I think that I came to the cell phone party a bit late. My brother held out much longer than I did and when I got my first mobile phone about 5 years ago he said, "you're one of those people now." At first I just used it for making phone calls, but then I wanted to use text messaging and I signed up for it. I was one of the first people to use it, because when I started using it, they were testing and they turned it on and I wasn't charged for it because it wasn't completely reliable yet. The first phone I had still works and it was simple, but the screen was black and white and it didn't really do Web browsing that well. It was a "bar" style phone, so it doesn't flip open or slide or do any other things like that. It just is.
When I was able to upgrade I chose another Nokia phone and this one had a camera and a colour screen and an ok browser for the web. It was another "brick" style phone, but it was smaller than the previous one and all of the charging cables for the old phone still worked with it. I could send photos (or send links to photos, since my provider has things set up to keep you locked in) and check my mail and send text messages. That phone still works too and I found that I shifted to more text messages and even some blogging from it.
Finally I upgraded just over a year ago to another Nokia phone (a 6275i) and it had a bigger and brighter screen, but was smaller yet again. The coolest things about it are that it can also record and play video and has a good Web browser.
The text messaging works great and with my increasing use of Twitter and Gmail on the phone, it was very nice.
But after about 4 months the phone stopped working and it was sent out for repair. It was fixed and came back and it worked great for 4 months and then stopped working again. Off to Nokia again via the store and it came back again and I was very happy. Finally after 4 months the same thing happened again, which is the phone started up, but then would shut down. I called the store and I found out that the 1 year warranty had expired 2 days earlier. That's right, 2 days! They said that they couldn't do anything and I came to the horrible realization that I may have to buy a new phone, since I couldn't get out of my contract. They suggested that I may be able to talk with Nokia, so I called them.
I didn't have to wait long and in talking with the guy at Nokia, I felt better already. I explained the situation and he said that it was likely that they would replace it. They would send a fax to the store and it would be returned. The only frustrating thing was that it took 3 days for the store to find the fax! It was easier to confirm with Nokia that the fax had been sent than to talk with the store. Today I checked on Nokia's site to see what the status was and I found out that it had been replaced and shipped back to the store and had arrived yesterday morning. When I called the store, it hadn't been entered into their inventory system, or shipped to the branch where I could pick it up. It may be until Wednesday before it actually shows up for me to pick up.
The store did give me an older Samsung flip phone to use and it confirmed how well-designed the Nokia phones are. While I stopped thinking about how to send messages and surf the web on my 6275i, I was constantly frustrated with the flip phone. I couldn't turn off the annoying start-up and shut down sounds. I couldn't easily or quickly send a text message and I couldn't enter a URL to use the browser. Argh! No Gmail or checking out the nifty mobile Twitter site. It confirmed my admiration of Nokia's design and of their service as well. I think that I'll keep getting Nokia phones. Now if only the cell service providers would be better...
