Monday, July 27, 2009

 

Free technology - the best kind

For ages I'd been stumbling along with my ancient SPV E200 Smartphone. Normally people would add "trusty" in these circumstances but I have chosen not to for a couple of good reasons. Firstly, the button has always been sticky and sometimes unlocking the device would take a little while (or forever if it was Samantha trying to use the phone for a quick game of Solitaire). Secondly, the phone would just lose all signal and you wouldn't know unless you tried to contact someone; after rebooting the phone, you would receive a deluge of texts and voice messages from people trying to find you.

Eventually the second problem finally inconvenienced me enough and I started looking around for a cheap replacement. The E200 and it's predecessor the SPV PC20A (obtained December 2005) were bought 2nd hand from work but I thought it was time for a new (but still cheap) Smartphone. As I was looking at an offer on Expansys a colleague from Seattle had recommended, my neighbour in our cubicle farm said "why didn't you say - I've a spare phone here you can have for nothing." Free technology .... mmmmmm ...

So now I have a lovely HTC TyTn II (Kaiser). Coincidentally all three phones are made by HTC. Sliding tilt screen, keyboard and stylus, 3MP camera and the ability to run current applications! It's funny how this may end up with me spending money on services like Internet access. I'm configured the phone to use wireless networks, both at work and home, so I can surf the Net without a laptop. Websites are now much more mobile-screen-friendly than they were a few years ago when I last dabbled.

As the phone was sans accessories (it WAS free), I've ordered a headphone convertor (jack-to-miniUSB) from some eBayer in Hong Kong. Not the brightest idea considering my appalling track record with sellers from that part of China but I can spare the cost of a pint should it not turn up. Additionally I had to fork out to unlock the phone from Orange so I could use my Virgin SIM (that's the network, not a reference to the unused state of the card). This part went reasonably well and for £13.99, Unique Phones sent me a code to free my phone. The first company used on the Internet - the Unlock Superstore - were TEN pounds cheaper but ineffective in their job; they had to be chased up for a refund too.

So, thanks, James!

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