Even with improved designs and smaller form factors, smart phones generally tend to be bulkier and less attractive than mobile phones. However, the Motorola MING (a.k.a. A1200) seems to buck this trend. Its stylish 95.7 x 51.7 x 21.5mm frame is comparable to many clamshell offerings out there, and it comes in a smart-looking case. Amazingly, there is more to the MING than just its attractive appearance. Beneath the transparent LCD cover lies a plethora of goodies, from a 2-megapixel camera to a nifty business card reader and a touchscreen display that recognizes Chinese handwriting. The MING is currently retailing at S$698 for the handset alone and S$528 when bundled with a two-year mobile contract.

Design
Besides the Moto Q which is expected to make its debut soon in Asia, the MING is by far one of the smallest and best-looking smart phone we've seen from the US mobile handset company. Though it is a little hefty at 122g, mobile users will most definitely appreciate the compact design which occupies a footprint slightly longer if narrower than a credit card.

We like the rubbery-like material around the sides and back of the phone, which provides better grip while giving a solid feel to the cellular. On both sides of the MING, users will find two silver strips with volume control, voice dial and camera buttons as well as a mini-USB port and 2.5mm audio jack. If you are planning to use your own earphones with 3.5mm jacks, you will have to purchase a separate 2.5mm-to-3.mm audio jack adapter.

One of the unique features of the MING is its sleek transparent cover which adds to the whole aesthetics of the phone while protecting the touchscreen display. It also has a slight magnifying effect, so users can better view of the contents on the display without having to flip open the cover. The phone's earpiece is embedded into the Motorola logo on the transparent panel and connected to the main phone unit via two thin wires.

Much as we like the transparent cover, it does take some effort to flip it open, even with two little grooves that Motorola has added on both sides of the handset. But once you get the hang of it, the phone can be a joy to use. In fact, you will need to only flip the cover to the halfway point and the rest of it is assisted by a mechanical spring action in the hinge.

Besides the buttons on the sides and bottom of the display, all other inputs on the MING will have to be done via the 2.4-inch QVGA (320 x 240-pixel) touchscreen LCD. Combined with support for up to 262,000 colors, images on the screen appear bright and sharp with excellent color reproduction. The MING comes with a stylus slot at the back of the LCD on the right.

The rear face of this smart phone houses a 2-megapixel camera with macro controls and a tiny reflecting mirror for self-portraits. Users will have to remove the battery from its slot to access the SIM card and microSD card. This is not so much a hassle for the SIM card since it's traditionally not something that one would remove often from the phone, but it definitely is for the microSD memory card. The arrangement effectively disables the ability to hot-swap the expansion card while the phone is in use.

We noticed that unlike most phones, the MING does not come with any LED lights to indicate missed calls or low battery. Users will have to occasionally check back on the main display for such information.

Features
The MING is a quadband phone, much like its Razr cousins, so it can be used to roam in most parts of the world, including Europe, the US and Asia. The lack of 3G connectivity, however, means that travelers heading to places such as Korea and Japan will not be able to use the handset in those countries.

To connect to a PC for data file transfer, users have a choice between Bluetooth, USB and the memory card (via an optional memory card reader). To make up for the measly 8MB of onboard memory, Motorola has included a microSD slot on the MING. This supports media capacities of up to 1GB capacity, which should be sufficient for most mobile productivity and entertainment needs. The Bluetooth profile also supports A2DP, meaning you can pair the MING with wireless stereo Bluetooth headsets.

The onboard 2-megapixel CMOS camera captures images at a maximum resolution of 1,600 x 1,200 pixels, which is theoretically good for printing 8R photos. You also get a basic set of camera controls such as white balance, filter effects and night mode. There's even a small switch above the lens for macro shots. However, since there's no LED flash light on the device, you can pretty much rule out shooting in low-light conditions. The camera doubles as a videocam, though the low 176 x 144-pixel resolution will limit it to mainly candid clips.

Interestingly, there's another useful application for the digital camera--as a business card reader. It works the same way as commercial name card scanners, except that you use the camera to take a picture of the card instead of scanning it. This application worked well for new business cards with large and clearly labeled fonts. But when we tried to feed in those with odd designs or even slightly crumpled ones, the MING failed to recognize the card on several occasions. Having said that, it's still a great tool to have on the smart phone, especially for mobile professionals who need to keep their contacts updated.

Perhaps due to the processor-intensive scanning and optical character recognition process, the business card reader application seems to use up quite a bit of resource when in operation. It is therefore advisable to close other running applications before using the reader.

For music and video entertainment, the MING comes preinstalled with RealPlayer application. There's also a Photo Editor software which doubles as a fun doodle board and a voice recorder that's useful for taking notes. The smart phone itself can be used as a modem, either through USB or Bluetooth. It has an FM tuner which, like most phones, requires the earphone to be connected before the function can be used.

As an organizer, the MING offers a standard suite of PIM offerings including world time, task manager, alarm clock, notepad and calculator. Other applications include an email client, Web browser and a file manager. You can download more third-party Linux software utilities from the Internet, though they are somehow not as readily available as those for the Symbian, Palm and Windows Mobile platforms.

Performance And Battery Life
As its name suggests, the Motorola MING, whose Chinese character means bright, has a well-lit and crisp display that works well indoors as well as outdoors. Used as a viewfinder for the camera, the screen is responsive and sharp for panning shots. Images captured are generally good, except for night pictures which often turn out pixelated.

On average, it takes about 2 seconds to start up the camera which is pretty fast for a smart phone. However, saving an image takes more than 5 seconds and this can be quite a letdown for some hoping to catch the next candid shot.

Some users may find the MING's user interface a little confusing at first, but it is actually quite intuitive once you get the hang of it. The main options can be accessed via the four main icons on the top row of the display for menu, contacts, messaging and phone, with the left corner icon for more options and right corner icon to close the application. Users can also configure the main menu to various user-specific categories.

One of the features we like about the MING is its Chinese handwriting recognition. It is fairly intuitive to use and accurately recognizes a wide range of Chinese characters. For English text input, the handwriting recognition works quite accurately, too, but the conversion from handwriting to text is a little sluggish and the virtual keyboard is a tad too tiny for comfortable typing. So this may not go down well with those who text often.

In our road tests, the MING did well in the areas of reception and voice call quality. Its speaker volume was also sufficient for music playback and for conducting handsfree conversations. The supplied headsets provided acceptable audio quality.

Depending on usage volume, the MING is expected to last about two days before its 850mAh battery needs a recharge. It clocked about 6 hours of talktime during our tests, which was slightly lower than the rated 7 hours given by Motorola.