MOBILE | If for looks or for function, one day you have to part with your old phone, as Ahmad Humeid found out

6600 and 6210. Photo: Ahmad Sabbagh

OK, so by now I am fully convinced that mobile are mainly about style. “It’s part of your personality.” As my younger, college-age, brother told me over an MSN chat the other day. Obviously my good old Nokia 6210 was doing great damage to my supposedly high tech personality. If I was 10 years younger maybe I would have had an eye for one of those weirdly shaped mobiles whose keypads looks as if they have melted in the sun. But the 70’s retro look of the guy’s haircut in that phone’s advertising isn’t really ‘me’. For heaven’s sake I was born in the 70’s! Anyway, the style lesson here is that the younger generation seems to be going for the anti-functional look. Their mobiles, apart from having melted looking keypads also have stripes, squiggles and other ‘stuff’ on them.

I prefer to stick with a more functional aesthetic. So that’s why a Nokia 6600 smart phone seemed like an attractive idea. Did I mention that my mobile carrier was running a promotion on it? If I pledge my undivided allegiance to them for using their 500 minute plan for 2 years they’d give me the phone (which retails at around JD 230) for just 33 JDs. It will not exactly make me special. I mean, I just needed to walk around for 5 minutes in the mall recently to discover that swarms of kids half my age were running around with that phone too. Who cares if it has a Symbian operating system, GPRS data connectivity as well as Bluetooth. This phone is really a fully fledged computer. But the kids mainly need it for the looks and for the camera.

My brother, although agreeing that this phone is pretty cool, insisted that to upgrade my boring 30-something personality I really needed to consider a Sony Ericsson P910i. This too is a smart phone running Symbian, but with a larger touch screen that brings this phone into the class of fully fledged Personal Digital Assistants (PDA). But I just can’t accept the idea that a phone can cost more than JD 600. Of course there’s the new Nokia 9500 organizer which retails for JD 1000, but that’s a whole different story.

At one point, I decided to stick with my 6210. It’s simply a solid phone. It almost never crashed in the last 4 years (see, I told I am a dinosaur). Its menus is very usable and its reception very strong. I even had a data line functioning on it, which I used maybe for 10 times during all these years! Why get a new phone, especially when I hear all these horror stories about those new smart phones (as in: they crash, they’re slow, you need to upgrade the OS, etc, etc).

In the end I succumbed. Not because of style considerations (although I always resented the fact that I got stuck with the blue/violet metallic version of the 6210), but because I really wanted to make use of my laptop’s Bluetooth feature. I wanted to finally be able to synchronize and carry my whole address book and calendar with me, viewable on a larger colour phone screen. Being able to go online anywhere using GPRS at a reasonably good speed was also a good reason to go for a new phone.

So now I have a 6600. Moving my contacts from one phone to the other was absolute hell (mainly because I am not a Windows user), but let’s not get into that. Now I can send MMS picture messages, download Nancy Agram ring tones and look a bit cool (or at least un-dinosaur-ish). Still: I am a bit sorry about leaving my 6210 behind. On the other hand, I might still go for a Sony Ericsson 900 (and not a 910i), if I get a good deal. Yes. Life is hard in the mobile universe.


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6 responses to “Saying farewell to my 6210”

  1. Ammar Ibrahim Avatar
    Ammar Ibrahim

    Mabrook :) I really hope you won’t pollute the mobile with Nancy Ajram’s stuff ;)

  2. Saqf Avatar
    Saqf

    More than three years ago, during one of the breaks in that little yellow recreational room at syntax, I was going thru one of the newspapers laying there, and all of a sudden, I experienced not only love at first sight, but also the first true love!
    An Ad with the only cell phone that touched my heart. I never wanted to have one then, and was against having one (as almost all my friends recall). At that time, all my friends had cell phones except myself. So, I didn’t see a need for it, I was either at home, at work, or with any of those cell phone users. Besides that, I didn’t want to be reached.

    The Ad featured the one and only Ericsson R310s, floating on water. Which is known as the “Shark”. When I saw it, I said to myself, if I am ever going to have one, it must be THIS!
    I was not ready then for that “big move” in my life, so time went by, and after several months (about 10), I left syntax and started working on my own for a couple of months when one of the clients refused to work with me unless I get myself a cell phone with a line!

    I said, OH NO! It is happening and I can’t stop it! So, my thought went back to that Ad with the bulky water resistant cell phone with the weird antenna, that can be used for several things (checking someone’s throat, spreading cream cheese, preparing zucchini for dolma, picking your nose, climbing cliffs, punching annoying people, and many more..).
    So, the hunt starts for this already outdated device, that apparently didn’t appeal for the majority of people in Jordan.
    I looked EVERYWHERE for it, every single shop to find it, I went from East Amman to its West, passing by down town! After I nearly lost all hope, to my surprise, I find it at one of the main retailers in Amman, that I thought it was impossible to find there! And guess what, it was brand new with its original offer! :)
    It was one of those moments I will never forget!

    Ever since, I am using it and I am very proud of it, I wouldn’t sell it for anything, and would even buy another one (in case I see one, which I doubt), for the next decade!

    Please don’t get me wrong, I am for technology, but for the smart one and not the commercial. In my opinion, almost 90% of the updates on cell phones are not important, at least not important for 90% of the consumers.
    But on the other hand, I find that an mp3 player is one of the very smart gadgets, which I am very happy to use. But the technology of cell phones covered all the needs any phone user may need, unlike digital cameras, there are still many features and updates that are needed to be done.

    So, I am not a gadget freak, and definitely not among the target audience for cell phone companies, but I take what I need from it.

    Finally, I plead for GSM companies worldwide not to force me shut down my Ericsson R310s while it can still make my voice be heard.

    P.S. Sorry for the long “comment”, it has become more of a blog on your blog.

  3. Tarek Avatar
    Tarek

    Mabrook, if you need any software or games for it you should check out my website.

    T

  4. Roba Avatar
    Roba

    I really like the picture you used in this post.

  5. ebony shemale women Avatar
    ebony shemale women

    Another very insightful post – thanks!

  6. Janti Avatar
    Janti

    If you want a mobile that support Bluetooth and in same time you don’t want to hassle upgrading and maintaining a so-called “smart phone”, then buy a non smart phone like K700i and K750i from Sony Ericsson (both has Bluetooth connectivity). _period