another battery toasted. This time, down to under 5 minutes on a charge. Strike three.

Replaced the battery and another few months go by. This time the phone simply won't stay powered on. It keeps resetting after just a few seconds of power-on time. Even on the charger, it keeps resetting.

Ok...so I'm sick of what I think is my wife killing the phones and when the replacement arrives, I swap the SIM from my nice reliable Siemens M46 into the Motorola and give her the M46.

Ok...it feels really nice in my hand. It's easy to carry and it's relatively small and light.

I make my first call and I feel like I'm back in 1990. "Can you hear me?...What?...I can't understand you.....What?..."

Between the low volume (even maxed out), poor fidelity and absolutely abysmal reception, I can't understand how this phone ever made it to the market. I had 6 different no-service areas on a 15 mile run that I use my Siemens on without an interruption.

The menus are about as intuitive as analytical calculus is to a pre-schooler. I actually had to read the manual for a cell phone for the first time in my life.

The iTap interface is also pretty hideous. Why they couldn't adopt T9 or something similar is beyond me.

After apologizing to my wife profusely, I bought a new Ericsson and gave the T193 to my 3-year old to use as a hammer. At least someone is getting some use out of it.

Recommended: No