Update: Noticed this press release dated February 23, 1998, announcing the commercial availability of the MicroTAC SC-725, SC-725CV, and DMT-8000 models, nearly a year after the above SC-725 press release (which was taken down by the time this was archived).
http://web.archive.org/web/199902021813 ... _cdma.htmlI've also done some searching in the old
alt.cellular and
alt.cellular.motorola Usenet discussion groups via Google Groups. The discussions there substantiate that the SC-725 didn't become available until early to mid 1998 after the February press release. The SC-925's 1997 press release is apparently also misleading, and it also didn't come out until at least 1998. As for the SC-720, according to some posts, it was marketed in Hong Kong through Hutchison Telecom for a time, but never in the U.S. It apparently wasn't well-received, factors including reportedly short battery life (up to 7 hours standby time with a standard-capacity battery!), the fact that it only had an 8 kbps vocoder, and the LED display. (The SC-725 -- which has a 13 kbps vocoder -- had a more favorable reception.) Needless to say, this is quite a rare and interesting phone!