First off, I don't own a Smart-Phone ...yet... suffice to say, the iPhone dominating the market and the Galaxy S2 is the leading competition. Its a stiff battle and the technology ..as opposed to the mildly accepted Morse Law <"technology changes every 6 months">... changes rather faster. Every 4 months, a new model surprisingly appears to shake up the competition, and by the way I look at it, Samsung is going the way of Nokia - releasing a slew of latest models just to upgrade the line to beef up its hard earned race against the Apple flagship.
Anyways, I'm here to talk about functionality, not that I don't have the cash to shell-out now to buy a smart phone (more on that later). There is a wide variety and model of cell phones to provide what each person needs. I started out using cellphone as early as 1997. Then the "sim" card as we know it is not yet in existence. Lines are locked to the service provider and signal is only as good as the nearest business district that has those "towers" located.
a flash-back...
The thing that kicked off this trend in the Philippines is rather for the most part, due to necessity than individual propensity to be in the "in-crowd". Having a mobile phone serves as a means to communicate faster and "on the go", rather than having to run for the nearest phone booth which for the most part is unreliable, usually "broken", eats up more coins than it needs and just time consuming (especially if your dialing NDD or "long distance" that you have to be in the know of the Area codes and other such frivolities). Other than that, you can always have your own land-line, if you can wait 3 years and shell out a lot of cash because the nearest cable link goes 2 kilometers from the nearest tapping point. If you do that, the neighbors will thank you because you have shortened their bills to pay coz' the line is now near to them to request for connection - if they can wait also another year or so. Thats the way it is because the system is monopolized by one frigging network, the one we call PLDT.
Back to topic...
Cellphones are bulky and heavy, with exposed rod antennae you would normaly see on atwo-way radio. Battery life is 4 hours at the most (talktime, standby will shell out 11 hours). My first line is from SMART mobile. Before there were competition on this emerging market by the likes of MOBILINE (acquired by Smart from Piltel... when? can't remember, I think before the 2k years), Globe (the upstart) and several others too obscured to remember.
That first model is a NOKIA 909. see the image below. When I started working that same year, I usually carry this phone with me on my bag together with a "Pager" (we call it "beeper")- that primarily functions as a "text" message receiver before the TEXT craze capability of the later 3210, 5110 and other mostly NOKIA models rendered the beeper obsolete. The message comes as a "telegraphed" text that you can have sent by calling 110 (?) then saying your telegraph message to the operator and sends it to the beeper number (in my case I usually receive "call office - urgent" message). That is when I whip out my ice shaver heavy celphone and call up. Pretty interesting looking back on it. :D
That was then...
Now, you have shops that sell hundreds of model from different companies. NOKIA lost its hold on the market - primarily (I think) because they don't listen well to customer needs - they were the most prolific in introducing new models back then, models that basically covers the same phone features on a different housing and design. When they introduced customizable ring back and text message tones, they have to introduce another model on a heftier price - just that, and so on and so forth. Me, I stopped using Nokia phones way back 2000, opting to go with Motorola, LG and Sony Ericson models that gives more variety than my usual NOKIA.
Now forward to 2012...
As an Overseas Contract Worker (or OCW/OFW), I am more inclined to use a celphone for its functionality. Going back and forth from home to my overseas job requires me to have carrying two separate phones, one to hold my "Roaming" SIM, the other for the local countries network. This is rather cumbersome. Also, in my job nature as a field engineer for a Mechanical Construction firm, the celphone usually ends up on the floor, banged and sometimes squeezed on my pockets during work. Having a high end or expensive gadget this way is a surefire guarantee that you are wasting precious hard-earned cash just to look good. Not for me. I usually look for a sturdy phone that is economical, good to look at, nice to hold, serves my basic needs (for a phone of course) of call-text functions. A standard Bluetooth and IR dependency should be there, so is the reliable camera in the absence of one during inspection. An MP3/video player is a plus considering that there are some stand-by time you need to pass-up, and some so-so games to use also (though most are crap by any standards). In all it should be handy and will not break at the first fall, but I have to admit this things are not built this way.
There's none yet to cover the "durable" category yet for us engineers, but for one thing, there are cellphones that are now "DUAL-SIM" (without the cumbersome features of first-Gen Dual-Sim phones)
The reason I mentioned NOKIA up there is because in trying to look for a dual-sim phone on the different stores here in Hanoi and I ended up with the C2-03 NOKIA. My first NOKIA in the last 11 years so that is why I feel nostalgic. In my first week of use, I was happy with it. I have yet to get over the "little" problem of the small keypads and I still am not sure how long will this sliding mode last. But anyways, for its price of just 86U$D I think its a nice phone. Has the basics I need, I don't need to switch phones just to send messages back-home in the Philippines and still maintain the local service providers signal. I don't need to review this thing, there's too many out-there already, (Google is our friend).
Now, if only I can see whether this phone will survive the first fall (*drops*) ...... Whooops!... 0o0
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