Category: Mobile Phones

  • How Many Mobile Phones Do You Carry?

    I’m currently carrying three mobile phones…

    • Sony Ericsson K800i for personal use
    • Indestructible Nokia 6230i for work use
    • Slow-to-react Nokia E50 for KKM / Jaiku / Twitter (meteor sim)

    I’ll be ditching the E50 within the next month or two – hasn’t exactly worked out as I planned. The speaker phone and call quality is fine, battery life is fine, I’ve been able to toy around with some S60 themes and designs but navigating through the phone is slow – lengthy screen refreshes aren’t something I care for.

    My intention is to combine the K800i and E50 into an N95 when the next gen model arrives. The 8GB version is on the Vodafone Christmas list, hopefully too making the O2 one as I’m due a contract upgrade in 2-3 weeks time.

    The K800i is a terrific phone, albeit lacking in speaker phone quality but I resolved that issued earlier in the year with a tip from Bernie on making your own car kit (works great – K800i audio routing through my iPod FM transmitter to the radio). Outside of calls, the big attraction for me is the 3.2mp camera in the phone which is great for taking photos on days and nights out. The 6230i operates on a different number, different contract rate and does what it does best – make and receive calls, no frills. The E50’s purpose was to route Jaiku / Twitter SMS away from my phone and allow me to control the spend on it (plus the Meteor international SMS rates are a lot cheaper than other mobile providers in Ireland).

    Sitting down to lunch with people I often get strange looks explaining the presence of 3 mobile phones beside me on the table, but then I read this morning that 47,000 Koreans are currently carrying over four mobile phones each. Of course, if you’re a foreign national living in Korea you’re legal limit is two mobile phones (an attempt to cut down on illegal or illicit activities?).

    Can’t say I’d ever see myself carrying around four devices but I’m looking forward to ditching at least one of these phones anyway! Anyone else in the three-and-up mobile bracket?

  • Nokia N95 8GB – Christmas Present Dressed In Black

    When I was down in the O2 store recently to collect a Nokia E50 for KilkennyMusic.com I toyed around a little with a Nokia N95 display model and thought – yep, sure is pretty. Then you read God knows how many good things about it online, see the blog reports, the videos, catch photos of people with N95’s dotted around them…

    Nokia N95
    Nokia N95, Black, 8GB

    Then yesterday I was driving through Waterford in search of breakfast and passed the big billboard at the outer ring round (by the RSC) which had a massive N95 on it with the tagline “Its What Computers Have Become” underneath. They’re right too.

    Then this morning I’ve been following the likes of Bernie Goldbach, Damien Mulley and Conor O’Neill tracking the Nokia event in London where the next issue of the N95 has been touted.

    Nokia N95 8GB
    Nokia N95, Black, 8GB

    It looks nice in silver, but it sure packs a punch in black.

    With my personal O2 contract up for discussion / renewal in October and an upgrade on the cards I reckon I’ve just found my Christmas present. Why couldn’t the iPhone have a 5mp camera?