Choice for phones

[*Jess♥]

awesome!!

!!!!!!!

I am a little jealous of you because you have a nice new phone to play with

[durendal]

Yeah, like I have the time to sit around all day and just play with my phone. Took me all this time just to fix the language pack and make the GPS work. Which by the way, works wonderfully well. Had a great time coming to the office using the navigation system. And it's not by choice that I bought a new phone but out of necessity. And since I'm going to invest on a new phone, might as well get something good.

Well, I would like to thank you guys for helping me with the choice of purchase and my little after purchase troubles.

[durendal]

Sorry to dig this up again, but I just want to share my excitement over my current phone. Yup, it's still the same Nokia E66, and by gosh, this is one sturdy phone.

Anyway, like I mentioned previously, I've gotten past the predicament of installing chinese language. And it was only recently that I learn the dictionary comes with text to speech, in chinese. But the problem is I can't seem to read the Japanese text. Now, problem solved. I can write in Japanese using my phone. Whoopee! Not to mention the Japanese text to speech works as well. Whoopee!! Got a nice cute girl voice too. Hehehehe. Me Happy!

[*Jess♥]

I thought I might add in to this topic here,

I have been searching for a new phone recently.

man, it takes a lot of research to find something suitable.

I was looking at the blackberry curve 8900 i terms of features and usability. but that is so expensive....

anyway... strangely enough, durendal you would be surprised but after lots and lots of research, I have decided that I wish to get the Nokia E63.

the feature set is going to be very similar to yours, the main difference is that this is wider and has a qwerty keyboard.

this is important for me since i wish to use it as a PDA.

I am saving my money and keeping my eye on ebay. I think I can get one for around £30-£60.

http://europe.nokia.com/find-products/devices/nokia-e63

[durendal]

Might I suggest, that since you're getting the E63, perhaps you would consider looking at the E71 as well. The E63 actually has lesser feature than my phone. You could say that its somewhat of a mass produced model. But then again, E63 is a lot less expensive than the E71. The main advantage of the E71 is that it has a built in GPS, while the E63, you need an attachment for it to work.

You could check out the comparisons of both phones in GSM arena here: http://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone2=2599&idPhone1=2425

[*Jess♥]

thanks, that is good advice.

I did look at the E71 as well.

while I most certainly would like a better phone, cost is a big issue for me.

If I could afford an E71, I actually think I would rather go for a blackberry curve.

GPS might be interesting to have, but to be honest, I actually need it less than most people.

I don't get lost easily. if I have a simple map, that is usually enough.

that is a nice comparison site.

in case you're interested, the site I used to investigate what phone I want is http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/finder.php

I think it's got a good filter system to select a phone.

[durendal]

sorry for the late reply. I'm currently in china and i just found out that they had free wifi in the exhibit hall.

Anyway, is the e71 and blackberry in the similar price range? I'm sure the e71 is a lot cheaper than a crackberry...err...i mean blackberry. I think you'll just have to add a little to get a e71 from the e63. But any of the e series from nokia is still good. They have a solid build and feels tougher compared to the other nokia phones.

This post was made from my nokia e66.

[*Jess♥]

cool, yeah I have been watching ebay and the e71 generally goes for around £200. the blackberry curve 8900 is around £190.

[durendal]

Wait, so you're getting a second hand phone? I'm not sure that would be a wise idea. Or you're just using ebay for price comparisons? But then again, that's way cheaper than my phone. I bought my E66 for around $360. But that is strange, I'm sure the blackberry cost a lot more than the E71. Perhaps it's the origin on the phone? I know that Nokia phones that are made in Finland tends to be more expensive. The price for China/korea made Nokia phones are around 20% cheaper. But I'm not sure if that would be available to you.

[*Jess♥]

i don't think there is anything wrong with a second hand phone.

i think it's crazy to buy a new phone because of the markup on them. although you do then get a guarantee.

I feel it's better to get unused phones that are given free with contracts and then sold on.

I look at some factors.

the phone i currently have is a sony erricson s600i. I have had it for 3 years. I got it from my brother who received it for free with his phone contract.

i could buy a new phone. it will cost me £200.

I could get one the same way as i got my current one, and pay £60-80 for it.

if you have a good job and are well paid, then sure, it may be better to go with a company and have free servicing and replacements etc.

I don't have a well paid job.

[durendal]

I see. You'd be surprised at the kinds of phone some jobless people have over here. I don't even know how they could afford a high end phone. I guess you could attribute this to culture.

Anyway, my reasoning behind not buying second hand phone is because of how the people here treat the phone. Usually, "pimping phones" is somewhat a common trend to mobile phone users over here. People would just go anywhere and have the phones firmware upgraded, or rather "Hack" the phones (for example: some phones are locked to certain mobile carriers, thus they have their phones hacked so that they can use the other mobile carriers). And most of the time, second hand phones tend to have more "errors" compared to that of a brand new phone because of the aforementioned hacking. If it's never been used, then I guess that would be fine. But wouldn't it be very difficult to get good deal off a phone especially from ebay since you really don't know how well maintained the phone is?

[*Jess♥]

as you say, it's probably a culture thing.

If I'm buying off a uk seller, then i have protection by law.

any item i purchase has to be as described. by law.

also, there is not any kind of culture for modifying phones here.

the maximum modification i would expect on a phone is for the network to be unlocked.

this is done by specialised vendors who do that one thing and then nothing else.

the people selling phones on ebay, is because the phone was free with their contract.

either they use the new phone or they sell it.

so if it is being sold, then you can pretty much guarantee they have not used it because they are happy with their current model.

[durendal]

Ahh, good to hear that then. So, have you decided on when to get it yet? I can still remember the feeling of anticipation and the excitement of getting a new phone when I was still researching for the phone I wanted. Do you think it might be a good idea to go to the showrooms of Nokia just to get the feel of the phone before you proceed with buying the actual phone? You've must have probably done that already, no?

I really can't stress enough the solid build of the E-series. I feel that the stainless steel back cover is really one of the strongest point of the phone's design.

[*Jess♥]

hmm, I don't think we have a nokia showroom around here.

I think this handset is being sold in the "3" shop.

yeah it may be worth going there to have a look

I don't know exactly when i will be able to get it.

I am in the process of selling a electronic dictionary, if i get enough to cover the cost of the phone, I will be getting it very soon. if not, I will be able to put aside maybe £10/20 per fortnight. i think that i can get it around 2 or 3 months. maybe sooner.

in the meantime, I made a mockup of the phone out of paper. it is pretty good actually, I have it beside me and i can imagine that i already have the phone. it's very exciting!

[durendal]

Okay.... paper phone...... I don't know if I should take that seriously or laugh out loud.

Seriously, it's a good thing to not rush into it. Who knows, perhaps from now until you get the phone, a new model that has better features and a lot cheaper might come out. Not to mention that the price of the phone might also go down. I noticed this particular trend with Nokia Phones, they tend to depreciate very fast. The first month their expensive as hell, and then the next, they're cheaper like they're throwing them away. Well, that might be an exaggeration, but you get the point.

[*Jess♥]

you can laugh about the paper phone. it's all in fun

as with many things with me, it's half serious, half absurdity.

[*Jess♥]

I got my new phone.

so far it is mostly good, of course with many new technology there is many annoying things.. like for 2 days I could not find out what my own phone number is so nobody could phone me and i had no credit so i couldn't phone anyone. so I had a phone that is not even a phone.

I found it out now.. it was really really obscure place in the menu.

also, the maps is not working, but as soon as i can get a data cable, I can update the software on it and get some stuff sorted out.

i can do wifi, I can collect my emails directly via teh phone, the calendar is excellent, the typing is good, music playing etc is good.

I need to get the network unlocked soon because i don't want to tell all my friends to change my number on their phones.

i was told it would cost around £25

[durendal]

Very nice. Also, about the map, is it the nokia maps? I was told that you could only use them for 2 months and then you have to pay a service fee. But then, I wonder how you could use the map when you don't have AGPS. And it's usually a good idea to upgrade the firmware of your phone, unless you want to hack it that is. I only upgraded my phone's firmware once (if you guys remember, I did this to get the chinese language). Then hacked it so that I can install unsigned applications (I needed to do this because my quickoffice was not a full version, it only allows me to read documents but not create them).

But £25 to get the phone unlocked? Isn't that quite expensive? We could do it a lot less from here. Perhaps you might want to try upgrading the firmware first, who knows, you might not need to bring it to a service center. Or you might want to do it yourself, as stated here: http://www.wikihow.com/Unlock-Your-Nokia-Cell-Phone

Anyway, how does the phone feel in your hands? Not too flimsy I hope.

[*Jess♥]

no, it feels very sturdy actually.

the build quality is very fine.

so, I have spent a fair bit of my evening researching how to possibly unlock, debrand, flash etc... it seems the best and most reliable way to free the phone is to phone teh service provider. it is locked to virgin, I can phone virgin for free and then request an unlock. problem with that though is that they will charge me £15. still, it's not £25 so it is a better option.

there is no site that has a code for my phone and no software that will generate one.

I guess i just have to play by virgin's rules for now. hopefully the unlock will allow me to choose my own firmware. i can then to nokia site and get a fresh install. that should make sure all features work 100%.

the map.. yes is nokia maps. i did not realise there may be a subscription. I may not have gps but i still would expect to be able to browse the map. just with no positioning data. anyhow, I went to google maps. that didn't work either. that's what i found strange.

[durendal]

One thing about Nokia firmware, is that if you decide to upgrade, it will let you upgrade to the latest firmware, and will not let you choose. I used the Nemesis Service Suite to change the settings of my phone (change the phone region) to get my desired language. Though I'm not sure if there is any disadvantage about getting a newer firmware.

Also, if your interested, you might want to check out www.dotsis.com. That's where I usually get my applications from. Although most of them are unsigned, so you sorta need to hack your phone. Got a nice Castlevania game there, Aria of Sorrow. hehehe.

[*Jess♥]

heh heh, sounds cool

well I won't be getting any action games for it. the keypad doesn't lend itself to fast movements.

and if i am waiting somewhere I would alway prefer to play my kanji games.

what better to pass the boredom than to learn something useful.

talking about applications....

actually I found that google has specific mobile apps.

I downloaded google mobile. it is a app that is pure google. but it has voice recognition.

very clever. but the most excellent part is that it has a youtube app plugin for it and also a google maps app plugin! this is not like google maps the website, first of all it actually works... secondly it is AMAZING!

somehow it knows where i am

I don't know what it does... i don't have a GPS on this phone.. I think that somehow it must use a connection to the cell data of the cell network.. and finds out my location from that. very cool! and i can do the directions thingemy, get a route from a to b, i can connect to my google maps account so i can get my saved places and all sorts.

quite simply, google mobile rocks!

[durendal]

Hmm....Google Mobile. I'll have to take a look at that.

With regards to the map showing your position, I think this is network dependent. Some mobile networks utilize this to track where your phone using triangulation from cell sites. I have friends who have a company issued phones that has a tracking device to know where they are. The only drawback about this is that you can only use this when there is a signal. Unlike GPS, since it uses satellites, can be used regardless if there is a signal or not. How long does it take to get a lock on your location?

I'm not really familair with the youtube app plugin, but I can view youtube videos on my default phone browser just fine without any help. What exactly does this plugin do?

I'm really interested in the voice recognition. Some phones already have a built-in voice recognition, but is quite sensitive and frustrating at times when they don't recognize your voice due to a runny nose.

[*Jess♥]

this voice recognition was pretty good.

it got confused between apps and maps a couple of times, and when i said 'guyver' it gave me twitter

but it was mostly prety accurate. It gave me japan legend first time.

the youtube app is basically a more convenient way to access youtube, since the website is optimised for a web browser, it may have trouble fitting on a small screen. this app gives you an easy search and an efficient video display.

I didn't actually notice how long the map took to get a lock. it seems pretty much instant.

it doesn't track automatically as far as i can tell, I could tell it to update my position. but i think it has some sensitivity and maybe updates after moving a certain distance or something.

[durendal]

You know, when you mentioned google maps, it prompted me to do a research. It seems that it tracks your position by many means, thru triangulation, wifi and GPS. This will be very beneficial to me when I go overseas, as my GPS map only covers my country of origin. I've also read that you have to have constant connection to be able to use google maps. I hope you don't mind if I ask a few more questions.

How do you rate google maps in terms of accuracy? (how many meters)

How do you connect to google maps? Did you download it via wifi or through data connection?

Can you download maps from other regions?

Does the navigation work well? How about the directions?

Can you access google maps without any connection? (switching the phone into offline mode)

I still have a lot more questions to ask, so I hope you can bear with me. Since I am on a post paid plan, I'm afraid of experimenting for fear that I will be heavily charge for the data connection due to experimentation.

[*Jess♥]

I'm glad you ask question, It'#s fun to answer.

in accuracy, it is not as good as gps, it put my location inside a house 2doors away, it also put me in a house across teh street. i think accuracy is within about 10 metres. it claims it is within 100 metres, but i think it is more acurate than that. otherwise it would put me in the next street. it never does that.

I dopwnloaded it via my home wireless network. so basically the same connection as my normal internet that is on my pc.

I also connect to the server while using teh maps using the wifi connection to the wlan.

the maps available is basically everything you get when you go to the google maps website. so anywhere in the world.

the navigation is very well. I asked it for directions to my grandma's house and it gave me the directions that i normally take anyway. it even accounts for the one way streets. it doesn't know house numbers though, i asked for my friends house and it just gave me directions to hte street. i am not sure if any other system could be more accurate than that though...

it took me a while to be able to disable my connection, it seems to be automatic, but when i disabled my network connection it gave me a message that it requires a network. it told me to select a new network to use or to exit the program.

I can see how that would be a drawback if you are travelling and want to keep checking the map. you can't see the map if you aren't connected. you would have to connect to a gprs if you want to continue using it. there is no way to save the result to use outside the application.