New toy

I finally got around to purchasing a new mobile phone today. It's been on my shopping list for a while, since my old phone is locked to Orange which rather inconveniently doesn't offer a great reception in the area in which I'm living. Getting any sort of signal requires a short stroll up a near by hill. The exercise is good, the inconvenience rather less so.

Choosing a phone is one of those decisions over which I tend to agonise. I'm loath to carry anything more about my person than I absolutely need to. I view even house keys and a wallet as irritating burdens so anything else that is to be carried about on a daily basis deserves due consideration. My requirements are relatively scant however. Size and weight are the prime factors - less is most definitely more. Design also plays a considerable part. I like pretty things and the thought of having to handle something ugly on a daily basis depresses me. Playful appearance a definite plus.

Build quality is also an issue. I detest Nokia's clamshells for example. Their construction feels flimsy in my hands, and the plastic creak emitted when opening and closing doesn't seem to bode well. I also find that their design tends to fluctuate between extremes, from designers flight of fancy to the deathly dull, neither of which appear particularly attractive. Motorola's offerings appear considerably better, particularly the RAZR and it's derivatives, but I dismissed those after some poor ratings from friends and family. Sony do quite well on the style and solidity fronts as well, but their focus seems to be more on their candy bar style phones and their clamshells tend on the bulky side.

In the end I plumped for Samsung again. An E530 in white and orange plastic shell that looks as though it would sit quite happily beside one of the old tangerine iBooks. My last phone was a E330 which served me well enough despite a few nuisances, the majority of which have been fixed on the E530. The plastic cover for the power connector is now attached to the phone body and so shan't get lost. The phone book now allows you to search for a name directly rather than having to press a button first. The display backlight doesn't remain on when charging. The external display is divided in two now - rather than a single lcd, it features an electo-luminescent display which permanently displays the time and signal strength (rather than having to hold a button for a second or two as on the E530 - a big plus) and beneath that an OLED display to displays the call/message details. Lastly, the keypad features a white backlight rather than blue - it may not sound like much but for some reason I have considerable difficulty focusing on blue lights, which made looking at the keypad an unsettling experience. Anything other than blue is more than welcome.

It's not without it's own niggles however. I've discovered two nuisances already - firstly there's a delay of a fraction of a second between opening the phone and the display appearing. It's the sort of lag you don't expect to see on a phone these days, and though it doesn't have a major impact it is noticeable. Secondly when sending an sms, the editor doesn't recall the text entry mode, forcing you to select T9 each time you send a message. Both of these are quite unexpected and seem to be a big step back from earlier models. The T9 problem in particular will gall active texters. Fortunately I don't send that many sms messages myself so it's not a life or death issue, but it's bizarre oversight nevertheless, especially considering the attention to detail that's gone into the phone elsewhere - my favourite of these is the charger which features a couple of LED's to indicate whether the phone has finished charging or not, a simple yet elegant touch.

On the plus side, it features bluetooth, java, and a megapixel camera with flash. Nothing I expect to get much use out of, really, but nice to have regardless. I do however offer special praise for the quality of the interior lcd. Despite the relatively narrow viewing angle around the vertical, it's amazingly bright and renders colour extremely well. My laptop hangs it's head in shame by comparison. Features that aren't likely to see much use from me include a period predictor, a small application to determine which fragrances best suit you, and a calorie counter - somehow I get the feeling that I'm perhaps not part of the target demographic at which this phone is aimed...

Perhaps the most interesting feature though is the 90Mb of memory coupled with the facility to use mp3's a ringtones. I've no interest in using the phone as a mp3 player but the facility to choose a different mp3 as a ringtone for each person in my phonebook is irresistible. Already I've spent some time scanning my cd and mp3 collection searching for appropriate pieces of music. It almost functions as a barometer of how well I know someone - the longer/better I've known you, the more choices of music there seem to be. It's definitely a fun exercise however, with tremendous potential for mischief - all I'd request is that you don't phone me in my presence. You may of course feel free to offer your own thoughts as to what your ringtone should be, though such suggestions will be taken under advisement (or ignored completely).

Right, it's finished charging, I'm off to play...