Life On The Road

So it didn't take too much soul-searching to decide to get rid of the Blackberry and transfer my number to 3UK on PAYG. And that's where the other saving comes in: at the moment, on contract my average monthly bill comes to around GBP50, which is quite a commitment at the moment. If I continue to use the PAYG phone like I do at present I can expect that to drop to about GBP12-15 a month, and I'll feel that I'm in control again! The PAYG will also work in Europe, but sadly not in the US nor Australia, so my best option is to buy a SIM card while I'm out there and just use my old unlocked Nokia which is there as a spare.

So now my PAC has been applied and hopefully in a couple of days it'll all be transferred and working as intended: until then, if you can't get through to me or get a recorded message, just give me a shout via this system and I'll get back to you!

Pros:

• It looks very cool - but hey, I'm a confirmed geek so that's no problem ;-)
• Intuitive: although I suspect that a few execs may balk at the range of facilities available initially, it's surprisingly easy to get to know.
• The screen is amazing: bright, clear and the range of fonts is excellent.
• A full QWERTY keyboard, and although the buttons are small, they're becoming easier to use the more I do it.
• Very secure: there's a serious encryption suite on this device!
• Directly plays MP3s as ringtones.
• The camera's good even for 2Mp.

Cons:

• Very limited range of ring profiles, so when you select "Quiet", it's exactly that and no amount of tweaking will persuade it otherwise.
• On T-Mobile at least, the built-in browser is hard-wired to go to T-mobile's own kiddy-phun T-Zone web page every time the browser opens.. grrr..
• No HTML mail!!! This never used to be a big issue for me until I started developing, well, HTML email apps.
• No place to fasten a lanyard/clip to!! This is unforgiveable bearing in mind it's a nickable device, and if I'm anywhere in London I always hook it around my wrist first. Looks like the Nokia will be going to Prague.

  I'll give a more detailed update later, but for now I'm sure I made the right, albeit difficult decision to move away from Nokia, and my realtionship with the BB will hopefully be long and useful.

So I then looked at the Nokia offerings that I could get for free, and was actually quite unimpressed: the best that they seem to do is the next generation version of my N95, the N96. Not that the N95's been bad, but I've always found the construction a bit lacking and quite early on a crack appeared in the back cover. The sliding top also seem to get very stiff early on too and then loosened off again for no apparent reason. So I looked around a bit more and made a decision to go for a Blackberry Curve 8310 which is free on my monthly plan. I had a look at one yesterday and was impressed by the big screen: I'd kinda got used to that on the N95 but this one is even bigger. The keys aren't too bad either, although getting used to a real QWERTY keyboard after generations of standard phone layout keys will be a challenge. The camera's actually a downgrade at 2Mp but I don't use the N95's camera at full resolution as the colours are too washed-out at full res. They also don't seem to be easy to enhance in the way that a "real" camera's images are so it shouldn't be too much of a loss (famous last words!).

I do actually have to wait until 18th December though which is a shame as I wanted to take it to Prague at Christmas: I don't feel happy about taking a completely new and unfamiliar phone with me when I might actually need something I can use quickly and reliably. So, come back on the 18th for the unboxing and I'll tell you what the first impressions are..