Back in March, I was in Kuala Lumpur with my friend Adam Cogan, doing a Business Intelligence workshop.
At the time, I grabbed a Motorola MPx200 cell phone. Pretty much all phones in KL are unlocked, so you can buy a phone and plug your own GSM chip into it, and off you go.
I use Rogers for my cell phone service, and they offer both CDMA and GSM service, so when I got home, I switched my cell number to GSM and got the chip, plugged it into the phone, and off I went. And it did work - for phone calls at least.
The MPx200 runs Windows Mobile 2002 as its operating system, and includes a version of Internet Explorer and even MSN messenger. And, of course, Solitaire. But I couldn't get the web stuff working - I talked to Rogers, and I was honest with them, telling them that I wasn't running one of their phones. They were all enthusiastic about what I was attempting, wanted to know about the phone... in the end I couldn't get the stuff to work, and I only have so many cycles for fighting with such things, so I let it go.
Recently, I managed to get the phone upgraded to Windows Mobile 2003 - its not officially released by Motorola, although it is coming with their new MPx220. But a DNR listener happened to have a copy, so I grabbed it and, willingly risking my phone, upgraded it. It worked great, and now I have TWO games on my phone... Jawbreaker AND Solitaire. And the battery life is substantially improved.
Feeling all inspired, I called Rogers again this weekend, prepared to commit a good hour to being on hold, being switched from person-to-person, etc, and being told “Now you understand we can't guarantee this will work...“ It took three different people to reconfigure my account and get the right set of settings into the phone, but in the end, it worked! The trick is to make clear that the phone has more in common with the Treo 600 than any Motorola cell phone that Rogers handles. A proper data account and the detailed internet settings is all it took to make the thing fly.
So my thanks to Rogers for helping me out, the geek potential of my cell phone took a nice leap upward... what could be more fun than writing MSN messages with a telephone keypad?