Geek Phone
May. 27th, 2003 12:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lostcarparkI have a new phone.
I have been intending to upgrade my phone for about three years, and yesterday I finally did it. The main reason I put it off previously is because there was always a cooler phone coming along in a few months. First it was the Nokia 7110, which was very much in vogue after the Matrix, and was the first WAP phone. Unfortunately it had a few problems - bugs in the WAP software, a tentancy for the spring to break, so stuck with my old phone. Then there was the 6210, which was a nicer version of my 6110, whith all the new things that have come along since 1999, but there were even better new things coming along, so I waited. This was followed by the 6310i, which was tri-band, had bluetooth and other things geeks like, but when it came out first it was rather expensive. I also toyed briefly with the idea of getting the 7610 camera phone, but it's just too big and clunky. I even thought about the XDA for a while, and if the rumour that O2 have a warehouse full of them is true, they could be very good value soon.
But then the 6610 came along. It has a pretty colour screen, Wap, GPRS, tri-band, multimedia messenging, a handy address book organiser that lets you group multiple numbers under one name, and predictive text entry (yes, I can now type "cellendromes" for myself), and a radio. It doesn't have a built-in camera, but there is a seperate camera attachment which plugs in. Bluetooth is also missing, but I can live without that. Better still, O2 had a special deal on it which meant that phone and camera attachment only cost me €179 - a bargain! Now that the offer is over, the same package would cost me over €300.
So far, I'm thrilled with it. I haven't done much with the camera yet, as I haven't seen much to take pictures of. But the phone functions are great. I've been busy reorganising my address book, combining people I had seperate home/work/mobile entries for. Adding people's email addresses and web sites (call me sad). I still have to figure out how to get it to talk to the infrared port on my laptop. At the moment it connects for a few seconds, then loses the connection. The colour screen is cool, though, and it's much higher resolution than the older phones, so it gits a lot of text on the screen.
It has something that Nokia phones have been grying out for, a four-way cursor pad. This makes navigating text messages and selecting special characters a whole lot easier. I can jump straight into the calendar by pressing the right arrow, which might make the thing useable. Plus, it can fit a full month on the screen. My old phone had a calendar, but it was too messy to get to, and had insufficient memory to be useful. I've started putting people's birthdays into it, so if you tell me when your's is, I'll do my best to at least text you a birthday greeting.
The one feature I wasn't very keen on is polyphonic ring tones. Well, I've got them, so I'll have to get used to them. There's a ringtone downloader program on the CD, which if I can get the infra-red to work, will let me download ringtones to the phone. Anyone suggest any websites where I can find some? I've got some old monophonic ones, but I'm hoping to find good polyphonic versions of the star wars themes. Especially the Imperial march.
Actually, with the black and silver cover, it does look like Darth Vader's phone. :-)
I have been intending to upgrade my phone for about three years, and yesterday I finally did it. The main reason I put it off previously is because there was always a cooler phone coming along in a few months. First it was the Nokia 7110, which was very much in vogue after the Matrix, and was the first WAP phone. Unfortunately it had a few problems - bugs in the WAP software, a tentancy for the spring to break, so stuck with my old phone. Then there was the 6210, which was a nicer version of my 6110, whith all the new things that have come along since 1999, but there were even better new things coming along, so I waited. This was followed by the 6310i, which was tri-band, had bluetooth and other things geeks like, but when it came out first it was rather expensive. I also toyed briefly with the idea of getting the 7610 camera phone, but it's just too big and clunky. I even thought about the XDA for a while, and if the rumour that O2 have a warehouse full of them is true, they could be very good value soon.
But then the 6610 came along. It has a pretty colour screen, Wap, GPRS, tri-band, multimedia messenging, a handy address book organiser that lets you group multiple numbers under one name, and predictive text entry (yes, I can now type "cellendromes" for myself), and a radio. It doesn't have a built-in camera, but there is a seperate camera attachment which plugs in. Bluetooth is also missing, but I can live without that. Better still, O2 had a special deal on it which meant that phone and camera attachment only cost me €179 - a bargain! Now that the offer is over, the same package would cost me over €300.
So far, I'm thrilled with it. I haven't done much with the camera yet, as I haven't seen much to take pictures of. But the phone functions are great. I've been busy reorganising my address book, combining people I had seperate home/work/mobile entries for. Adding people's email addresses and web sites (call me sad). I still have to figure out how to get it to talk to the infrared port on my laptop. At the moment it connects for a few seconds, then loses the connection. The colour screen is cool, though, and it's much higher resolution than the older phones, so it gits a lot of text on the screen.
It has something that Nokia phones have been grying out for, a four-way cursor pad. This makes navigating text messages and selecting special characters a whole lot easier. I can jump straight into the calendar by pressing the right arrow, which might make the thing useable. Plus, it can fit a full month on the screen. My old phone had a calendar, but it was too messy to get to, and had insufficient memory to be useful. I've started putting people's birthdays into it, so if you tell me when your's is, I'll do my best to at least text you a birthday greeting.
The one feature I wasn't very keen on is polyphonic ring tones. Well, I've got them, so I'll have to get used to them. There's a ringtone downloader program on the CD, which if I can get the infra-red to work, will let me download ringtones to the phone. Anyone suggest any websites where I can find some? I've got some old monophonic ones, but I'm hoping to find good polyphonic versions of the star wars themes. Especially the Imperial march.
Actually, with the black and silver cover, it does look like Darth Vader's phone. :-)
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no subject
Date: 2003-05-27 08:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-05-28 05:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-05-28 06:07 am (UTC)I know You are Right, but what exactly bugs you about the Nokia UI? I have played with a lot of phones, and Nokia was the first one I used that made any sense. But maybe it just suits my mindset.
I agree the colour screen and camera are a bit gimmicky, though the higher resolution does enhance usability, and I'm hoping the camera will be good enough to take snaps for my website when I wouldn't ordinarily have one with me.
Anyway, the offer from O2 was just too good to turn down.
no subject
Date: 2003-05-28 06:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-05-28 09:15 am (UTC)I never thought of web surfing IN BED!!! tain't natural :-)
no subject
Date: 2003-05-29 04:46 am (UTC)A PAIR of USB Class 1 (long-range) BT adaptors cost me £25 plus P&P. For that, it's hard to resist. Wish my Psion had it!
But I want a phone for comms, nothing else. No games, no colour, no camera, no WAP. I have a PDA for that and it does it better than any phone. If I could have a Psion with colour, games, Bluetooth, camera, MP3 etc, I'd buy it tomorrow. The closest is a top of the range Clié and that's not very close at all. PalmOS is very limited, the screen's half the size of mine and the keyboard is a useless toy.
no subject
Date: 2003-05-29 11:16 am (UTC)I've never quite managed to get into PDAs. I guess they just don't fit my mindset. I'm also useless with diaries. However, ever since I got a mobile phone, I've found the address book almost more useful than the phone. So, you never know, I might actually actually find I use the calendar in the phone, which might result in me becomming organised (shock, horror).
I like the idea of having one device that I always have with me containing all the information I need (as an aside, my USB memory disk is proving invaluable in this regard).
no subject
Date: 2003-05-29 01:34 pm (UTC)