cell phones

[CaliGirl20]

I use my phone for home/work/on the go.  So that way I don't have 3 diff numbers to remember.

[zurielshimon]

I just got a new (to me) phone Wednesday afternoon.  It's so cool!  It's a Motorola v.60i (T) clamshell phone.

No, it's not colour.  No, it's not GSM.  No, it doesn't have a web browser.  No, it doesn't have polyphonic or MP3 ringtones.  And no, it can't go in the kitchen and make me a sandwich, either.  (On that point, I do envy some of you people! :razz:

But here's what it can do:  It can store up to 500 numbers and emails (I currently have 95 stored), has Voice Dial, has a datebook, does SMS text messaging, can play customized ringtones, has programmable menu shortcuts, has a full-function calculator, and three games (Blackjack, Falling Numbers (my favourite), and Video Poker), and can record up to two minutes of Voice Notes.

Very much like the v.120 i used to have, but it seems to get a better signal, it's smaller (when closed), and has easier-to-push buttons, an extendable antenna, and a blue screen instead of green.

I found it on eBay and only paid $40 (about $60 NZ, Can, Aus; £30 UK), including shipping.  It belonged to a man in Alabama who had a lot of medical centre numbers programmed into it.  I don't know if he was a doctor or what, but it had over 200 hours on it when I got it.   Even still, it's in really good shape for the use it's had.

I love it, and I can't stop playing Falling Numbers on it!  I think it would be cool if they came out with a Falling Letters, too, where you push the number that has the letter on it, e.g. "6" for either M, N, or O.  But anyway, that's my new great phone.

Here's a pic on the Internet of an almost identical phone:

By the way, my service is with AT&T (now part of Cingular (which is no use to me)), which has been improving lately.  I used to hate them, tho, and that's part of why I needed a new phone.  (I tore my old one up getting mad at it. :x )

[faultyapathy]

my phone just died...it fell in water.. end of a shitty day... lol.

Its old though, like... a nokia 5120.   8O

Whats a good, cheap model?

[emmy]

depends on what you want... I think that the nokia 3200, which I have (and I believe nerea also mentioned she has) is awesome.  It has a camera, voice recorder, plus lots of other weird cool stuff, like a flashlight.  And I don't mean the screen lights up real bright, there is an actual flashlight built in which turns on when you press a button.  And I only got it because it was the cheapest camera phone I saw, because thats what I wanted.

[Kiya]

I really want the nokia 3200!

Im stuck with the 3310  8O

[HappyZen]

my phone is an extention of me ...
I don't know what i'd do without it.
I has an organiser and a calender a to do list and everything.

I love my phone.
I swear I could be genetically modified to incl. it as a part of my hand because it's just always there!!!
A window to the world.

I have a 7210, but soon will get the upgrade flip 7000 series ...
7270 I think ...

don't know what i'd do with my ohone!!

[zurielshimon]

don't know what i'd do with my ohone!!

Eh?

It's hard to separate me from my phone, too.

[NESSAussie]

NZ cinemas may jam mobile phones
14:00 AEST Sat Apr 30 2005

New Zealand cinema owners may use mobile phone jamming technology to stop mid-movie calls, text messaging - and mobile phone rage among patrons.

The national Motion Pictures Exhibitors Association said it's studying the legality of using mobile phone jammers because of the disruption from the phones during movie screenings.

Association spokesman Duncan Mackenzie said the jammers could be used in the 200-member group's cinemas round the country.

Mobile phones in cinemas were a "huge disruption" to moviegoers, Mackenzie said.

"Even texting creates so much light and it's unfair to expect that people should have to put up with it," he said.

The worst offenders he saw were middle aged women who answered their phones in cinemas and continued conversations, getting aggravated if asked to turn their mobile phones off or leave, he said.

Mackenzie said "mobile phone rage" between patrons sometimes turned nasty.

He had to defuse one incident when a man threatened to hit two foreign students sitting on opposite sides of the cinema who were texting each other.

While many felt teenagers were the worst offenders, Mackenzie said they were the most cooperative about turning phones off.

If jammers were introduced, people on call for emergencies could leave their mobile phones or pagers at the reception desk, he said.

[Jay_Oh]

NZ cinemas may jam mobile phones
14:00 AEST Sat Apr 30 2005

New Zealand cinema owners may use mobile phone jamming technology to stop mid-movie calls, text messaging - and mobile phone rage among patrons.

The national Motion Pictures Exhibitors Association said it's studying the legality of using mobile phone jammers because of the disruption from the phones during movie screenings.

Association spokesman Duncan Mackenzie said the jammers could be used in the 200-member group's cinemas round the country.

Mobile phones in cinemas were a "huge disruption" to moviegoers, Mackenzie said.

"Even texting creates so much light and it's unfair to expect that people should have to put up with it," he said.

The worst offenders he saw were middle aged women who answered their phones in cinemas and continued conversations, getting aggravated if asked to turn their mobile phones off or leave, he said.

Mackenzie said "mobile phone rage" between patrons sometimes turned nasty.

He had to defuse one incident when a man threatened to hit two foreign students sitting on opposite sides of the cinema who were texting each other.

While many felt teenagers were the worst offenders, Mackenzie said they were the most cooperative about turning phones off.

If jammers were introduced, people on call for emergencies could leave their mobile phones or pagers at the reception desk, he said.

I agree 100% with all that! It gets soooo annoying here when people don't have any consideration for people watching the movie and they'll just sit there through most of the movie and have a full conversation!!!  :evil:

[NESSAussie]

The hopping kangaroo phone call is here
11:55 AEST Thu May 26 2005

Mobile phones could soon start ringing in the most isolated areas of outback Australia, thanks to a new cutting-edge technology in which calls will hop like a kangaroo.

Scientists in Central Australia's Desert Knowledge Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) are developing the system, based on a phone network which does not require cost-prohibitive fixed infrastructure throughout the vast outback.

CRC chief executive officer Mark Stafford-Smith said the network would act like a kangaroo - with calls hopping from one mobile handset to another until they reach the intended recipient.

Dr Stafford-Smith said the "roo-call" project would revolutionise communication and life in Australia's desert regions.

"It's a fresh example of Australian inventiveness in overcoming the challenges of distance and isolated living, in the tradition of the School of the Air and the Royal Flying Doctor Service," Dr Stafford-Smith said in a statement.

"Around 48 per cent of remote communities in inland Australia still don't have a basic phone service - and this way we can provide them with one."

The University of Wollongong's Mehran Abolhasan said the multi-hop, ad-hoc networks used a new cutting-edge technology.

Each mobile phone unit would serve as a carrier in an "ever-moving" network, with only a few fixed transmission points.

"Multi-hop ad-hoc networks are mainly made up of end-user nodes, or mobile handsets," Dr Abolhasan said.

"These form a cooperative network that routes and transports traffic between participating nodes wherever they are, within range.

"As the range of each node is limited, it may take several hops, from one node to another, for a call to reach its intended destination or to connect to the national communication network.

"Clever software manages the calls through this dynamic network and picks the best route - or set of hops - without phone users even being aware of it.

"All they have to do is leave their mobile handsets switched on."

Dr Abolhasan said scientists were currently designing the network, which will be trialled from July.

If the trial is successful, the system is expected to take a number of years to establish.

[zurielshimon]

Brilliant!

[Will]

NZ cinemas may jam mobile phones
14:00 AEST Sat Apr 30 2005

New Zealand cinema owners may use mobile phone jamming technology to stop mid-movie calls, text messaging - and mobile phone rage among patrons.

The national Motion Pictures Exhibitors Association said it's studying the legality of using mobile phone jammers because of the disruption from the phones during movie screenings.

Association spokesman Duncan Mackenzie said the jammers could be used in the 200-member group's cinemas round the country.

Mobile phones in cinemas were a "huge disruption" to moviegoers, Mackenzie said.

"Even texting creates so much light and it's unfair to expect that people should have to put up with it," he said.

The worst offenders he saw were middle aged women who answered their phones in cinemas and continued conversations, getting aggravated if asked to turn their mobile phones off or leave, he said.

Mackenzie said "mobile phone rage" between patrons sometimes turned nasty.

He had to defuse one incident when a man threatened to hit two foreign students sitting on opposite sides of the cinema who were texting each other.

While many felt teenagers were the worst offenders, Mackenzie said they were the most cooperative about turning phones off.

If jammers were introduced, people on call for emergencies could leave their mobile phones or pagers at the reception desk, he said.

It's just as legal for me to create a device that would introduce stray RF energy into their sound system and screw up everything as it is for them to jam cell phones by transmitting harmful interference. That is to say, it's not legal at all in any country with a spectrum regulation authority. It's vigilantism.

The problem is a social one. Kick people out who use cells. They'll get the picture.

[Chloe]

Recently my Kyocera Rave died a slow and painful death. I loved that phone... it had a flashlight on it too.....

last June, I dropped it into a puddle... after that, the backlight wouldn't stay off so I had to select no backlight and therefore, couldn't see anything in the dark... then in November I dropped it on the floor and cracked the faceplate and the number pad, and then it started turning itself off right in the middle of calls... so I had to get a new one. It's the newest Nokia I think.... not a flip phone or anything... And I miss my old one. I couldn't replace it because my Alltel store wasn't selling them anymore, and the only new phone I could get for cheaper or as cheap as the replacement price was the new one.

[NESSAussie]

I've been thinking about upgrading my 3315 :? but I'll also be up for a new Bio
Pro Harmonisation chip... :idea: Maybe when I go on my next interstate holiday

[zurielshimon]

I'm gonna drag this thread back up to announce what AT&T/Cingular is doing for me. As many of you know, Cingular bought out AT&T Wireless several months ago, and now finally the process of phasing out AT&T's TDMA technology is in full swing (notwithstanding the fact that Cingular's GSM coverage isn't completely rolled out yet).  And here am I with a phone that badly needs to be replaced and 7 months left in the contract.  What?  You no longer make TDMA phones?  $180?  (And that's for the cheapest Nokia of which they still have a few lying around.)

Of course, I was given the option of upgrading to a Cingular GSM phone.  Great!  But one problem:  I'm not going to be too specific, but on the map below, I live in the fourth-largest white area in the state of Tennessee.

Simply put, that's not gonna work.  (And it didn't.  They gave me 30 days to try it risk-free, and I only needed an hour and a half before I was on my way back with my phone for a refund.)

Two months go by, and heavy use finally got the best of this old AT&T phone, almost to the point to being unusable.  (The battery won't even charge unless I put it in another phone, and three or four of the buttons don't work.)  That's when I got an idea in my head and called 611.  I went 'round and 'round with some woman for a half-hour before asking for her supervisor, who called me at home to discuss the situation for well over an hour before taking it to his supervisors.

He called me back two days later to give me the results of his meeting.  While he could give me a steal on a new AT&T phone, he could make no promises of the service I would receive, especially as the old TDMA technology is being phased out and not being repaired as it slowly fails across the country.  The other option was that I could cancel my contract at the end of this billing month without penalty and take my business to another provider.

I had to contain my excitement over the phone, but I opted for cancellation, to which the senior customer rep expressed his regrets but thanked me for doing business with AT&T and Cingular.  Since then, I have been shopping around and though I found the best deal with Alltel, they could not provide me a local phone number, so I'm going with the more expensive Verizon because of their equipment, their dedication to their reliable CDMA network (arguably a superior technology to GSM), and previous experience I have had with them.

I've picked out a phone, the Motorola v.65p (I've always been a Motorola person) and a plan (which includes unlimited Nights & Weekends, Mobile-to-Mobile, and Push-to-Talk (within the VzW network)), and on August 3, 2005, it'll be out with the old and in with the new!