I waited patiently for the release of the Motorola MPX220 but the fact that it was only offered by AT&T and Cingular kept me from jumping on it when it finally arrived. Luckily, Eric tried it first and kept me from every getting stuck with it. In addition to some some Cingular coverage complaints, Eric had pretty much every problem imaginable with the phone (including this one) and returned it twice before finally giving up and switching to a different phone and carrier.
I understand that most people demand cameras in their phones but why bother when the picture is going to be as bad as the ones from the MPX220? Here is a side-by-side comparison of a photo from the MPX220 and from a much cheaper (but functioning) phone. The image is resized but trust me, that yellow monstrosity on the left looked even worse at full size.
I really don't want a camera in my phone. Not because it isn't a cool thing to have but because I want a phone or a phone/PDA, not a phone/camera or (even worse) a phone/camera/PDA. I have a camera, I don't want to have a camera and a camera/phone in my pockets at the same time. I want consolidation of gadgets in order to eliminate gadgets, not duplicate them. Having a Smart Phone means I don't need a separate PDA. A camera/phone isn't going to eliminate my camera, so I have no interest in it. More importantly, though, is that adding features means you either add cost or you reduce quality. I learned long ago with home phones that buying a phone with too many features means you either pay too much or all of the features suffer. I think the MPX220 illustrates that. In order to keep the price down, they cut too many corners and ended up with a terrible phone with a terrible camera, which really bothers me since the form factor of the MPX220 is the best I've seen so far. The Audiovox Smart Phone has gotten great reviews from almost everyone but I hate candybar phones even when they have tiny useless screens and I refuse to buy a Smart Phone that isn't a flip phone. The angle of the flip keeps the screen off my face and protects the screen from my pocket.
Hopefully someone will release a good Windows-based Smart Phone this year, I'm ready for a new phone and I want one I can play with. I thought the MPX220 was it but apparently not.