independent and unofficial
Prince fan community
Welcome! Sign up or enter username and password to remember me
Forum jump
Forums > General Discussion > Gimmicky mobile phones
« Previous topic  Next topic »
  New topic   Printable     (Log in to 'subscribe' to this topic)
Author

Tweet     Share

Message
Thread started 04/12/03 4:23am

ian

Gimmicky mobile phones

One for the nerds...

My current mobile phone, and the one I've been using for the last two years, is the Ericsson T68. It looks like this:



It's very small, has excellent battery life, has Bluetooth and GPRS, and it is tri-band. So it works all over the world and allows me to stay online wherever I go. It doesn't everything I need.

Yet for some reason, I've just ordered a big plasticky gimmicky pile of Nokia crap as an upgrade. My mobile network provider offered me a really cheap upgrade and I couldn't say now. This is what I ordered:

Nokia 3650

It's big and heavy. It's got a camera built in, and it does video capture. So what, big deal. It's plasticky, ugly, and it has a weird circular keypad that I will hate within hours of getting it.

Damn, I'm such a sucker for a gimmick... ah well, if it sucks I'll set on eBay for four times the amount I paid for it...
  - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator
Reply #1 posted 04/12/03 4:58am

AaronSuperior

avatar

which color did you get? lol
  - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator
Reply #2 posted 04/12/03 4:59am

AaronSuperior

avatar

the dark blue one looks good.
  - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator
Reply #3 posted 04/12/03 5:23am

Pochacco

I have the T68i too and have never been able to get the email function to work

I really regret getting that damned phone mad


Much love yes Pochacco
[This message was edited Sat Apr 12 5:23:57 PDT 2003 by Pochacco]
  - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator
Reply #4 posted 04/12/03 6:31am

ian

Pochacco said:

I have the T68i too and have never been able to get the email function to work

I really regret getting that damned phone mad


Much love yes Pochacco
[This message was edited Sat Apr 12 5:23:57 PDT 2003 by Pochacco]


It's a great phone! But yeah the email client sucks ass. I just use my laptop or PDA via Bluetooth for emails.
  - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator
Reply #5 posted 04/12/03 6:31am

ian

AaronSuperior said:

which color did you get? lol


Shit I don't know! I think you get a few different colour face plates for it by default... Purple looks nice smile
  - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator
Reply #6 posted 04/12/03 7:02am

shausler

my worst gimmick is the

vibrating battery phone


jeez, i cant get off by that
  - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator
Reply #7 posted 04/12/03 7:03am

ian

shausler said:

my worst gimmick is the

vibrating battery phone


jeez, i cant get off by that


biggrin All phones have a vibrate function nowadays...

Cool avatar Shausler !
  - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator
Reply #8 posted 04/12/03 7:14am

shausler

thanks Ian


i steal

from the best

mac'n'cheese
  - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator
Reply #9 posted 04/12/03 7:58am

DaPopeUk

avatar

This is a terable phone. sure its got video and gimicks, but its run on a programme that keeps crashing. You have to wait for it to start up and shut down just like a computer.
Have a look at the Nokia 7250.
  - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator
Reply #10 posted 04/12/03 8:50am

lovemachine

avatar

But did you get this gimmick with your phone?

http://www.iacsp.com/dead...coys.html# (

Go to the page and check out the demonstration of how this thing works) Wow!



Cell Phone Guns Discovered
By Lucrezia Cuen

At first sight it looks like a regular cell phone - same size, same shape, same overall appearance. But beneath the digital face lies a .22-caliber pistol - a phone gun capable of firing four rounds in quick succession with a touch of the otherwise standard keypad.

European law enforcement officials - stunned by the discovery of these deadly decoys - say phone guns are changing the rules of engagement in Europe.

"We find it very, very alarming," says Wolfgang Dicke of the German Police union. "It means police will have to draw their weapons whenever a person being checked reaches for their mobile phone."

Although cell phone guns have not hit America yet, the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and the U.S.Customs Service say they've been briefed on the new weapons.
"This criminal invention represents a potentially serious threat to law enforcement and the public," said U.S. Customs Service Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly.

"We received word about these guns last month. We have since alerted our field personnel to be on the lookout for 'cell phone guns' at U.S. ports of entry." Guns on the Move These new covert guns were first discovered in October when Dutch police stumbled on a cache during a drug raid in Amsterdam. In another recent incident a Croatian gun dealer was caught attempting to smuggle a shipment through Slovenia into Western Europe.

Police say both shipments are believed to have originated in Yugoslavia.
Interpol sent out a warning to law enforcement agencies around the world.
European border police and customs officers are at a heightened state of alert at all ports, airports and border crossings. Realistic Appearance 'If you didn't know they were guns, you wouldn't suspect anything," said Ari Zandbergen, spokesman for the Amsterdam police.

"Only when you have one in your hand do you realize that they are heavier," says Birgit Heib of the German Federal Criminal Investigation Agency. The guns are loaded by twisting the phone in half. The .22-caliber rounds fit into the top of the phone under the screen. The lower half, under the keyboard, holds the firing pins. The bullets fire through the antenna by pressing the keypad from numbers five to eight.

Amsterdam police says they are very sophisticated machines constructed inside gutted cell phones which do not light up or operate as real phones.
"These are very difficult to make. We believe experts are involved," says Zandbergen. America on Alert U.S. authorities, including the FBI, ATF, Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. Customs Service Authority have been supplied detailed information and pictures of these new weapons. "They've been given a heads up," said Jim Crandall, ATF spokesman.

To date no phone guns have been discovered either in the United States or in the process of being smuggled in, authorities say. But they know it's only a matter of time.

FAA spokeswoman Rebecca Trexler said airport security officers had been trained to deal with this new threat. "We don't want to tell the bad guys exactly what we're looking for," she says, "We are trying to stay one step ahead." Will Affect Travelers Airport authorities across Europe are implementing systems to X-ray all cell phones, those procedures will likely be followed by airports around the world.

"This is just one more item that we need to pay special attention to because nowadays, of course just about every passenger carries a mobile phone," says the spokesman for Frankfurt airport security.

Customs officials in the U.S. say their safety procedure has normally been to require travelers to turn their phones on, however that may no longer be enough. Cell phone users will have to be made aware that reaching for their phones in some circumstances could be misinterpreted as a threat by authorities.

Source: ABC News


[This message was edited Sat Apr 12 8:51:51 PDT 2003 by lovemachine]
[This message was edited Sat Apr 12 8:53:15 PDT 2003 by lovemachine]
  - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator
Reply #11 posted 04/12/03 9:03am

lovemachine

avatar

I myself own the Motorola Dnyatac 8000x and it's great. It cost $4,000 but it was well worth it big grin



Look at the writeup it received :

By the time the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X phone became the first FCC-approved portable cellular telephone in 1983, the company had invested fifteen years of research and $100 million in the advancement of cellular technology. The DynaTAC 8000X phone weighed 28 ounces, was 13 x 1.75 x 3.5 inches in dimension, boasted one hour of talk time and eight hours of standby time and featured a LED display.

“Consumers were so impressed by the concept of being always accessible with a portable phone that waiting lists for the DynaTAC 8000X were in the thousands, despite the initial $3,995 retail price,” recalled Rudy Krolopp, one of the original Motorola design team members responsible for creating the DynaTAC 8000X phone. “In 1983, the notion of simply making wireless phone calls was revolutionary and it was an exciting time to be pioneering the technology at Motorola

[This message was edited Sat Apr 12 9:04:10 PDT 2003 by lovemachine]
[This message was edited Sat Apr 12 9:06:10 PDT 2003 by lovemachine]
  - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator
Reply #12 posted 04/12/03 9:13am

Handclapsfinga
snapz

damn, lovemachine...might as well carry around a phone booth with that thing...evillol
  - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator
Reply #13 posted 04/12/03 9:32am

theSpark

avatar

My phone - Kyocera. Not too gimmicky, web, e-mail, a few sucky games, calculator.
  - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator
Reply #14 posted 04/12/03 10:09am

INSATIABLE

avatar

I like the purple one!


I have this old-timer:


It was free with Verizon service. Got it August of last year. It works nice, I've never had a dropped call. smile
Oh shit, my hat done fell off
  - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator
Reply #15 posted 04/12/03 10:20am

JimmyNothing

avatar



This older style Nokia is my main way of communicating nod
Put yourself on the worldwide org map! www.frappr.com/princeorg
  - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator
Reply #16 posted 04/12/03 10:22am

theSpark

avatar

I'm trading mine in for the org phone.

mobile
  - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator
Reply #17 posted 04/12/03 12:43pm

ian

DaPopeUk said:

This is a terable phone. sure its got video and gimicks, but its run on a programme that keeps crashing. You have to wait for it to start up and shut down just like a computer.
Have a look at the Nokia 7250.


You have to be kidding me... that is far worse. I trust the Series 60 handsets far more than the Series 40.

At least Nokia have gone through the pains of the early revisions of the 7650 and issued several firmware updates... the latest version (including that running on the 3650) is very stable indeed.

The series 40 handsets are a nightmare... which is why so many of the 7210s were returned and recalled. Bugs galore.
I came across few nasty ones in their implementation of Java too.

Anyway the processor in the 3650 and 7650 is far better for games, and that's what I do for a living so it suits me best. Also I far prefer Symbian OS to the alternatives. The 7250 has far too many restrictions for my liking... e.g. 64k max size of JAR files etc.

If I wasn't getting the 3650, I wouldn't bother with Nokia at all, I'd just pick up a Sony Ericsson P800 or a Siemens S55.
  - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator
  New topic   Printable     (Log in to 'subscribe' to this topic)
« Previous topic  Next topic »
Forums > General Discussion > Gimmicky mobile phones