Stop laughing at my phone!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Heh. I had a Nokia phone just like the OP’s for a zillion years until recently. Trac-Phone had to supply me with a replacement because they just switched to all-digital and the phone could only handle analog. The replacement is a bottom-of-the-line Kyocera.

I carried the Nokia brick around with a certain I-am-not-a-phone-guy pride, but I confess to slowly succumbing to cell phone culture and the new one is certainly easier to take places. The batteries last about 4 times as long, and presumably I won’t have to special mail-order batteries for this one when the time comes.

And now begins my education with these new-fangled phone features that I’ve been hearing about like “voice mail” and “text messaging” and “diplaying the time of day”. So far, I’ve received one text message. It was spam. I’ve received two voice mails. One was, I believe, left by a fax machine. The other was me calling myself and coughing as a test of the system. For awhile, I couldn’t figure out how to retrieve either of them. Imagine my delight when I eventually did.

Plus, the old Nokia didn’t have any games. The new Kyocera has perhaps the world’s worst Breakout-style game.

Good luck with the new phone, ForumBot. Hope it’s a postitive change.

22

They outnumber your own cells, in your body.

23

Was it the bird one? I miss that ringtone, and can’t find it anymore*.

It went like this: Ta-ta-TWEEEE TWEEE TWEEE Ta-ta-TWEEEE TWEEE TWEEE Ta-ta-TWEEEE TWEEE TWEEE
*Of course, not using a nokia phone may be the reason for that…

24

I miss that Nokia. That was three phones ago - I just went to a Razor a few months ago with the upgrade plan because my old one wasn’t holding a charge. Big fucking mistake. I hate that phone. Everything is just harder on it. Plus, my old one had a little polar bear who would come out and amuse me.

25

Snake is the one thing I miss since trading in my Nokia for a Sony-Ericsson. I could play that thing on the highest setting until the Snake was the maximum possible length, chasing its own tail and filling the entire screen.

26

The T-mobile folks hate me. When I, along with my 2 teenagers, returned to T-mobile after a disastrous 5 month stint with Sprint (may they rot in hell), they couldn’t believe I didn’t want their newest and greatest phone:

Me: “I’m coming back to T-mobile and want to reactivate these phones.”

Salesman: “These are analog phones. We don’t service those anymore. You’ll need a dual analog/digital model.”

Me: “Oh, well, okay. Then give me the most basic phone you’ve got.”

Salesman: “Well, we’re currently running a special on this beautiful Erickson phone. It’s normally $4500* but you can have it for only $50 with a signed 3 year service agreement!”

Me: “That must be some phone. What’s this?”

Salesman: “That’s a 4.0 megapixel camera!”

Me: “Gack! I had one of these with Sprint and I kept taking pictures of myself when I was trying to make a phone call.”

Salesman: 'Ah, well, maybe we should consider a non-camera phone for you. This Blackberry is a best seller."

Me: “I don’t need to read my e-mails when I’m grocery shopping.”

Salesman: “If you ever get lost it can also double as a GPS!”

Me: “If I get lost, I just crank down my window and ask someone.”

Salesman: “Oookay. We’re currently running a special on this darling little phone for only $150–”

Me: “It’s cute but it doesn’t flip shut. I want it to flip shut so that I don’t accidentally call my cousin in DesMoines everytime I put my purse down. What about this one? This one looks nice.”

Salesman (frowning as he picks up what he clearly considers the Ford Pinto of cell phones): “This is the Nokia. It doesn’t have any of the bells and whistles…”

Me: “Sold!”
*Okay, I exaggerate.

27

Actually, I believe this is the world’s worst Breakout-style game.

28

Ah, my first mobile phone.

For the hell of it, I did a search on “Nokia 5190” and found this:
http://www.yourofficestop.com/5190-r.html

They are selling this ancient thing for $59.95!!! I think I have two of these things, maybe I should put them on eBay.

29

I had a Nokia 101, back in the analogue days of the early nineties, when I was on Bell Canada and had a mobile number in the 600 area code. I think it’s still in a box somewhere. You can’t get batteries for it anymore.

Much later, around 1997, I joined Fido the first payday after it opened service in the Toronto atea. My first phone there was a Nokia 2190, which was GSM-1900 only.

Later Fido concluded an analogue roaming agreement with Bell, and I got a Nokia 6190 with the analogue addon, which fit between the battery and the main body of the unit and made it GSM-1900/AMPS-850. With the large battery, it made for a chunky phone indeed.

Still later, in 2000, I got an officially-unlocked Motorola L7089 tribander (GSM-900/1800/1900), which I went to Europe with.

Then Fido sent me a triband Siemens M70 (GSM-900/1800/1900) as a present for being with them for 8 years.

And now I have a Sony-Ericsson Z520a (GSM-850/900/1800/1900), which I got when I wanted a quadband phone for rural GSM use.

So my first three phones predated the 5190. Now get off my lawn! :smiley:

30

I stopped by a T-Mobile store today to check on upgrading to a new phone, and found out that they’ve just recently (as of last month) started charging an $18 upgrade fee per phone.

I don’t know if other carriers do this. I’m going to do some research before I sign up for a new contract.

31

Wow, that is spectacularly-insulting customer service you describe. I’d be writin’ letters of complaint!

32

Member of staff did that in my Shop I’d sack their ass.
I’ve never heard a decent explanation as to why you should upgrade your phone before the old one goes wrong, except maybe keeping people like me in business.

33

Maybe I made it look like the encounter hurt my feelings more than it did. I always get crap when I whip out my phone. Children gape and ask “daddy, what’s that?” Pregnant women look away for fear of miscarriage. So I came to embrace it with that “I am not a phone guy” pride a previous poster identified with. Every negative remark paradoxically made me more proud of my Nokia, because it confirmed my image of myself as practical and utilitarian.

But I could definitely see someone else getting upset. People don’t like having their status symbols dissed.

34

If anyone here has an unlocked Nokia 3390, I will buy it from you, and no, I’m not kidding. I’ve had three phones, including two Nokias, since I had a 3390 and none of them compare.

35

My first was a Nokia 5165, which was the TDMA version of the GSM 5190 – I was on AT&T and they used TDMA instead of GSM. After that was some forgettable Mitsubishi number, then I left AT&T for Voicestream (which is now T-Mobile) and got my smallest phone ever, the Nokia 8290. Then came two hateful little Motorolas – the v60 and the C332.

I made the jump soon after to smart phones, starting with the Nokia 3650, then the 6600, the N70, the N73, and my current phone, the N95.
I just cannot believe that the 5190 is still going for $50 on eBay. People are ridiculous.

36

Get one off eBay. I just bought one for $5 as a gag gift for a particularly backward friend of mine. Locked to T-Mobile, but so is she. They have unlocked ones starting at around $15 + shipping.

37

This is my baby. Unfortunately she either needs another new battery or I must upgrade.

38

I was going to search for that one! I’ve had two phones. That one and the one I have now. I miss that one! Mine was blue and endured endless taunts about my 'ghetto phone" and comments that “it looks like something that comes with candy in it!”

But! Unlike the phone I have now? I could actually hear people. I spend most conversations now going “what? what?”

39

I don’t have a cell phone. So far, the only word I recognize is “phone”. Anybody want to point me to some place that explains all this foreign terminology?

40

GSM, CDMA, just think of them as different animals you have to sacrifice to appease your carrier.