Jun 21, 2004 03:51 PM
6412 Views
(Updated Jun 27, 2004 12:27 AM)
What do we look for in a cellphone?
Price
Ease of use
Attractive Features
Battery life
Charging time
Company standing/reputation
Aftersale value.
Ringtones/other features.
I believe myself to be a person who cant be faithful to just one cellphone for a long time, but I still make full enquiries and weigh the odds against any cellphone I buy. This being my 3rd. With a wide variety of cellphones being available in the market, all of them seemingly giving all the options/features at once, its hard to decide on any one set.
When I decided to change my old C350 handset by motorola, which was an year old, I was faced with a plethora of options and price ranges. I wasn't going to revert to a non-color screen phone after c350, so I was clear in my mind about this factor. Therefore I made this clear to the dealer. Also I wasnt going to settle without any of the features that my previous phone lacked, which were.
Low battery life,
Ugly screen, with bad resolution.
Low volume ringer, and a vibrator not felt.
problem in recieveing messages, pictures, from nokia/samsung phones from most of my friends.
This cut down my list to 2 choices,
NOKIA and SAMSUNG.
Initially I was going for the Nokia phones, what with their reputation of battery life and service in India. They had some good options too in the 7000 to 8000 range, my budget, needless to mention. The dealer offered me 3 phones from Nokia, 3100, 3120, and 6610. At the same moment however he showed me Samsung XGH-X430.
The obvious attraction of a flap phone made my mouth water, but I tended to be careful this time, since I fell like this last time also. This phone boasted of a 65K color screen, with GPRS, WAP capabilities, 7 really good games(Chess, golf, bowling to name a few), A ringer with a booming volume, and good vibrator.
In front of which nokia phones hardly scored at any point, except infra red port, FM radio in 6610. which I don't have any need of.
The fonts on the screen of the phone were fairly readable, with a good resolution, and a BIG screen. Wallpapers were animated and made for good viewing. I loaded some mono ringtones, and they too played well, being heard even when in my jeans pocket with me driving my bike. So the vibrator was also pretty powerful.
The choice of ringtones was also quite varied, with disco, symphony, and animal ringtones included, and 25 downloadable ringtones.
The sound reception however was very poor the first day I bought the phone, too much disturbance, vibration in the noises were a few complaints by people whom I called. The earpiece was also quite pathetic. But Samsung offers electric service, and the next day only this set was replaced with a new one, as I had bought with a bill. And this set was fairly much better, still there was scope for improvement.
Another problem was the message composer, and entering names. The dictionary and the allotment of keys is bad, locating most of the special characters is a hard job, and sometimes you tend to freak out typing a message. Would require lots of practice to get your hands running on this one.
The keys were sometimes a nuisance too, which presented a problem if playing games for too long. You can have finger cramps, and may need to rest your fingers.
But the phone is very very light, and fits in the palm. There is an amazingly long 7 color service light on the flap of the phone, which changes its colors coordinated to the ringtones.
So if you are looking for a phone to show off, pastime, and with a good battery life, this is the piece for you, and yes, it has all the features I mentioned at the start. I am happy with the results.
Happy Calling
