Wednesday 30 June 2010

Knackered Nokia

After two years and nine months, my Nokia N95 is getting flaky and unreliable.

Lately, the slider mechanism has broken so that if I slide the display out fully - it goes blank. In order to be able to use the keyboard, I have to extend it nearly all the way out - just enough to be able to read the '1', '2' and '3' keys. Another random error is that of its own volition the phone suddenly decided to go into 'camera standby mode'. No reason. A fix is a re-start, which is annoying. Overnight the phone went into camera standby mode by itself, and stood by all night long until the battery expired. And the battery cover itself is working loose. The phone has ceased alerting me to inbound SMSs; I need to work my way through a clunky menu (four clicks) to check whether or not I've got any messages. The chrome's coming off the most heavily-used keys.

This is a shame, because the Nokia N95 is the first mobile phone I've really liked. It can take decent photos and record little films and sound, play music, store lots of multi-media, has a large memory. If only it had been more robustly made! I'd like an Apple iPhone, but from what I hear from users, it's even more fragile.

Can anyone recommend a mobile phone that's built as solidly as my Nikon DSLRs, one with a built in 5MP+ camera and has lots of memory? E-mail reader not required.

10 comments:

student SGH said...

Recommend a reliable handset? Recommending any reliable electronic device these days is very risky. They are designed to serve you around two years and then, dear customer you should replace them. That's why repairs are not cost-effective and spare parts are not available.

The slider and chrome coming off - just wear and tear.

The stand-by mode and not signalling incoming text messages - a software error I suppose.

My Nokia 3110 Classic is beyond reproach, though it now looks worn-out. I'll change the front panel next year and it should not pack up till 2014. But it's not a phone that'd meet your requirements - camera is crappy. And the memory - it depends on the memory card you use. My phone has a built-in memory of 8 MB and I make do with it...

The street on the desktop - what's the location?

ździEra - gnash...

adthelad said...

I know a few people using the iphone and they hate it. Especially useless with emails apprently, keeps freezing up - the new version may be better but I have heard of some software glitch that needs upgrading. These http://www.mobilechoiceuk.com/News/Six+Best+Video+Recording+phones/2946 'recommendations' are from last year but might be worth checking review videos on the web or any new phones that outspec them. Battery life is a major factor to remember of course when comparing.
Good luck!

KM said...

Sorry I don't have any advice for you but I sure would be glad if you tell us what you replace your old phone with. I'm in a nearly identical situation with my E65.

I said...

How about a Nokia N95? It's usually possible to find refurbished or unsold handsets. My sister's been using the same brand of handset since the late 90s.

Island1 said...

Hoe about a Nokia N95? It's usually possible to find unsold handsets on the interweb thingy. My sister has been using the same model since the late 90s.

Unknown said...

Nokia 3310. It's a legend of indestructibility :-)

nickm said...

Mike, there's only one phone that can combine your creativity in writing, photography and illustration...that has a great 5mp camera, an HD video camera and will give you the ability to listen to Loius Jordan whilst drawing your past life in oil paint before photoshopping it to your blog, that will give you google earth, google maps and a compass in your pocket. Your Nokia was great but it's time to come back to the excitement you used to feel when you fired up your Quadra. You can even play Hellcats on it for 79p!!I promise you, its so much more than a Nokia. And you might think its not worth having email in your pocket, but once you get used to it. Also, they're much tougher than they look. and there are myriad casees around that protect it even more. i'm DYING to see what you can do with the Hiptstamatic, with the graphics prgram (you could be drawing Donny Disco on the metro!). Dont believe the anti-apple bollocks - itd smazing, Do THE RUGHT THING!

Michael Dembinski said...

Hmmm... As many suggestions as comments. Nick - Apple in Poland is not the same user-facing experience it is in London. Gouging is more like it. Just a tiny, tiny proportion of Poles use Apple (for historical reasons); they are either graphics/media professionals, or else nouveau-riche show-offs. How many of those apps are available in Poland heaven only knows.

Bartek - yes, the desktop location is ul. Puławska by Auchan.

LG Renoir sounds interesting...

student SGH said...

I had to do a double-take to recognise the place, I had no supposition where it was. You snapped that pict on the road towards Warsaw, just before the intersection in Mysiadło.

PS. The turnout seems to be quite high. I was queuing up for five minutes, between 8:19 and 8:24 to cast my vote in the polling station in lousy NI.

Sigismundo said...

Michał, you'd be amazed how many Poles now have iPhones. On Warsaw-London flights it seems nearly 50% of the Polish Gastarbeiter returning from the UK are using them or iPods – admittedly a large proportion are using them to listen to or watch media and not as phones. They are after all convergence devices - far more than just a phone.

BTW, there's also absolutely nothing stopping you from downloading Mac apps from the UK store (I have no idea if there's a Polish app store). Presumably it's just a question of the billing address of your credit card.

I'm not trying to recommend Apple. Apple is getting too big for its boots. With a market cap exceeding that of Microsoft, the question now is – who's the real 'Big Brother'?

If you don't otherwise use Mac computers for your day to day computing (and therefore benefit from the ability to synch your address books, calendar, notes, etc, etc) there's no real reason to go for the iPhone. Google is doing a lot of good stuff with its Android phone operating system. Many of the Android phones are pretty well on par with the new iPhone, and they have the added advantage that you can install non-Apple vetted software and progams on them, and for example watch simple avi videos (which to my knowledge you can't on the iPhone without special pre-processing). They're also substantially cheaper. I seem to recall hearing good things about the Nexus, but there are plenty of other Android phones appearing on the market almost on a daily basis.