They don't make 'em like that

The recent mobile phone saga.

I like the Motorola V3. (I'm not sure which version, there were a few and I couldn't track the differences anyway) It's been around for an age, it does all I want, it's pretty big, but thin. As far as I can gather it a lot of other people do too, I believe Motorola keeps trying to shut it down but people keep buying it. There's a raging market in grey imports.

And while I'm no regular watcher (how could I be) it even turned up on a recent Ugly Betty in the hands of a new hunky bloke, now thats fashion..

My first died ignominiously in the early rainy hours of one morning a few weeks ago, I'd always loved that phone, (well as much as anyone can love a mobile phone, i.e not screaming at it in frustration *too* often) and it had been dropped a number of times before, but this was just one of those unfortunate accidents, it's hinge just caught a big lump of concrete and suddenly it had a removable screen.

I replaced it with a new one from eBay, one of those mentioned grey imports, it looked the same but didn't really feel it, for something already that thin it seemed even thinner, even flimsy. I managed to crack the external screen within days, it didn't seem very sensitive and the vaunted laser cut keyboard was reduced to mere foil. The black finish was chipping and marking very fast and the end came for it when it developed an 'unless you press your fingers into a certain place on the back the phone cut off' fault.

Back to eBay and this time I've got a refurbished one, (ie replaced the OS to get rid of the original provider 'locking') my theory being it would be one of the older tougher ones, and yes, it is that and it's even a proper 'made in China' Motorola, not an 'improved' made in Singapore one.

This one works perfectly, even if it does look anaemic (it's silver, not the black I was used to). Chinese Motorola's, they don't make 'em like that no more...