Motorola Ming A1200 Unlocked Phone with 2 MP Camera, MP3/Video Player, and MicroSD Slot–International Version with No Warranty (Black)

10 Review to this product

• 

  Haibing Zhang
  August 4th, 2010 on 11:17 pm

  Rating

  I bought this phone in China early March 2006. It was just on market for a week or so. I intended to buy a Microsoft Smartphone kind of device, but came upon this phone. The things that attracted me was the near perfect finish (black version only, feel like the early IBM Thinkpad T23 skin-like touch), the fast response, large screen, transparent screen cover and a unique feature: Business Card Reader(BCR).

  The BCR take a snapshot of a business card, automatically recognize the information and input into contact list. The character recognition is not 100% if the business card design is too fancy. If the card is standard, with regular characters, the recognition result will be very accurate. It saves lots of time when you finish the job in a long day and rest in hotel room. Remember, you have to set the lens switch to Macro position, otherwise the card photo it takes will be blury and recognition is impossible. The switch is above the lens, very easy to miss.

  Other features include the radio, recorder, bluetooth, Real Player, voice command, notes, 2.0 MP camera and camcorder.

  Writing recognition is also very accurate. I write in Chinese and English. Both are very easy to use. Overall, the software are great.

  It comes with other features such as getting online but I don’t use them. You can add Transflash card inside. As of May 2006, the largest card size is 512MB for $70.

  I don’t think I digged all the goodies out, still in the fun process learning how to use it more wisely. Overall, it is a great phone, better than any other phone I ever used.
• 

  Michael H. Grotzke
  August 5th, 2010 on 3:31 am

  Rating

  I have had Startacs and Razors. The Ming A1200 is a pleasure to use. It is compact, sleek, ergonomic. As a regular phone, it is easy to use, the sound quality is the best Motorola I have used so far. The outlook-like address book is far better than the miserable 1 entry per phone number that the Razor has. There may be better MP3 players, FM radios, cameras, or gaming devices available, but this is one unit where all perform very well in one integrated unit.

  I can recommend the Ming for those looking for a well-designed, sophisticated phone, even if you may never use all the features (but they are nice to have)! Only caution is very limited US support. Motorola advises that this phone is intended for the International Market (I bought mine in Dubai). I find it hard to believe that Motorola would not market one of their best products ever in their home country.
• 

  K. Daly
  August 6th, 2010 on 4:41 pm

  Rating

  This phone is an exceptional phone. I must admit I was skeptical about buying since it was not really supported in the US. But this international phone is excellent. It’s really a good phone, behaves almost like a computer. I like the character recognition where you can write on the touch screen and the characters appear on the line. (available in English and Chinese only). I was also with the real player and music and file storage capabilities. Good phone to buy if you have the cash to get it. The only thing is that I haven’t figured out how to connect to the internet but I don’t use it anyway.
• 

  Scottso
  August 7th, 2010 on 5:18 am

  Rating

  Motorola A1200 Ming Black Phone (Unlocked)

  I lost my cell phone recently on a camping trip and since I still had many (MANY) months on my contract, was not permitted to upgrade with my service provider. As their “full retail” phones started in the mid to high $200′s I thought I might as well try to find a phone that really worked as a phone. Enter the Motorola A1200, or The Ming!

  I have never purchased an unlocked phone and was concerned that it would not work on my network (my service provider- AT&T/Cingular) as it was never released in the US. I called the retailer (JR Electronics out of NY) and they assured me it worked on my network as well as others that used the standard SIM card. SO I went ahead and took the plunge.

  This phone is AWESOME! Out of the box, it was completely in Chinese characters – this scared me a wee bit – but after pressing just about every button, I finally found one that said English and as if by magic, I could read the menus! It immediately found my network and I have had no problem with it at all. In fact, as a phone, it has the best reception I have ever had with a cell phone, and I have been through many. My home is a terrible dead zone, and my wife still gets very little reception there but the Ming works like a charm.

  It is also a very sleek and easy to use phone. I love the way it looks – very Star Trek savvy – but would agree with some of the reviewers, it is difficult to open the cover with one hand. A benefit of that, however, is it never gets stuck on clothing, accidently opening, a problem I have had with many other flip-phones. In fact, my only complaint would be every time I am checking my voicemail, I receive a blank text message. I am not sure the purpose of this message nor have I yet to figure out how to stop it from happening.

  Although it is a PDA phone and I do sync with my outlook, I am not a heavy PDA user, using it only for an address book. One cool feature that really works is the business card scanner. The camera on the phone takes a picture of a business card and parces out the information into your contacts. This works well, as long as your hand is steady and the business card is fairly standard.

  All in all, for a cell phone, I don’t think you can top the Motorola Ming. Maybe in the future they will add Wifi to the package, making it a more excellent work phone!
  
• 

  Zheng Peng
  August 7th, 2010 on 10:20 am

  Rating

  It’s actually a Linux (yes, it’s Linux!!!!) based smart phone. With the help of a 312MHz Intel XScale processor, all software is running pretty fast. Even 3D applications work smoothly because of the Mobile 3D Graphics API provided by this phone. A1200 supports doc, xls, ppt, HTML and pdf files, as well as various picture formats (JPEG, PNG, GIF and WBMP). The realplayer in this phone could play MP3, WMA, RealAudio, MIDI, WAV, AAC and AMR in the background and RMVB, MPEG4, 3GP in full screen mode. And I heard that there even exists a GPS software you can download online for A1200. To sum up, you shouldn’t miss Motorola A1200. It’s definitely a good choice.
• 

  Pink Panther
  August 8th, 2010 on 8:28 pm

  Rating

  Although I am not a Motorola fun I must admit that his is an excellent phone. It is easy to use and you do not even need toread te instructions book to learn it.

  It is different to most other phones as it has a touch screen that you have to use your fingers or the (included) stylus to dial a number or use he menu. The software is quite user friendly and there is an option to always have the dial numbers on the screen, a function that is quite useful.

  The pros
  
  -long lasting battery
  
  -blutooth actually works very well
  
  -easy menu and easy to use
  
  -top quality screen

  the cons
  
  -some of the menu requires the use of the stylus or very precise fingers
  
  -camera is not as quick in capturing images
  
  -only two languages, english and chinese (both mandarin and cantonese)

  Overall the cons have little significance if you compare them with th positives of the phone.

  Lastly the design is stunning and if you like flip phones then this could the right one for you
• 

  DarkXPSX
  August 8th, 2010 on 11:17 pm

  Rating

  Before I bought this phone, I had the V3 that I got from Cingular. I was really unpleased with it, it wasn’t what Motorola made it out to be. Then I got the V3x, which I wouldn’t have done if I knew that it didn’t support the 850 GSM Band. It was a lot better than the V3, had an MP3 player, but it didn’t support 320kbps MP3′s. I had problems getting a signal with it, cause of the 850 GSM band Cingular uses. Then I saw the Motorola MING (A1200). I’ve had this phone for a month, and I haven’t had any problems with it yet. It plays all my MP3′s and it even comes with Real Player, so if you wanna play Video’s, you can, but you have to convert them first. It sucks, but the phone does come with some converstion software. I’ve also tested the phone with some software that I found off GetJar. I only had a problem with one of the programs, it was an Internet radio. But the Messengers worked fine. The Hong Kong site says that the phone comes with MSN Messenger, but I haven’t found it. It supports 1GB MicroSD and can record videos up to 2 hours. The only downfall of the phone is the fact that it doesn’t have any 3G capabilities. I, myself, don’t use 3G since it my provider doesn’t have Video Calling yet and I’m sure that when it becomes available, it’ll be expensive and no one that I talk with will get it for years to come. The phone uses Linux as it’s OS. That kind of scared me at first cause I don’t know how to use Linux that well….heh, but it’s pretty easy to use. The OS is also Open Source, you can get it from the Motorola Open Source site (https://opensource.motorola.com). The phone has a virtual keyboard on the screen that you use to type. There is also a virtual keypad that is used when dialing a number or when entering info that requires only numbers.

  Here is the short version…if you want a great phone that doesn’t support 3G technology, that supports J2ME applications/games, and you can see small letters close up, then get this phone. If you have to have 3G, then get something else.

  Hope this helped ^_^.
• 

  Vashanti Gobin
  August 9th, 2010 on 4:00 am

  Rating

  This phone is simply awesome. Its like having a phone, a MP3 player and a PDA all in one. The resolution is sharp and clear. What I like most about it is the business card capture feature. Its so amazing because the phone captures the information from a business card 99% of the time and allows you to store it in the address book. Another great feature is the ability to listen to my local radio stations. Best of all is I can download my own MP3 files and listen to music whenever I want without need to carry a separate MP3 player. Its easy to use and understand. I definitely recommend this phone.
• 

  J. Hodak
  August 9th, 2010 on 6:58 pm

  Rating

  I love this phone, in every way. I was so skeptical to spend so much money on a cell phone. The day I got it I was so impressed with it. I think this phone with all of its’ features and the touchscreen is worth the money and more. I could not be happier!
• 

  Thomas Martin
  August 10th, 2010 on 1:49 am

  Rating

  This phone does everything it is advertised to do, simply and quickly. The biggest problem with it is getting the data applications (email etc) configured for local service. With a little digging you can find all the necessary information on your provider’s website (well Cingular/ATT anyhow) Reception with the phone is amazing, going places where I have had limited cellular reception in the past, I find much better signal strength.