Note : Non-geeks can stop ready right now and wait for Caturday!
I wrote a while back about all the phones I’ve had through the ages. I loved the last phone I got despite it being very inexpensive and basic. But alas, it didn’t take long for me to long for more features and so just a year or so later, I have confined it to the scrap heap and bought myself another new Nokia, the E71.
Perfect for browsing your favourite blog site!
It looks remarkably like a Blackberry, except it isn’t. It can however, do more or less everything a Blackberry can do : email, web browsing, etc. I got it mainly because the browser is actually quite usable and it allows me to check the comments on my blog even if I am on the road. Responding to comments on the tiny QWERTY keyboard (gosh, QWERTY is so easy to type) is a little difficult, so it’s more for reading than writing.
It has things like QuickOffice which allows you to view spreadsheets and other documents, it also has GPS which means you can instantly see where you are and how to get to your destination (if you download the relevant city maps).
For those of you who are interested, there is a far more in-depth review here (with better pictures too).
WARNING : Surfing the web can be expensive. China Mobile charges 0.03 RMB for 1000kb of data which is 30 RMB per megabyte. In just over a week I’d used up about 27 megabytes, so that’s 800 RMB right there! The answer of course is to sign up for the GPRS package which allows you to enjoy 800 megabytes for just 100 RMB per month, which I have now activated.
The coolest phone in the world ….. back in 1999.
Talking of price, isn’t it funny how cheap things have become. Almost 10 years ago (1999) I got all excited over the Nokia 8210 which at the time was the smallest ever Nokia phone, with interchangeable covers to allow users to “express themselves”. Back then the phone cost over 4000 rmb – black and white screen, no email, no internet, no camera, no GPS. Fast forward to 2008 and the E71 can be had for a mere 2600 rmb. No wonder I’ve already spotted a few hundred people with the same phone.
I know many of you spend your working days in the Bermuda Triangle of Shanghai blogs, meaning Dingle, Swiss James and my own site, but for those of you who don’t often visit these other fine hypertext-rich environments, Dingle has a nice post today about some very nice mobile phone holders that would be perfect for the E71. We don’t just throw these posts together you know, there’s an awful lot of planning at the start of each week!
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