Ploafmaster General

I have a Cingular (The new AT&T!!!) 8125 smart phone. This thing runs Windows Mobile 5, however, so the intelligence of the handset is pretty debatable.

You see, I work in an office. I don’t want my co-workers to hear my phone blasting That Song by Big Wreck every time somebody calls me, so I keep it on vibrate during the day. Nothing special about that, right? Well if I had the ringer turned on, the low battery indicator would issue a short beep. Push a few electrons through the speaker so you know the phone needs charging, but don’t use too much of that precious battery power to tell me, mkay?

What happens when the batter is low and the phone is on vibrate? Well what happens if somebody calls you and the phone is on vibrate? The phone doesn’t make a sound – it activates a small motor inside the phone and spins an intentionally off-balance weight at high speed to cause the vibration. This is exactly what happens when the battery is low, too. However, incomprehensibly, the phone vibrates for a full five seconds! What better way to conserve battery power than to spin a weight inside the device just to tell me that the power is running out!

Maybe other phones do this, too, but most other phones are running very simplified operating systems compared to Windows Mobile. There should be no reason to expend the dwindling stored energy in my phone on a buzzing, spinning weight other than an incoming phone call, and no matter which platform is on the phone, surely it’s only a software problem to kill the motor when the battery is low.

I’ve been a little tired of my phone for a few months now, but this is one of those things that annoys the crap out of me ever time it happens.

So I’m curious – do any other phones behave this way? Does the iPhone? Does Windows Mobile 6?