When you are a project manager on the road, happiness is a working phone, any phone, just as long as you can stay in contact. And pictures of sites, problems, designs, notes or whatever is an essential piece of that communications puzzle. Cairo or Cape Town, just get the message through.

I’ve been on Symbian for a few years (my favourite is a Nokia E72) and all my apps and contacts and mail simply works. I don’t have to waste time on technology, I can focus on getting the job done. Even if I lose a phone completely I could take (and have taken!) a brand new phone from the box (or a spare from the cupboard) and be fully operational in a few minutes. That is called peace of mind.

But as we all know, technology doesn’t stand still. Nokia sold out to Microsoft and their new technology is not very robust right now. iPhone is an option as a phone, but a few apps didn’t quite work together and so my iPhone went to one of the children. The remaining option is Android. But this is a big jump, changing your platform is a commitment for 3 or 4 years to get return on investment on all the time wasted transporting things across to the new world.

Nevertheless I decided to give the new Motorola RAZR a try. Note that this is not my first foray into the world of Android, I’ve played extensively with Froyo 2.2 and I have tons of experience on a Galaxy tablet. What I need is just that little bit extra in speed and future upgrade possibilities. Looking back, I made exactly the right decision.

My Motorola RAZR has been a pleasure to use, generally. I had a small problem with sending MMS pictures, which turned out to be a Vodacom problem but the folks at Motorola kept me constantly updated and they made sure the guys at Vodacom were aware of their responsibilities to deliver a working network. I love the RAZR form factor, I really like the software skin and Motorola customizations, and all my apps work exactly as they should. For staying in contact I use a cloud-based approach mostly based on Google. The RAZR excels at this task. I’m very cautious about exposing my contacts in the cloud, and my notes too, and I use a strong encryption layer. Encrypting files are a pleasure on the RAZR, it has more than enough power in the dual-core processor. I’m still toying with some minor utilities to do better backups of SMS messages, but there are tons of nice apps in the Marketplace to help me.

Back home I quickly set up a media centre and I can now stream any of my movies or music to the RAZR, something I wasn’t able to do previously. Clearly the guys at Motorola is pushing the envelope of what a simple hand-held device can do.

I’ll keep you informed of any new developments, but as of today I can confidently say that I am transitioning my lifeline (as a project manager) from Nokia/Symbian to Motorola/Android for the next few years, and I’m looking forward to the journey. Well done, Motorola!