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Nokia 5100 Reviewed
An anonymous reader writes "Just read a review of Nokia's 5100 mobile phone. This phone has an integrated flashlight, FM tuner, a calorie burn application, sound meter and thermometer. And yet there is no Bluetooth capabilites. Is the cell phone market getting so desperate that companies are adding everything including the kitchen sink to sell these phones? Why would you want a sound meter or a calorie tracking application in a cell phone?" Looks like a good phone for people who like phones to look gaudy. Bells and whistles aside, the flashlight feature sounds pretty practical. A sound meter though?
This phone has an integrated flashlight, FM tuner, a calorie burn application, sound meter and thermometer.
Nokia 5200 has a built in microwave
--
The sound meter seems pretty useless to me, but i guess, since a phone typicly has a microphone build in (d'oh), all it takes is a piece of software.
Teens will no doubt also fall in love with the 5100's total customizability.
Sound meter actually quite cool, phone automatically adjust speaker volume depending how much there is background noise while speaking. It rocks! ;)
http://archonon.sytes.net/
=)
Nokia used to make the best phones -- compact, reliable, with modern features. Now their phones look like Nokia raided Ideo's discard pile. These phones look great as objects, but each new Nokia suggests "phone" to me less and less.
If you want a feature packed monster, go for the Sony-Ericsson P800. Now THAT is a phone!
I guess it beats using my old nokia green blacklit screen to find my missing contact when it falls out at the movies...
"You had this look that of an angel, it was such a bad disguise" --Dishwalla
Insightful? This is just silly stereotyping mixed in with geek-wanking. Taco, why can't we have a "-1, Stupid" mod?
Clearly the calorie burn meter is to find out how much energy you waste playing snake...
It blows my mind that they throw all of this stuff in there. Yet again a company packages bloatware and throws it out into the market so many people can buy it for many reasons. It is me or are these phones becoming the new "Microsoft-ish" bloatware repositories?
Too much, too expensive.
why would the leave out the bluetooth connectivity?
I think that bluetooth would be more valuable than a flashlight, or the thermometer.
They include stuff that just about nobody will use, and leave out bluetooth. I think that a great selling point of Bluetooth would be local wireless multiplayer games. Then you would convince people to get this phone so that you can play games.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
I dunno about other phones, but the last 2 Sony Ericsson's I've bought (T68, T610) have big enough screens and bright enough backlights to see by!
So I don't have to suffer taping a mini mag-light to my handset now? Phew.
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
The phones today are becoming the one thing you don't go out of home without one. This is the reason we are seeing more and more things integrated in phones. A picture is word 1000 words? then take it. You want to remember something? record yourself speaking. etc...
Are all this possibilities usefull? One nevers knows. I'd really like to take a termometer and a sound meter to my work place. Then I would have objectives reasons to say "I'm feeling cold" and "It's really noisy in here".
This way perhaps my workmates wouldn't find strange that I am with t-shirt, shirt, sweeter and sport jacket in my workplace (It's nearly summer, I want to sweat dammit!)
Be happy.
So, when do we all just sit down and admit that our phones have acqured way too many useless features. I'm sorry, but who needs a calorie counter in their phone? All the atheletes I know who use such a device wouldn't want a low-end one like this; they'd use the higher-end systems like Polar makes. Ditto with the FM radio: beyond the question of who actually listens to the radio beyond their desk, car or gym, who would want to burn their phone battery doing this? It all seems pretty nuts...
"Stumble before you crawl"
That is a little simplistic (not to mention quite sexist) - I think it is marketed at the kind of person who would buy useless upgrades like the glow in the dark alloys.
Or the kind of people who buy SUV's, that is more the target 'demographic'
At the end of the day, what I want from a mobile phone is the ability to make calls, a battery that lasts ages, and the ability to recieve text messages. All the rest of this shite doesn't interest me in the slightest. I have a torch I carry around anyway.
An infinite number of monkeys will eventually come up with the complete works of
Out of all the cell phones I've ever had, I've always admired the usability of Nokia's menus.
But what the heck are they thinking with these stupid non-standard dialpad layouts? Do they assume that everyone likes using voice dial? I like the ability to be able to blindly use my phone without looking at it, navigating by feel and memory.
The use for the sound meter is obvious.
:-)
Often, when I am sitting in a movie talking loudly on my cell phone, I want to know how loud the movie is so I can put protective ear plugs in to save my hearing. Right now, I just start the movie with them in, but it makes it hard to hear my phone ring.
They left out Emacs, after all.
Hmmm.... I ride bicycles, motorcycles, go camping, skiing, etc. I think I lead a fairly active lifestyle. And yet I would not touch this Nokia with a 10ft pole. I like Nokia, my 2 year old 8260 has 700 hours of talktime on it (I have no landline for those who are wondering). It's still working well, after a few faceplate and backplate changes and a couple of thorough cleanups inside (dropping your phone while biking will tend to crack stuff)
I can understand rugged designs, but why did they have to make it look like a 2 year-old's toy? I'd really like to see the design team that thought this cell phone was attractive, because most people will hate it. Why are most companies unable to create a rugged design while keeping a professional-looking exterior? Panasonic proved it can be done with their Toughbooks, but in terms of cellphones I'm yet to see such a product.
But I guess for everything there is a market niche, no matter how small. This phone is probably targeted to those who install led lit cases and antenas on their mobiles. To each his own I suppose.
I have a Sony Ericsson T68i. It sucks. It feels ergonomically weird, the navigation stinks, and, most importantly, the number pad is painful to use. The buttons are small, not alligned, and you have to bend your thumb at a weird angle to dial. The flip-open StarTak-like phones with nice buttons are the way to go. Also, ever hear of Cingular? AVOID THEM LIKE SARS! Long live the StarTak.
While I agree the parent deserves "-1 Stupid", I wouldn't go saying his comments are stereotyping. I mean, how many men do know who would take advantage of a calorie counter?
You'll have that sometimes...
As someone who designs embedded hardware, I can probably explain a couple of the hardware-based features for those wondering why they're included.
:-)
- Sound level metering is relatively trivial to implement when you're already digitizing a sound stream
- The phone's battery pack might well already feature an IC containing a temperature sensor. It's not unusual for so-caleld "smart" battery monitor chipsets (such as the Dallas Semiconductor DS2438) to have onboard temperature sensing, because "smart" charging of modern battery cells requires this.
So, the designers of the phone just found novel ways to use the existing components. Often made even easier as a lot of the separate ICs in phones these days are actually sitting on a 1, 2 or 3-wire bus (1-wire, I2C, SPI, etc).
FYI...just in case anyone cares
-psy
These features aren't aimed at women, they're aimed at teenagers.
Teenagers are far more fashion-concious than any other demographic grouping, and are far more likely to upgrade their handsets for cosmetic reasons than adults who'll use a phone until it breaks down of they have a compelling reason to upgrade (eg, Bluetooth).
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
I think its more targeted towards those who lead 'active lifestyles' as with their previous 5xxx series . Those who exercise regularly at the gym or outdoors would find the dust/water resistant feature, ruggedness, calorie calculator app and FM receiver a great feature set. Just because there is a calorie calculator doesn't make it targeted towards women. Both male and female athletes keep track of their calories usage vs intake for optimal performance in sports. Besides, IMHO, this phone design hardly qualifies as 'cute'.
I'm not quite sure about the Calorie Burn meter, that might just be to throw off the CIA or FBI, but the rest of the functionality is obvious:
Flashlight - So the Finnish spies can see where they're going and crack safes.
FM Tuner - To receive secret messages coded as Finnish boy-band songs.
Sound Meter - So they know when they're about to go over the threshold of security systems based on sound volume.
Thermometer - Same thing, but temperature based.
It pretty much looks like a bunch of devices from Sneakers rolled into one without the thermal suit. Good thinking on the Calorie burn meter, that'd throw anyone off.
Karma: Not Particularly Funny.
The Danger Hiptop has an undocumented flashlight feature. Type Menu-F at the jump screen.
As a famous cybersecurity expert, I was issued a pre-release sample of this phone for testing. I'm afraid that I cannot endorse it. Here's why.
Nice try, "Nokia," but I'm afraid that this new phone is totally worthless.
Sincerely,
Seth Finklestein
HowardChui.com
I'm friends with Howard, and got to see it then. It's a decent phone, and the white LED flashlight is really handy at times (much like the Photons). As for the sound meter and themometer, I guess you can use it when reviewing the latest PC =)
Working in technical theater, having a sound meter built into my cell phone would seem pretty cool with me.
If you can program them in certain ways.
I can see the sound meter as a quasi-alarm intruder alert type thing...pick up a sound, an alarm goes off type deal.
The flashlight is obvious and I think a great idea. I've been stuck so many times and used my Nokia 3585i as a light source.
The calorie counter I could use, since I'm a fat slob. Of course, I doubt simply having this feature will make me stop stuffing my fat face.
The thermometer again could be used as an alarm, or a temp check...if it's sensitive enough, to let you know when something hits a certain temp...but I don't see me putting my phone into the oven to check on the Thanksgiving turkey.
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
With the sound meter you can measure how loud that dude has to say "Can you hear me now?" to be hear over the static.
Think construction sites, factory floors, heavy machinery, kindergartens (picture 20 kids playing, er, screaming at the top of their lungs) etc. All extremely noisy, sometimes over the top. Developed countries have regulations on noise level, the responsible personnel needs a simple and practical way to measure the level.
Trusted Computing FAQ | Free Dawit Isaak!
It's also missing audio multimedia messaging. I.e., you can't record a voice message and send it as a clip. It only has MIDI MMS for ring tones (bleh.)
And that is that you can't start a sentance with the word "And" like this submission does.
Oh, fek. Look what I just did. Arrgh, this post will explode in 10 seconds!!
Unlike the Samsung TGH-500, which is really targeted at women. I don't think many men have use for the menstruation calendar that this phone offers unless it's... um don't shoot me... for tracking the mood swings of his female companion.
Being a woman, I think this phone does sound and look a little woman centric. Most of my guy friends would not be crazy about the design of this phone. I however am drooling over the calorie counter. Plus, the flashlight can be used for all sorts of girly things, like trying to find things at the bottom of my purse. Just last week, I was in the restroom trying to put in a tampon when the electricity went out and I couldn't see a thing. I really wished that I had a flashlight then!
I was mostly annoyed with his delivery, which was basically "Women are impulse purchasers except those who happen to have my interests, but those aren't 'real' women." It was the double-shot of sexism ('real' women) and ego-stroking that pissed me off.
An application that actually burns calories?!!
Jesus!!! Has someone ported this to Linux yet?!!
I planned on inserting something witty here but never got around to it.
Would be pretty interesting in a club or a concert to see just how damaged my ears are getting.
Probably it's used for the automatic volume control and someone figured it'd be a fun little toy to let the user have access to it as well.
The question still remains...does it work as a phone? Sony-Ericsson and the 8200 series and many other new "tech phones" drop calls, have bad conncection, and break after the first drop. 3 decades of cell-phone technology and they still don't realize that the best phones have an external antenna. I'll stick iwth my old billy-club-size mobile until they can solve those frequent problems.
Most SUV buyers/drivers are women. :)
Woohoo! No more strawberry Slimfast shakes for me!
\\ Mitch
OK, now it's time to bring in the hackers to exploit this thing. Then all the /. folks can get bent out of shape when Nokia brings up the question of patents and IP and such...
The phone is designed for "active" people who like to work out. Just looking at the design, and noting the fact that it is water-resistant and hardened should clue anyone in that it's made for people to use while they're exercising. As such, the calorie tracking application is something I'd find useful. I don't like to carry a bunch of crap to the gym when I workout, but I usually take my cell phone with me. This one I can use as a walkman (listen to FM radio), record my calories (takes the place of similar PDA apps, or a pen & paper), and also handle any phone calls or whatever. And BTW it has other PIM features like address book, calendar, and to-do list which are the only features I really use on my PDA.
So far as the sound meter is concerned, I'm not really sure what that's for. I guess so that instead of saying "Speak up! It's really noisy here!" you can say "Speak up! It's the ambient sound level is 125dB here!"
Alot of my friends in Europe say that the NOKIA is a P.O.S. (Trash for you under-age /.ers) .
Can anyone in europe provide a bias. Personally I view US Cellphones as disposable, almost no different then a HD you upgrade.
There's no Freedom like UFP-dom
Um... I'm a guy but, why do you need a flashlight to put in a tampon? Maybe if it was stuck and you had to get it out I could see, but putting it in?
The StarTak phone was built by people who grew up with classic Trek, and wanted communicators.
To the next gen, communicators are passe, so they've given us the tricorder.
I'm just hoping the next generation after this phone gives us phasers.
What were you expecting?
.. like a radiation detector and some way of detecting remote life forms and we've got our first true tricorder!
ERROR 144 - REBOOT ?
if(user.location=="usa"||user.phone.protocol=="CDM A"){
user.phone.technology.years=Now.Date() - 10;
user.satisfaction.level="low";
user.phone.features-=20;
user.phone.price++;
user.phone.charges++;
}
else {
user.phone.technology.years=Now.Date();
user.satisfaction.level="high";
user.phone.features*=20;
user.phone.price-=5;
user.phone.charges-=5;
}
And yet there is no Bluetooth capabilites. Is the cell phone market getting so desperate that companies are adding everything including the kitchen sink to sell these phones? Why would you want a sound meter or a calorie tracking application in a cell phone?
Bluetooth is just another one of these features.
Now, the decibel level hardware were able to adjust the phone's ring/speaker volume to be appropriate for the conditions, I'd say that would be more useful than Bluetooth. I'm willing to bet it does and the reviewer just didn't notice. The sound meter app is probably just because-we-can-ware.
Do you keep a nazi plate in a locakable glass cabinet by any chance?
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
Ah, yes, Metallica before they discovered the carnal delights of other mens rectums.
"Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
this thing is flat out fuckin' ugly as hell!
However, Liberace would be proud of them.
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
It may be oriented towards teens, but the 3650 has a camera, Bluetooth, IrDA, GPRS, MMS, SMS, everything that I want in a phone (well, Bluetooth and GPRS mostly). And it runs Symbian so I've been able to find a range of software for it.
To the tune of the Oscar Meyer Wiener Song
Oh, Nokia is my first name
That's N-O-K-I-A
5100 is my last name
That's 5-1-0-0, hey!
Oh, I wish I were a blue Nokia cell phone
Even if I doen't have built-in Bluetooth
Cause if I were a blue Nokia cell phone
I could keep track o' my calories!!!
This phone sounds appealing and technologically advanced... but are cell phone companies really going this far. Is is desperation or innovation?
I cant say Nokias phones are crap, it varies with the model.
A few years ago it was different, there where only 3 (serious) phonemakers: Motorola, Nokia and Ericsson.
Of these Ericssons where the most advanced and reliable, Nokias where pretty and Motorolas had the best battery life.
Then Ericssons phones lost quality because they tried to launch/design too many models at the same time (around the 6xx and 7xx.. i'd say '98-ish) and they where crushed by Nokia (and had to join with sony to avoid going bust) when all the kids in europe could afford to buy phones and bought the coolest looking instead of the technologically superior.
Today Nokia totaly dominates the market and has the resources to pump out zillions of different models, and also the skills to make good ones if that is a priority.
If you want a dependable phone i'd say Nokias 3xxx line or their 6xxx line.
... and the look is quite nice :P
-GZE
Here's some insights for you:
the flashlight is useful. I've got a photon microlight on my keychain, but once it's stuffed in a pocket with keys and wallet, it's not handy to get to.
The phone, in it's own little pocket is just great for that.
The soundmeter, and calorie counter: i've never used. They are just toys. I don't bother with them.
The FM radio is a godsend. I used to have a nokia 5510 - the mp3 player, but the software to copy mp3s was so bad that i only used to listen to the radio on it. The radio is brilliant for bus journeys, or just 'tuning out' for a bit between university lectures.
The picture messaging is a novelty. I don't use it, cos not enough of my friends use it either.
GPRS sucks - it very much feels like it's the same speed as WAP, and there's no real advantage. But the java games and applications are great (especially with a little searching on wap sites, you can download them for free)
But the phone is light, strong, relatively small, with good battery life, reliable signal strength for where i live, and while it may not look as flashy as the camera phones, or have the technology of the third generation mobiles currently available, I like it a lot, and I really don't see why people are so negative about it, unless they've actually used it.
Andyboy_H
I've been noticing this for a while. Everyone in the industry is trying to stay afloat by packing in useless features into their products.
Microsoft:
Office - XP performs nearly the exact same tasks as 2000.
IE - We've been able to browser the web fine since 4.0, but somehow they've bloated it up to 6.
Windows - need i say more
Hardware:
My machine runs at 1.1GHz. I might upgrade for Half-Life 2 when it comes out in sept, but really... do we need 3GHz cpu's and 1GB ram to browse the web?
Phones:
My cell phone is a nokia 3361 (AT&T's Prepaid package). I pay roughly $10/month for service and use it only for necessities. No color screen, no voice dialing, no GSM/GPRS crap. It does what it needs to.
I really wish there world wasn't driven by the need to sell sell sell. Unfortunatelly, if these companies started producing *quality* products that were dependable, but cost 3x... they would go out of business pretty rapidly.
I think that is part of what is contributing to our economy problems: Everyone with a PIII 1.5GHz box doesn't see the need to upgrade again, for example.
no comment
I have been using 5100 to provide my internet connection through GPRS connection. My phone company has been DNA.
For some reason it seems to jam the connection every now and then. Still the GPRS connection sign stays even when trying to disconnect in these cases. I have tried this in Linux and Windows XP. I dont think that this is because DNA but rather because of the phone's software. I'm thinking of getting it's software (v. 3.02) upgraded ASAP.
Making connection using infraded device was pain in Linux. It really sucked. I managed to get the connection working with wvdial. There simply wasn't enough instructions.
Other than that I have been most pleased with it.
A sound meter? Thank god! No more watching people screaming into their phone thinking it will somehow cause the reception to make them be heard better. Or at least it'll let the clueless know how annoying they are being.
Next feature added should be a stun gun. When the sound meter pegs out it discharges into the side of your head.
I have a friend who is a real cheap bastard. He bought a new phone and he is ranting and raving about all the new features it has like games, a world map and a tip calculator. I said, now that you have a tip calculator, are you going to start leaving tips, and he simply responds no.
Perhaps bluetooth is not included because Nokia's marketing droids have determined it would be unprofitable to develop a robust implementation. You can bet Nokia will finally include bluetooth when the bells and whistles stop selling new equipment. They'll do it or die. Bluetooth is however already essential to many people for whom Nokia is already dead.
Where's the piano wire or the snakebite kit?
Maybe the sound meter will signal the user if they themselves are talking too loudly. I'm getting sick and tired of listening to people scream into their cell phones. A speakerphone would be a great feature; then at least we could hear both sides of their conversations.
This post is dedicated to all of those
The sound meter seems pretty useless to me, but i guess, since a phone typicly has a microphone build in (d'oh), all it takes is a piece of software.
Actually, that could be really useful if it works slightly differently than as advertised. Frequently, I will be using my phone in a semi-public (or, worse yet, public) place, and after hanging up, I'll realize that I've been more or less screaming into the mouthpiece. I have no idea of why I do this, but if grocery store phone-talkers are any indicator, this is a common behavior. I'd like to see a sound meter built into a phone that monitors the volume of my own speech. When I get too damned loud, the phone would gently beep at me, or light up a little light at the base of the handset, thus reminding me that I'm being annoying.
-Waldo Jaquith
Sounds pretty dumb. I would KILL (not quite) for a Verizon/Samsung phone with bluetooth.
May I suggest the SPH-n270
Trinity uses one, so should you.
"Jerk store Jerry, jerk store... Jerk store!"
but its the truth, bitch. women should never have been given the right to vote without the other responsibilites that men have to shoulder. what a stupid bitch you are. now shut up and quit bitching whilst i fuck you like the sex-toy you are.
One thing which older Mots do and I haven't seen on any Nokia is a shortcut menu.
In two keys I can read or write text messages or the phone book. I can turn vibrate on, listen to voice memos and set an alarm. Really easy to use, saves a lot of time and I just can't find modern phones that have this! Even though they seem to have developed even more buttons!
Sorry but this bugs me...
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
There's a reason politically correct people work minimum wage jobs in bookstores and not in highly paid marketing positions.
It's a chick phone, accept it.
Do those who require a sound meter in there cell phone ever get any exercise (calorie meter) or leave a temperature controlled room?
Wow! Review a gadget designed for the exercise and activity oriented on a geek site and the criticisms come firing in like donuts over cubicle walls. All these features are cheap, easy and appreciated. Out of 20 times that I read "It doesn't even have Bluetooth!", only once did someone back it up with a use for the Holy Grail, Bluetooth (Wireless games amongst close friends). That does sound cool, but perhaps not for the active exercisers. WHat will they use it for?... Sharing their calorie info? Bluetooth will come when it is cost effective to put it in, based on things it could be used for. I can't think of other things to do with a phone with Bluetooth. Please enlighten me...
It may be sexist, but it's true. I want a phone with a good battery, good signal and easy to use phone book. My fiance on the other hand goes for looks. She wanted the T68 because of the camera. She doesn't like flip phones and thinks the other ones are cute. Especially if they have pretty buttons a a good screen. She dragged me around to every store at universal studios and called the most useless junk cute. She would have bought it to if it wasn't for me. Next time you think I'm sexist, go out to a shopping mall and think for a second why 90% of the stores cater to women when they are supposed to earn less than men on average.
What's the use in a flash cellphone if you never leave the house?
I have a torch I carry around anyway.
I think you're right. You're not part of their target market, Og.
it would be great for men practicing the catholic method of birthcontrol too
Everything that's wrong with the telecom industry (or at the very least, the mobile phone industry) is encapsulated in this phone. Why do I own a DVD player? To play DVD's. Why do I own an air conditioner? To cool my house. Why do I own a phone? To communicate with other people.
I need all this other garbage on this phone like I need a dishwasher on my VCR. Meanwhile, call quality has actually dropped with the increasing use of built-in antennas (like on the Nokia 5100), at the same time as all these useless new features like calorie counters have been added to the mix.
Service providers are not exempt from the same criticism (and let's face it; they're the ones who ask phone manufacturers to include or not include certain features, so the phones are partly their fault to begin with). They've spent the last several years adding new features to their services such as downloadable graphics and ring tones, video games, etc. without doing much of anything at all to increase their basic service quality itself despite an increasing number of complaints about signal strength, even in major metro areas. And let's not even talk about 3G, shall we?
The last time I bought a new phone it was because I physically destroyed my old one in a fit of anger at about my 20th lost call in a row (I threw it at the wall, and it shattered). The next time I buy a new phone will probably be the next time that happens - it certainly won't be because of any of the new features in any of these phones. The industry needs to realize that adoption rates and sales of phones to existing customers are slowing because of serious and basic issues like these, not because our phones don't have calorie counters or FM radios built in.
My cell phone is a nokia 3361 (AT&T's Prepaid package). I pay roughly $10/month for service and use it only for necessities. No color screen, no voice dialing, no GSM/GPRS crap. It does what it needs to.
Wow, what a deal! What package is that? I have yet to see a need for color screens, camera, or any of the other crap that comes with phones these days, which is one of the reasons I don't have one (damned expensive service plans being another reason). AT&T's wireless site just went down for maintenance (according to the error page) or I'd check them out myself.
Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
Thank you sound meter!
_nfotxn
I have a Sony Ericsson T68i, and I love it. The navigation seems okay to me. While the buttons are indeed small, their size is dictated by the overall small size of the phone. I think the buttons are aligned just fine.
Even if the buttons were subpar, the phone supports voice dialing-- why don't you use it? Practically the only time I use the buttons on my phone are when I power it on and turn on the keypad lock in the morning. Then it stays in my pocket all day, and I just use my Plantronics Bluetooth headset to make and receive calls, and I input my contacts by syncing wirelessly with the copy of Microsoft Entourage on my Mac.
My only gripe with the phone is that the area around the joystick gets dusty and it's a pain to clean. Plus the joystick should be sealed a little better to keep dust/pocket lint from getting inside the phone.
As for some of the new Nokias, I agree that they do suck. Nokia is putting too much stupid crap in their phones, and I don't understand how they can leave out Bluetooth at this point. Being able to sync my contacts with my computer and use the phone as a modem without some expensive proprietary cable/software, and being able use a wireless headset were the primary reasons I ditched my Nokia 8260 and got the T68i. Now that I've had a phone with them and found out how truly useful they are, those are features I will never give up.
~Philly
May I please have a phone with a good antenna that doesn't drop too many calls? Please??? Bluetooth might be nice too. Thank you
The sending of this message pretty much inconveniences everyone involved.
Couple of years ago, me and some friends were going snowboarding. We were going to a cabin belonging to the parents of one of us. It was a long drive and when we finally got there it was quite dark.
Problem was, the cabin were in the woods, some distance from any road, and the one who were supposed to know where it was, hadn't been there in about ten years. So.. we ended up stranded in a dark forest, with no idea where we were or where the cars were, with snow up to our thighs. When we finally found a cabin, we found ten of them.
Since it was pitch dark and extremely cold, fiddling with a key trying to find a keyhole in ten cabins were almost hopeless. Until we remembered that we had mobile phones. With the light from the panel of five Nokia phones, we finally managed to find and open the right cabin. So, yeah. Americans suck.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
I used to work for a cell phone company and the we had far more defective returns on higher end phones than anything else... and it's much harder to explain to your manager why you swapped out a $400 phone than a $20 phone.
"Under the spreading chestnut tree, I sold you and you sold me."
TELEPHONES ARE NOT COOL! THEY ARE VERY VERY OLD AND BORING!
I mean, maybe they were da shit when Alexander Graham Bell thought them up, but how come no other century-old technology gets kids wetting their ridiculously-shaped trousers? "Dude! You've got to check out the latest Dyson vacuum cleaner! It's got *triple* cyclones, man!"
You must think in Russian.
Haven't you always wanted to know how loud your classmates snore during class? Or your coworkers during a meeting?
Seriously though, adjusting volume based on background noise is a nice feature.
This message is encrypted with Quad ROT-13 to protect the author's copyright under the DMCA.
I think it'd be a bit hard to fit this thing under your tounge. Let's not go to the other place you can take your temperature.
Perhaps nobody wants a sound meter, but they ought to use it. Volume-induced deafness is a huge problem in our society. Clubs, stereos, and traffic are destroying our inner ears. As we become deaf, we tend to pump up the volume to compensate for the loss in sensation. A reminder that the noise level in a club is well above what an airport is legally allowed to expose baggage handlers to could be very useful. Time to put in the ear-plugs.
The sound meter also tells you you won't be able to make a phone call in a place that's too loud, and I expect that's the primary purpose. How often have you heard someone shouting in a bar "Can you hear me? I need you to.. can you hear me?" Now the phone display says "No, she won't hear you, don't bother calling from here."
-'Does my ass look fat in these pants-0-meter' for the girl who can't stop asking her friends
-'WMD Detector' for frustrated Pentagon officials in Iraq (good luck)
and
-'American Idolizer Mode' which provides insulting commentary whenever it detects you performing karaoke.
I tell you my friends, the future will be a wonderful place.
-Laz
It's a tool that every home handyman needs!
It's a jigsaw! It's a power drill! It's a wood-turning lathe!
It's an asphalt spreader! It's 67 tools in one!
I'd love a new phone, but as long as my 7110 is still working, I am not going to change. Not because I am wild about it, but having to install a new cat kit sucks. It's a bitch to install. Why can't the coordinate it at bit so you at least doesn't have to change the entire car kit everytime you change phone, at least in the same brand dammit.
my sig
..I would agree. We just got a new one, a nokia 6340i, it has no external antenna, and I was very skeptical that it would work out where we live, but surprisingly enough, it works much better than the kyocera with the pull out antenna it replaced. I just wished it would just "do" the net without signing up for some additional service. It would be nice to just dial in to our current modem ISP service and have it just work, even at limited functionality and of course taking the small screen into account. It's got some games on it and whatnot, but I haven't explored all the features yet on it, more my girlfriends interest, she's the phone fiend around here. I did try to dial out to the service, it apparently tried a connection, then failed. Perhaps there's a way to make it work, but I just haven't figured it out yet.
at&t free2go wireless:
h tml ...
http://www.attws.com/personal/prepaid/
Phone/starter kit: $50
minutes cost depending on how much you buy at a time:
As described at: http://www.attws.com/personal/prepaid/epw_plans.j
$100 = 833 min
$75 = 500 min
$50 = 166 min
$25 = 71 min
$10 = 20 min
I started in december, with phone($50) + 500min ($75) and have been adding $10 cards every 45 days. I still have 420 minutes left on the account after all this time.
Only catch: Your account expires (ALL MINUTES GO AWAY) after 45 days if you do not add atleast a $10 card. Adding even a $10 keeps the account active.
no comment
So can it ring people or did they remove that function?
So now they have the right size, right weight, good battery life, big contact list -- basically all the basics (something my Pocket PC sucks at) and now can move on to the "bells and whistles." These bells and whistles aren't there to just sit and look pretty, they do great things --- for instance, my Nokia 3595 has a full XHTML browser in it, runs java, and allows me to instant message people. Now, these may seem trivial, but I'm able to check the news, write a tip calculator, and keep up with what's going on in the office. To me this is not bloatware, but extra functions that set the bar for other companies.
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
This is one thing that I can never work out on ./
Putting a USB memory stick in a watch is cool,
Putting a PC in a toaster/playstation/other novel object is cool,
Getting a pc to do something new is cool....
but as soon as someone puts extra features into a phone it becomes excessive.
Mobile phones are becoming more and more ubiquitous, they are probably the only electronic device (other than a watch) that we are likely to have with us at all times. They are toys, fashion accessories, and PDAs'. Manufacturers are experimenting, seeing what users want and will use. Surely this is a good thing.
Remember that mobile phones are going to be soon if they are not already more common place than PCs. If you just want to use them to make calls that is fine but if you can have something as powerful as a 386* on you, it may as well allow you to do other things on it
* Crude estimate, based on the fact that both can play wolf 3d.
Some old lady with her phone out, yelling at bypassing traffic, "Turn down that music! it's above 50 decibels!! Dang kids!"
w00f.
"Bells and whistles aside, the flashlight feature sounds pretty practical. A sound meter though?"
Think about it. When its time for a bit of late night plug and play, you dont want to be waking your child(ren)/parent(s)/sibling(s)/roommate(s). The calorie burn application can also tell you how many calories you have burned whilse doing it.
Seems to me that the sound meter would be fun for people with booming sound systems in their cars and trucks, both for bragging rights and as a possible defense against getting ticketed for violating noise ordinances.
I started in december, with phone($50) + 500min ($75) and have been adding $10 cards every 45 days. I still have 420 minutes left on the account after all this time.
:)
Sounds like a good setup, and a good plan, storing all those minutes up front.
I had a Tracfone, and kept it for about a year; I wasn't all that impressed with the service, and even less so when they switched my area from analog only to digital only without notifying me. Of course, the phone I had was analog only, so it was promptly useless. I was given the option to send the old phone back (on my dime) and they'd send me a new digital phone, but decided it was too much work for a company that already shafted me once. I didn't really *need* the phone anyway, it was just an "in an emergeny" phone.
It's good to see all these other companies offering pre-paid phones; gives me more options the next time I figure I need a phone again. Thanks for the tip; I'll be sure to keep it in mind
Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
... how ugly the thing looks?
What again was the point of a cell phone? Was it to make phone calls? Won't I be dialing numbers? At least give me a phone that does well what it's supposed to do.
Wow - normally these types of comments appear instantly on slashdot whenever a new phone is reviewed. Today it took a while.
There is always someone who goes "Well, since this feature is of no use to me, therefore it is not needed", and surprisingly, gets modded up to +5.
The truth is, outside the US, the phone-culture is very much different. We already have phones that have long-lasting batteries, good call quality and messaging. In fact, we've had all this for at least 5 years. So phone makers have to come up with new features in order to turn a profit (believe it or not). Whilst for some unknown reason newer phones don't appeal to US customers they do in places like the UK, Asia and Australia.
Uh, GPRS is a link protocol; it just gets the data in & out of the phone. You don't use it directly. Also, GPRS speeds will vary dramatically per phone, depending on how many 13.4 Kb/s download channels the phone uses (between 1 & 7, typically 2-4, or 26-53 Kb/s).
WAP is a browsing protocol for fetching stripped-down websites. It can use GRPS, or it can operate over a standard 9.6 Kb/s GSM data connection (or equivalent). It's a very different thing to GPRS - comparing them makes no sense.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Market surveys have indicated that inbuilt radios sell better to the general public than Bluetooth. Sony-Ericsson might just be one of the last of the major manufacturers to support Bluetooth.
I've tried minidisc, but it's such a pain loading music on it. I haven't tried MP3 because I realised that I just don't want another gadget. But when I read that Nokia's 7250 comes with a built-in stereo FM radio I jumped for it (literally) because I do roughly 1 hrs commute by public transport each day. Being able to listen to the radio makes it so much more enjoyable, and I don't have to carry another gadget!
The design, feature set, and price is not intended to make this phone "compete" directly against other phones, it is instead supposed to make certain people - who the /. crowd almost by definition will not identify with - say "hey, that's MY phone!"
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
I don't know why you'd want a calorie tracking application, but a calorie burn one.... I think I could use one of those!
..it's just hidden from the main menu. For phones such as the 7110 where you can enablethe net monitor menu, tell it to enable menu 20. The digits in the bottom left corner of the screen prepended by the + [unless you're sitting in the freezer] are the temperature.
You can also use the menus to work out how far from a transmitter you are, to lock to certain transmitters etc etc
Expect this Nokia in the next Bond movie. NSFW
"James, ring me anytime. I'll set it to vibrate for you."
You are not getting it. In some markets, to some people, cell phones are fashion accessories. It's not about Bluetooth or standby times, it's about the latest and the greatest in design and gadgets.
You and I may find that to be silly, but Nokia is just going where the money is.
And remember kids: Never trust a computer you can actually lift.
this was the USP that ericsson were selling BT with back in maybe 1997...libraries would have a BT "shut the hell up" beacon installed, and phones would switch to silent. never happened, mind...
For BT headsets (the only decent, non buggy use of BT if you ask me) the Jabra BT200's are excellent. 4 days battery life, cheaper than the SE models and looks less tragic clipped to your ear.
With you 100% on the stupid memory stick duo cards though. Expansys.co.uk sell a fullsize memory stick adaptor for them, but they're clunky. First person to get smartmedia to fit gets my thanks...