I'm not the type that goes through cell phones quickly. My last phone was a Non-Color (yes, it was old) Nokia. I was excited to get this phone but boy was I disapointed. I have owned the phone since it was released, so consider me a V551 expert. Here are all of the cons (i hate this phone so much I'm not going to list any pros other than all of the cool shortcut keys....all of the cons negate the pros).*The phone is really slow in everything it does. When you answer it by flipping it open, you have to wait 2 seconds to say "Hello" or the person won't hear you. When you hang up, you have to hit the end call button repeatedly to end the call. When you scroll down the phone book, the scroll is slow. When you access a new menu, for instance office tools, the phone takes a while to go into that menu. I think you get the point...the phone is freakin' slow.*The convenient web-browser button is not so convenient. I keep hitting the darn thing on accident. I try to hit the red end call button ASAP, but since the phone is soooo slow, it takes forever to exit the browser. As a result, a certain # of bytes are transfered and I fork over about 4 bucks to Cingular every month, which pretty much erases my employment discount.*Speaking of rip off, you cannot download a game or ring tones without being double-charged. Cingular charges you for game/ringtone and on top of that charges you for the download when your phone accesses the browser. What a CROCK!!!!*When scrolling through the phonebook, trying to find a name, you cannot search for the name. The phone will only let you scroll to the first initial, say an "S" by pressing the 7-button 4 times, then you have to manually scroll down to the name you want. If you try to type the 2nd letter of a person's name, let's say a "C" for Scott, the phone will take you to all of the C's (Chris, Carter, Cynthia, you get the idea). This drives me nuts.*The camera is terrible. The camera's eye is inverted into the phone's casing, causing dirt to build up and cover the camera's lens. Thinking that the quality issues will be solved by cleaning the lens, i couldn't be more wrong. The phone appears to take decent pics, but when you save a pic that looks good to the phone and then go to view it later, the pic is blurry as hell. I don't understand why it looks fine before it is saved, and so completely horrible later. The funny thing is, i'm not exaggerating.*While I'm not a big fan of camera phones (but still find them practical), I thought i'd mention this for those of you who are. When taking pictures to use for your wallpaper, it's extremely hard to get a picture centered. The phone lets you choose if you want to have a full-screen wallpaper, centered, or tiled. But for some reason, some of the pictures you take cannot be centered. I took a pic of a logo of my favorite sports team to apply as my wallpaper, but when doing so half of the logo would be cut off, no matter which of the 3 settings i chose. It took me an hour to get the wallpaper i wanted because of quality issues (blurring) and centering problems i endured. Friends with other phones have much better cameras (LG's, Razr, etc..)*You cannot save text messages that you are in the process of writing. If someone calls you when you are writing an essay of a text, you have to start all over... yes you are screwed. The phone doesn't save all the work you have done to the "drafts". If you close the phone during a text or accidently hit the red end call button(the universal button on cell phones that takes you back a screen or to the phones main screen) which is next to the "3" or "def" button, the phone won't save your draft to the drafts. I don't understand why the phone even has a drafts function since you cannot even manually save a text message to the drafts. The only way the phone saves a message to the drafts is if someone textes you while you happen to be writing a text (yes, during those eventual text messaging wars with the girlfriend).*Drop calls. I pretty much get reception everwhere. However, in my bedroom and living room, where i do get full reception, I will lose a call between every 1 and 3 minutes. Funny, cause i will have full service, then i hear static, then nothing, but the other person can hear me, so i look at by bars which are incrementally decreasing, which then i hit the end call button (remember repeatedly because the phone is slow), and when the phone finally ends the call, a few seconds later all of the bars shoot back up and the phone is fine. This process repeats.*Charging is slow. If the phone does die completely, you can forget about using it for the next 30 min to an hour, cause that's exactly how long it takes for the phone to get enough power to start up again. If you try to power the phone before that, it will shut off before it starts up all the way, and you have to wait even longer to use it. Don't forget to charge it every night if you are a heavy talker or you'll be using pay phones the next day. Also, i don't know if this is just my phone or if it is quite common....Apparently the male end of the charger that connects to the wall, and the female end on the phone has a loose contact. My phone will only charge if i keep the charger's connector pressed to the right. I don't know if that makes sense, but because of the wiggle room caused by the design of the forked shaped connector, the phone will only charge if you keep the adapter from wiggling and to the right. I don't have an issue with battery life like other v551 owners, but i would if i didn't charge every night.*I'll get a blank or white screen sometimes. I don't know why but it seems as if the phone freezes for about 10 seconds, but then goes back to the main screen and is fine. It's bizarre. Also the phone will not let me switch skins. When i try to switch skins the phone goes through this freezing process. I think i read from another review that there's a bug or somehting, but it seems that when you open up the box of your 551, "you never know what you're gonna get."*You cannot use the phone's cool features, such as voice dialing; assining #'s as work, home, cell, pager; assinging pics to phone #'s; etc...unless the phone # is saved to the phone. That would be fine, but the phone does not allow you to save the # to both the cell and the SIM without making duplicate entries in the phone's phone book. Yes, that means it takes even longer to scroll through the phone book. So, if you transfer a # to the phone but do not leave a copy on the SIM (because you do not like seeing duplicate entries in the phone book), you cannot use your SIM in another phone and have the same #'s. Or if something happened to your v551 but not your SIM, the #'s would be lost. It's just dumb technology to me....My ancient Nokia and even more ancient phone before that could store the same # on both the phone and the SIM without making a duplicate entry. I do have one # with a duplicate entry in my phone book, and when i select her name to send her a text message, it checks off both entries even though i select only 1 of them. I'm not sure if i'm being charged twice for sending 1 message.*When i first got this phone my girlfriend would say that she texted me and called me, but i wouldn't get a text or a missed call (guess how many fights that caused?). She thought i was crazy until she borrowed my phone one day and witnessed it herself. A month ago, i didn't receive any calls, voicemails, or text messages for 3 days. Right when i thought i was a total loser, my phone started blowing up with 3 day, 2 day, and 1 day old messages that were back logged. Yes my phone was on the whole time, yes i restarted it during the three days, and yes i could make outgoing calls. I could probably blame it on Cingular, but i hate the V551 so much i have to say it's the phone.Don't buy this P.O.S. Go with the much LIGHTER and sleeker samsung e316 or e317. I just received a used e316 and it works great... it even has a color external LCD (pics!!) that the 551 doesn't. If you need Bluetooth try the lighter and sleeker Razr, but i'd be reluctant to after such a bad first impression with Motorola.