The Blue S

Just a little break (writing about Nokia Smartphones) July 17, 2008

It’s been a fun and mostly fruitful relationship. But right now we are taking just a little break.

The story started in the beginning of 2007. It was a new city. Well pretty much a new life.  With the need for a new address came the need for an overall communication solution which I found with some sort of Home Zone concept of a German Cell-Phone provider.

Together with the new communication solution I needed to select a new handset. I always loved Nokia. After making just a tiny dip into the Siemens world (with my very very ugly S10Dactive) I was a Nokia fan. It was a long and difficult decision but I aimed straight at the top and my second ever handset was a Nokia 8850. Along side I was cought in the “WAP” wave and I got a second device the Nokia 6210. A very classy candybar business phone. That one was actually the most reliable one. It never broke. It never had issues (even in the end it didn’t).

With some business involvement I also got a Nokia Cardphone 2.0 which was quite nice. The the multimedia wave kicked in and I was very thrilled when the new Nokia 7650 came out. Strange slider design and really slow and ugly but it was the first European phone with integrated Camera and MMS.

Because that ugly Nokia 7650 was so big I wanted to get a smaller one. So I got the Samsung SGH-S300 a nice and tiny clam-shall phone with a horrible interface and just no good features what so ever. I sold that one pretty quickly.

In the meantime I really learned to appreciate the S60 design of my Nokia 7650. The address book was very comprehensive. The syncing capabilities with Nokia PC Suite was just wonderful and even when looking at today’s design of Sony-Ericcson and Samsung the Nokia S60 + PC Suite platform is a great thing!

So a new robust S60 phone had to be the decendant for my Nokia 7650. So I got a Nokia 7610. Also kind-of awful design but rock-solid and a very nice companion as well. While my 8850 had a broken display and the 7650 had some key issues the 7610 never left me until the very end (although it was also very slow in the end).

The next milestone was a little Motorola RAZR V3 black. Unfortunately the Americans just can’t get the quality right. The display was really strange (blurry and shaky every time a call was answered or done). The battery was weak and the voices sounded creepy. I got rid of that one quite quickly.

And to continue the story from above.. When I bought the new communication solutions for my house I had to decide for a new handset. It was clear it had to be a solid S60 device. All the designs out there kind-of worried me and I still had the best experience with simple candy-bar phones. So I decided it had to be the N73. My companion up till today.

Our relationship was quite good. It was rock solid. Never left me. Almost no crashes. It always worked. Syncing 400 contacts was done in 10 seconds. New music player was installed. Excellent calender and so on. Some of my best memories were captured using the N73’s camera.

Unfortunately now I had to give my little friend away. I don’t know what it is with the new Nokia S60s. When I unboxed my N73 it was wonderful. Lightning fast compared to my previous 7610. Very good quick menu and so on. Voice quality was alright but the loudspeaker was always good. Now two things really bothered me:

• During the time of use it always got slower! It seemed like every month I kept using it it took longer to open a menu, to open the address book or to start up the camera application.
  And yes: I did clean it up every now and then. I did erase some of the high resolution pictures and kept the internal memory free. Nevertheless it got slower and slower. In the last days it took about 3 seconds to open the “clock” application!
• People complained that they couldn’t hear me right. But in the end I could not even hear the others. It seemed like the loudspeaker you put to your ear just did not work right. In the end it seemed that one would only run on half power.

Finally these down-sides bothered me too much. I took the phone back to the place of purchase and asked them for service. They sent it in and I hope I will hold my new fresh N73 in my hands soon!

The reports coming in from the external repair service provider are somewhat worrying but I won’t give up the good hope that in two weeks I will be happy with my N73 again.

http://www.telefon-treff.de/showthread.php?threadid=230218

The History:

• Siemens S10D active (in orange!)
• Nokia 8850
• Nokia 6210
• Nokia Cardphone 2.0
• Nokia 7650
• Samsung SGH-S300
• Nokia 7610
• Motorola RAZR V3 black
• Nokia 2600 (shitty replacement phone)
• Nokia N73 (73-1 silver-plum)