Phones and the relentless march of technology

[Crackle]

..........It's a Sony Ericsson W810i. The case is 100% plastic, which is a great material to make phones out of..........

You think: I can't see it catching on myself.

 

[Deleted member 1258]

I have been using one of these
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/04/23/review_samsung_m110_solid/
for the last couple of years, good basic phone, tough as old boots, long battery life. I don't need a fancy phone and if I had one the powder and dust at work would quickly ruin it.

 

[ColinJ]

I've stopped taking mine on rides, everyone else has one. Five telephones riding along the road, how contactable do you need to be!

It's only because I organise those particular rides. If there are 4 of us at the meeting point and 2 riders haven't turned up yet - do we wait for them, or not? We could have a rigid rule that we leave on time and if you are late - tough, but that seems unfriendly. People can be delayed through no fault of their own e.g. if the train they are coming in on is running late.

I was riding out with goodspeed a few months ago to meet PaulB for a ride and Paul got knocked off his bike but was able to ring us and tell us that he couldn't make it.

I don't need to be contactable at any other time. In fact, I don't even switch my mobile on most of the time. Sometimes I discover messages on it which are several weeks old. Everybody (except for family and close friends) uses CycleChat PM or email if they want to get in touch with me.

 

[Mr Pig]

You think: I can't see it catching on myself.

My phone has a metal case. I dropped it a while ago and one corner chipped and the back buckled slightly so that the two halves aren't tight shut now. Not a huge deal but no where near as resilient as plastic. Quite a few phones have metal parts on the case these days. I wouldn't buy another one.

 

[fossyant]

Love my HTC Magic (Google G2 - Android software).....

I had an early Window's Mobile HTC a few years back - dead clever but the touch screen was iffy....ended up going back to a standard Sony phone for a couple of years, then got the new HTC..... blooming great - good interface, great - even easy to phone people and text....what ever next............

My Father in law has got totally hissed off with his i-phone - eats the battery in a day...can't turn it off completely (eh.....?) and the GPS is always on....... apparently this is common...... any i-phone experts here.....

 

[Aperitif]

Love my HTC Magic (Google G2 - Android software).....

I had an early Window's Mobile HTC a few years back - dead clever but the touch screen was iffy....ended up going back to a standard Sony phone for a couple of years, then got the new HTC..... blooming great - good interface, great - even easy to phone people and text....what ever next............

My Father in law has got totally hissed off with his i-phone - eats the battery in a day...can't turn it off completely (eh.....?) and the GPS is always on....... apparently this is common...... any i-phone experts here.....

+1 - it seems that people who keep their bikes clean like the Hero / G2 way of things...
One tip: if anyone gets a Hero, G2, or the similar model from their service provider, get your googlemail account set up via PC first of all. This is to ensue that you can then load Google Apps.
When you fire up the 'phone for the first time, you will be asked to set up accounts and google will be one of them. Type in (nice touch screen keyboard / intuitive / easy)your username and then password and run through the rest of the set-up...
If you don't do this, and want to log-in to google 'Barcode reader' application for example - you will get error messages 'Your SIM does not accept data...not enough stable connection' etc...
The only way to resolve that is by doing a 'factory reset'.
Log into google when you first get your phone.

The application 'Barcode reader' is fun BTW!

 

[Brains]

About 5 years ago Nokia produced the very popular NOKIA 5210, known as the "Builders Phone" , it was cheap, shock proof, splash proof, it made calls, it sent texts, it had a few basic features useful to builders such as a compass, decibel meter and a spirit level and that was it.

The phone was very popular in it's day as anyone involved in outdoor sports and work wanted one.

Nokia then withdrew the phone and it has never been replaced it. (Hence it has a high resale value on e-bay)

I found out (from a salesman) the reason for the withdrawl was it was too good.
It did not break, the users would not upgrade to anything else, and they did not use the features that make money such as downloads or accessing the internet.

Mine still works, just. It's been dropped, frozen, soaked, bounced in panniers and I can't replace it.

 

[Fab Foodie]

I just use the basic Nokia (an older version of Mr Pig's type of phone) that the company gives me and pays the bill for. It's enough.

 

[Downward]

I've stopped taking mine on rides, everyone else has one. Five telephones riding along the road, how contactable do you need to be!

We've got a couple of 3310s lying unloved in the kitchen drawer. A few years ago I got my wife one of these and it's a fantastic phone, she loves it.

It's a Sony Ericsson W810i. The case is 100% plastic, which is a great material to make phones out of, and seems to take any abuse you can throw at it. Camera takes really good pictures, even in low light, has a flash and lots of other 'proper camera' functions. It has other cool practical features to, like being able to use the flash as a torch, plus a really good Walkman. It's just a solid, no frills, little phone with the kind of features you'll actually use. Highly recommended.

Old school !
My wife had the white one.
My fav phone ever was the W800i

I have the C905 now. It does the same as the W800i but has GPS which I never use and WIfi which never works !

It's been off for repair twice so I have used my D900i which is so much faster.

 

[Mr Pig]

My fav phone ever was the W800i

The W810i is was just an updated W800i, they are practically the same phone. In fact if you take the clothes off a K750i it's exactly the same as a W810i too ! Basically they took the W810i, changed the case, dumbed down the software and sold it as a cheaper phone. Ok, not exactly but not far off. The K750i got a little joystick thing though which needs cleaning out all the time as it gets full of crap and plays up.

Just talking to my son, who killed his phone recently, and he says he can't wait to get another Sony Ericsson. Which is a bit of a shame as we've bought one of these for his Christmas...

 

[soulful dog]

For someone else in the family we got a specialist phone - where you program the sim with 5 numbers, and the phone just has 5 big buttons, one for each number, and on/off and answer, no display at all.

What phone is that, anywhere online I can get more information?

"I don't want real-phonic ring tones, or internet, or twitter or tweet or twat, or lifestyle office usage profile google. I just want a phone. A bog ordinary phone that I can call and text people on. That's all."

<silence>

"Oh, umm, I'm sorry sir! We don't sell anything like that".

I tried asking for a phone with a long battery life and without a camera but didn't get very far. I then decided if I was going to have to get a phone/camera/MP3 player then I'd go for the cracking looking Sony Ericsson W810i that Mr Pig bought his wife, but they'd stopped selling them a while back....

I eventually got a Sony C510 and do like the battery life I get with it. I can also use the internet on it, but as it's only a PAYG phone that I top up every few months, I'll probably never use it as it's too expensive (at least I expect it would be, I've never really tried it!). The one thing I might find useful is the ability to use google maps, but as I have 3G turned off to improve battery life, it's not very specific in pinpointing my location

 

[rh100]

What phone is that, anywhere online I can get more information?

It was this one: http://www.matobmobile.co.uk/index.php?id=easy_5_phone

from Matomobile - they were quick to deliver, and when we bought a replacement charger, they did not rip us off.

They don't seem to do it now though,

this seems to be the closest match:

http://www.matobmobile.co.uk/index.php?id=doro_handle_plus_334_gsm_mobile_phone_big_buttons

but they have a wider range on the site - I would give them a call and see what they recommend.

 

[karen.488walker]

My iphone is the most fantastic thing in the world. all my calendars are synched. I got lost in a forest and my iphone got me out. I now have a vague idea when my period is due. I can quieten the children in any queue by handing it to them. Find a pub off a motorway. Locate any address + a torch, ocado, radio, ipod, email, cycle computer, Nike+. Just don't know how neanderthals lived without them.

 

[soulful dog]

Cheers for the link rh100, I'll definitely save that for future reference. They are a bit pricey, however that phone looks really ideal.

 

[Mr Pig]

this seems to be the closest match

£100 for a phone that can only call four people!?