Dear All,
Today I would like to tell you about my Nokia 5800 Express Music Phone. It’s lying in my closet right now. Alas, it is not working. This is one of my most favorite phones ever. It was not my first phone. But, it was the first phone that I personally wanted. I waited for it for over 6 months. I thought it would make everything alright in my life. That is another story.
As I have stated before, it was not my first phone. My first phone was LG moonlight RD 2130. It was a CDMA phone. I did not know much about owning a cell phone. It was 2004 and I was in my 2nd year in college. The CPP or Calling Party Pays regime had just been implemented in India. It was a crazy. When I was in my 1st year, I had made two goals. My first goal was to acquire a computer, followed by a cell phone. By that time, the computer had become essential for my projects in college. A cell phone was not really a necessity back them. It was probably an indulgence. India was slowly moving from the fixed line monopoly of BSNL to the mobility of the private players. It was still a young regime that had a long way to go.
Although mobile telephony was introduced in Kolkata way back in 1995, however, even after a decade the calls were still very expensive. But there were two major changes that allowed mobile telephony to proliferate. The first was the start of the caller party pays regime. I mean who wanted to pay for being disturbed. The second was the reduction of cost of the calls due to the competition. One of the major competitors at that point of time was Reliance. It is not as reliable as the name goes. But back then they were offering rates that beat the competition hands down. India was introduced to 40 paisa per minute calls. It was a boon. But that was not the reason for my choice. I chose to buy the CDMA LG moonlight phone because my friend had just bought the same phone. It was cheap compared to some of the other phones. It looked decent too. It was definitely slimmer and better looking than the Nokia 3310.
Anyways, using the extra bit of money my father had given me for my college fees, I bought my first cell phone. The LG Moonlight CDMA phone was permanently attached to the Reliance network. At first, I thought that it would offer a million other possibilities. I thought I would be able to access internet through that phone. I even bought a data cable to connect it to my computer. But nothing happened. It was just a very ordinary phone and Reliance had a number of hidden charges. FYI, when I bought it, Reliance was offering what was later considered as a life time offer. We had to recharge only once in 6 months. In between, we could have just used a top up. But, the very moment I recharged my phone after the first month, Reliance took away that offer. Please understand, back then I had no idea about how we could ill-treat the customer care people. I did not know that they were the ideal candidates to shout at the end of a very bad day. So instead of protesting, I did not do anything. Every month I would recharge it. But as it was then, and as it is now, I still do not really have much use for a cell phone. What I mean to say is that I really do not use a phone for its main purpose any more. I do not receive many calls and I do not call many people either. I have grown up in a cell phone free environment. I did not need it then, and I still, with certain exceptions, do not need it now.
Anyways, after a while I started to hate my cell phone. It was the only way a person could reach me any time anywhere. I could not hide any more. I had no excuses any more. It was a nuisance. And all the people who called were people I did not want to talk to. Finally, one day my friend helped me out of this mess. He told me that Reliance had come up with a new offer. According to that offer, all calls between 10:00PM and 6:00 AM were free. So, he offered to use my phone and in return he would recharge it every month. I welcome with gusto. I could not believe that I could get rid of that nuisance. But, when you let other people use it, they also tend to screw it. Now, while I hated it, the phone did have some great characteristics. First of all, it was loud as hell. Whenever someone called me on that phone, me and my entire neighborhood was able hear what ever conversation I was having. Secondly, as with the rest of the phone of that generation, it was very hardy. I guess this was a requirement for every phone I have had till date. It has to be break-proof.
Let me elaborate. That LG phone, fell from three stories, and became two pieces, the battery and the main body. I just picked it up and put it together and it was working fine. Then that phone fell into a dirty nullah, during one of my legal aid camps. Instead of drying it, I washed it with water. It flickered for a few days and then it was back to normal. Third and finally, it was my only way of passing time. Basically, when you have nothing to do, you play with your phone. The games were really bad. I don’t even remember them. But, I played them anyways.
Anyways, coming back to my point, when I finally got it back from my friend, I noticed that the charging point had started having problems. While, I wanted to point it out to my friend and ask him to compensate, it was still working fine for some time. So again I let it be. By this time, I had realized that my phone's time was coming to an end.
There are many reasons for changing a phone. I had only one. I did not want that old phone anymore. So I went to my mother and asked her for a new phone. Being the youngest of my three brothers, I have had my share of hand me downs. To tell you the truth, at first I detested it. But right now, all I want is to inherit my father's 1976 Royal Enfield Bullet. It has been a hand me down for a while. Only it has not been handed to me as yet. Well, I will make some changes about it, come this November.
Moving on... My mother handed me a white Nokia 3610. I did not like it at all.. In fact, I hated it more than I hate my own phone. But I needed it back then. It was one of the very few phones which brought my good fortune. Or perhaps it was the phone that started my good fortune. I do not remember much about it. It was old, it was a hand me down, and I could not hear shit. But it was a GSM phone. I used it to get my first Airtel connection in Delhi. Looking back, those nine months were the best I had ever had. After a while, I literally gave up trying to charge my LG RD 2130. And that was more or less the last time I used my LG Phone or Reliance.
It was great to have Airtel. But, this was my first experience with a GSM phone. I had to keep experimenting. I had to try out other providers. So, I moved from Airtel to BSNL. BSNL disappointed me. But, there were too many other things going on in my life that I failed to notice. For the first time in my life, the phone had become a necessity and something that brought me joy. But good times never last.
No matter what, I always wanted to get a better phone. I wanted that something that had better features. I wanted something that would look good. Around this time, I again looked at the phone owned by my friend. He had a Motorola W225. It was a flip phone and it had radio in it. It was a lot of features compared to the 3610. So, when I went to Mumbai for the first time in my life, and I also got paid a lot of money for the first time in my life, I bought a new phone. I cannot really say if that phone was from my own money. Somehow I never got to enjoy that phone. Anyways, since I did not have internet, I decided to use the news paper to look up for a new phone. Then I finally chose the Motorola W275. There were many great things about it. It looked cooler than the 3610. It was cheaper than the RD2130. It had a large color screen. It had 500kb of memory. It had a VGA camera. It came with a data cable. It had a radio, so I could listen to music. It was also a flip phone.
I suppose buying that phone was probably the start of my bad times. While many would agree, that blaming a phone for bad times is not correct. But I am just using it to mark a certain period of my life. I walked the entire JJ Road from Byculla to VT to buy that phone for the right price. Right after that things started going wrong. It took me awhile to realize that in reference to the phone. It was also during that dark period of time, that I used that phone to make huge bills for Vodafone. Somehow it did not matter to me that I was running up a monthly bill up to 6500 Rupees in a month. And instead of rewarding me for it, they would keep cutting off my connectivity. This was especially pissing off, when they cut off the connection right after I paid them. It was frustrating. But there were many other frustrating things that were going on at that point of time.
Around this time, I started looking for a better phone. It was 2008. Apple had just introduced the Iphone. It was a revolutionary moment. Suddenly touch screens were becoming the technology. Everyone wanted to use a touch phone. At the same time, people were looking for the ultimate Iphone killer. At that time, no really understood the phenomenon called Iphone. But it did hit the competition where it hurt. It took Nokia a few months and a hit Batman movie later, it had its own Iphone. It was called the Nokia 5800. I would visit the Nokia website every day waiting for its launch. It looked amazing. Till the Iphone was launched, phones were getting smaller and smaller. But then suddenly this phone came and made bigger size a good thing. Smaller phones were no longer cool. Big screens were the in thing. Of course the Iphone was not perfect. It had a lot of flaws and it was still behind in lot of other features.
The other competitors such as Nokia which was the reigning king of phones at that point of time, decided to bring out a cheaper, faster, and more feature filled phone. It brought out the Nokia 5800. It looked great back then. It had only three buttons. It was fancy, because it was a touch phone. You just touched the phone and it worked. But that was not the end of it. It had a 600 MHz CPU with a 128 mb RAM. It was like having a Pentium I computer. It also came with 8 GB of memory card and a 3.2 megapixel camera with a Carl Zeiss lens. It had dual xenon LED flash. It could play video. It could access the internet. It could record video. You could download apps and use it to fill your phone. You could connect it to the computer and the computer could access internet. It seemed like heaven.
But it was also costly. It cost 21000 Rupees when it was initially released in India. I had to wait because I did not think that I had enough money to buy that phone. It was a difficult period of my life. I was not sure of any choices that I made. So I waited. Within a few months, I took up a new job and I came back home. Life was not easy, but I was trying to make things work. And the first that was on my mind was to get rid of that W275. It took me a while, and it took 14000Rupees from my mother. Finally, I bought the phone. It was like realizing a long dream. I was mesmerized by the phone. I loved the games that I could play on them. It wasn't just color screen, it was everything. It did every other thing very well. It wasn’t very loud, but it wasn’t muted either. It had a strong voice to it. It woke me up every morning. It entertained me when I was alone. It had a little stick which allowed me to note down little thoughts in my mind. It was no longer the un-cool dude with a shabby phone. This phone was a cool phone. It had every feature other than infrared. I still do not know what use is infrared for.
It was September 2009. It was the start of a new beginning. It was the start of a love affair. To tell you the truth, I was very satisfied with the Nokia 5800. It had a lot of features. It was a smart phone. It took me a while to get used to the complexity of the phone. I also have to get used to the fact that Motorola being an American phone company had all its buttons in the opposite directions. It took me a while, but I got used to it. I could watch video. I could listen to music. I could also listen to the Radio (it was a rare affair). I would also play number of games. I would used the camera to take pictures and video. It was amazing. It also allowed me to install new applets. It was like owning a mini computer. When I looked around, all the other tech conscious friends had the same phone. For once, instead of me following my friend, my friend followed me and bought a Nokia 5800. It always kept me busy. When I would be sitting alone with my thoughts, I would start tapping away notes into my Nokia 5800. The music was exceptional. I had a choice of all my favorite songs in that phone.
I also had this self belief that this phone would fix all my problems. It did not. But at the same time, I always believed that this phone only brought me good luck. May be it did not. But, it was one phone that never disappointed me. I never looked for another for as long as I had it. As time passed by, it became old. It did not kill the Iphone. In fact, it seemed like the last successful phone produced by Nokia. Nokia did not improve it. Instead it followed it up with third rate cheaper versions of this phone. I did not like the cheaper versions like the 5230. They have been successful either. It is now an outdated phone.
Soon, I moved from again. Again, my search for a new phone began. It was for the first time in my life, that I needed a second phone. In between, due to the decisions of Nokia bureaucracy, I refrained from investing in a company in transition. Instead, I looked at the next best thing. It was Samsung Wave II. Again, it was not the best phone. But it was much faster that a few other phones in the same category. It had a faster processor. It had 1 Ghz and 512 MB of RAM. It also had a 5 megapixed camera and lot of other features. The most impressive feature of course was the 3.7 inch Super Clear LCD with Gorilla Glass. Everything in the screen looks much better than it does in other areas. But, I still used it as a secondary phone. I loved my Nokia 5800 just as much. I did not want to give up on it.
However, its age started showing. It had started heating up. The Bluetooth had stopped working. I had lost three styluses for the phone already. So, I decided to get it fixed. I was hoping to keep it aside just as a special phone that I could show it to others. For once money did not matter. I went to the Nokia Care center, and I told them to do whatever it takes. I just wanted the phone fixed. They kept it with them for a week. Then one day they called me and told me that they could not fix the problem. They did not charge me anything, but all was lost. It worked, but it never gets charged properly anymore. I am afraid that it might blast into smithereens. So, it lies in my drawer. I try to use it once in a while for my transactions. But it seems to have gone into a coma. I will try to get it fixed again in Kolkata. But until then, it shall lie there in Coma. My lovely Nokia 5800 Express Music, I miss you. You are my best phone ever.
Love
Kobi Illegal
Today I would like to tell you about my Nokia 5800 Express Music Phone. It’s lying in my closet right now. Alas, it is not working. This is one of my most favorite phones ever. It was not my first phone. But, it was the first phone that I personally wanted. I waited for it for over 6 months. I thought it would make everything alright in my life. That is another story.
As I have stated before, it was not my first phone. My first phone was LG moonlight RD 2130. It was a CDMA phone. I did not know much about owning a cell phone. It was 2004 and I was in my 2nd year in college. The CPP or Calling Party Pays regime had just been implemented in India. It was a crazy. When I was in my 1st year, I had made two goals. My first goal was to acquire a computer, followed by a cell phone. By that time, the computer had become essential for my projects in college. A cell phone was not really a necessity back them. It was probably an indulgence. India was slowly moving from the fixed line monopoly of BSNL to the mobility of the private players. It was still a young regime that had a long way to go.
Although mobile telephony was introduced in Kolkata way back in 1995, however, even after a decade the calls were still very expensive. But there were two major changes that allowed mobile telephony to proliferate. The first was the start of the caller party pays regime. I mean who wanted to pay for being disturbed. The second was the reduction of cost of the calls due to the competition. One of the major competitors at that point of time was Reliance. It is not as reliable as the name goes. But back then they were offering rates that beat the competition hands down. India was introduced to 40 paisa per minute calls. It was a boon. But that was not the reason for my choice. I chose to buy the CDMA LG moonlight phone because my friend had just bought the same phone. It was cheap compared to some of the other phones. It looked decent too. It was definitely slimmer and better looking than the Nokia 3310.
Anyways, using the extra bit of money my father had given me for my college fees, I bought my first cell phone. The LG Moonlight CDMA phone was permanently attached to the Reliance network. At first, I thought that it would offer a million other possibilities. I thought I would be able to access internet through that phone. I even bought a data cable to connect it to my computer. But nothing happened. It was just a very ordinary phone and Reliance had a number of hidden charges. FYI, when I bought it, Reliance was offering what was later considered as a life time offer. We had to recharge only once in 6 months. In between, we could have just used a top up. But, the very moment I recharged my phone after the first month, Reliance took away that offer. Please understand, back then I had no idea about how we could ill-treat the customer care people. I did not know that they were the ideal candidates to shout at the end of a very bad day. So instead of protesting, I did not do anything. Every month I would recharge it. But as it was then, and as it is now, I still do not really have much use for a cell phone. What I mean to say is that I really do not use a phone for its main purpose any more. I do not receive many calls and I do not call many people either. I have grown up in a cell phone free environment. I did not need it then, and I still, with certain exceptions, do not need it now.
Anyways, after a while I started to hate my cell phone. It was the only way a person could reach me any time anywhere. I could not hide any more. I had no excuses any more. It was a nuisance. And all the people who called were people I did not want to talk to. Finally, one day my friend helped me out of this mess. He told me that Reliance had come up with a new offer. According to that offer, all calls between 10:00PM and 6:00 AM were free. So, he offered to use my phone and in return he would recharge it every month. I welcome with gusto. I could not believe that I could get rid of that nuisance. But, when you let other people use it, they also tend to screw it. Now, while I hated it, the phone did have some great characteristics. First of all, it was loud as hell. Whenever someone called me on that phone, me and my entire neighborhood was able hear what ever conversation I was having. Secondly, as with the rest of the phone of that generation, it was very hardy. I guess this was a requirement for every phone I have had till date. It has to be break-proof.
Let me elaborate. That LG phone, fell from three stories, and became two pieces, the battery and the main body. I just picked it up and put it together and it was working fine. Then that phone fell into a dirty nullah, during one of my legal aid camps. Instead of drying it, I washed it with water. It flickered for a few days and then it was back to normal. Third and finally, it was my only way of passing time. Basically, when you have nothing to do, you play with your phone. The games were really bad. I don’t even remember them. But, I played them anyways.
Anyways, coming back to my point, when I finally got it back from my friend, I noticed that the charging point had started having problems. While, I wanted to point it out to my friend and ask him to compensate, it was still working fine for some time. So again I let it be. By this time, I had realized that my phone's time was coming to an end.
There are many reasons for changing a phone. I had only one. I did not want that old phone anymore. So I went to my mother and asked her for a new phone. Being the youngest of my three brothers, I have had my share of hand me downs. To tell you the truth, at first I detested it. But right now, all I want is to inherit my father's 1976 Royal Enfield Bullet. It has been a hand me down for a while. Only it has not been handed to me as yet. Well, I will make some changes about it, come this November.
Moving on... My mother handed me a white Nokia 3610. I did not like it at all.. In fact, I hated it more than I hate my own phone. But I needed it back then. It was one of the very few phones which brought my good fortune. Or perhaps it was the phone that started my good fortune. I do not remember much about it. It was old, it was a hand me down, and I could not hear shit. But it was a GSM phone. I used it to get my first Airtel connection in Delhi. Looking back, those nine months were the best I had ever had. After a while, I literally gave up trying to charge my LG RD 2130. And that was more or less the last time I used my LG Phone or Reliance.
It was great to have Airtel. But, this was my first experience with a GSM phone. I had to keep experimenting. I had to try out other providers. So, I moved from Airtel to BSNL. BSNL disappointed me. But, there were too many other things going on in my life that I failed to notice. For the first time in my life, the phone had become a necessity and something that brought me joy. But good times never last.
No matter what, I always wanted to get a better phone. I wanted that something that had better features. I wanted something that would look good. Around this time, I again looked at the phone owned by my friend. He had a Motorola W225. It was a flip phone and it had radio in it. It was a lot of features compared to the 3610. So, when I went to Mumbai for the first time in my life, and I also got paid a lot of money for the first time in my life, I bought a new phone. I cannot really say if that phone was from my own money. Somehow I never got to enjoy that phone. Anyways, since I did not have internet, I decided to use the news paper to look up for a new phone. Then I finally chose the Motorola W275. There were many great things about it. It looked cooler than the 3610. It was cheaper than the RD2130. It had a large color screen. It had 500kb of memory. It had a VGA camera. It came with a data cable. It had a radio, so I could listen to music. It was also a flip phone.
I suppose buying that phone was probably the start of my bad times. While many would agree, that blaming a phone for bad times is not correct. But I am just using it to mark a certain period of my life. I walked the entire JJ Road from Byculla to VT to buy that phone for the right price. Right after that things started going wrong. It took me awhile to realize that in reference to the phone. It was also during that dark period of time, that I used that phone to make huge bills for Vodafone. Somehow it did not matter to me that I was running up a monthly bill up to 6500 Rupees in a month. And instead of rewarding me for it, they would keep cutting off my connectivity. This was especially pissing off, when they cut off the connection right after I paid them. It was frustrating. But there were many other frustrating things that were going on at that point of time.
Around this time, I started looking for a better phone. It was 2008. Apple had just introduced the Iphone. It was a revolutionary moment. Suddenly touch screens were becoming the technology. Everyone wanted to use a touch phone. At the same time, people were looking for the ultimate Iphone killer. At that time, no really understood the phenomenon called Iphone. But it did hit the competition where it hurt. It took Nokia a few months and a hit Batman movie later, it had its own Iphone. It was called the Nokia 5800. I would visit the Nokia website every day waiting for its launch. It looked amazing. Till the Iphone was launched, phones were getting smaller and smaller. But then suddenly this phone came and made bigger size a good thing. Smaller phones were no longer cool. Big screens were the in thing. Of course the Iphone was not perfect. It had a lot of flaws and it was still behind in lot of other features.
The other competitors such as Nokia which was the reigning king of phones at that point of time, decided to bring out a cheaper, faster, and more feature filled phone. It brought out the Nokia 5800. It looked great back then. It had only three buttons. It was fancy, because it was a touch phone. You just touched the phone and it worked. But that was not the end of it. It had a 600 MHz CPU with a 128 mb RAM. It was like having a Pentium I computer. It also came with 8 GB of memory card and a 3.2 megapixel camera with a Carl Zeiss lens. It had dual xenon LED flash. It could play video. It could access the internet. It could record video. You could download apps and use it to fill your phone. You could connect it to the computer and the computer could access internet. It seemed like heaven.
But it was also costly. It cost 21000 Rupees when it was initially released in India. I had to wait because I did not think that I had enough money to buy that phone. It was a difficult period of my life. I was not sure of any choices that I made. So I waited. Within a few months, I took up a new job and I came back home. Life was not easy, but I was trying to make things work. And the first that was on my mind was to get rid of that W275. It took me a while, and it took 14000Rupees from my mother. Finally, I bought the phone. It was like realizing a long dream. I was mesmerized by the phone. I loved the games that I could play on them. It wasn't just color screen, it was everything. It did every other thing very well. It wasn’t very loud, but it wasn’t muted either. It had a strong voice to it. It woke me up every morning. It entertained me when I was alone. It had a little stick which allowed me to note down little thoughts in my mind. It was no longer the un-cool dude with a shabby phone. This phone was a cool phone. It had every feature other than infrared. I still do not know what use is infrared for.
It was September 2009. It was the start of a new beginning. It was the start of a love affair. To tell you the truth, I was very satisfied with the Nokia 5800. It had a lot of features. It was a smart phone. It took me a while to get used to the complexity of the phone. I also have to get used to the fact that Motorola being an American phone company had all its buttons in the opposite directions. It took me a while, but I got used to it. I could watch video. I could listen to music. I could also listen to the Radio (it was a rare affair). I would also play number of games. I would used the camera to take pictures and video. It was amazing. It also allowed me to install new applets. It was like owning a mini computer. When I looked around, all the other tech conscious friends had the same phone. For once, instead of me following my friend, my friend followed me and bought a Nokia 5800. It always kept me busy. When I would be sitting alone with my thoughts, I would start tapping away notes into my Nokia 5800. The music was exceptional. I had a choice of all my favorite songs in that phone.
I also had this self belief that this phone would fix all my problems. It did not. But at the same time, I always believed that this phone only brought me good luck. May be it did not. But, it was one phone that never disappointed me. I never looked for another for as long as I had it. As time passed by, it became old. It did not kill the Iphone. In fact, it seemed like the last successful phone produced by Nokia. Nokia did not improve it. Instead it followed it up with third rate cheaper versions of this phone. I did not like the cheaper versions like the 5230. They have been successful either. It is now an outdated phone.
Soon, I moved from again. Again, my search for a new phone began. It was for the first time in my life, that I needed a second phone. In between, due to the decisions of Nokia bureaucracy, I refrained from investing in a company in transition. Instead, I looked at the next best thing. It was Samsung Wave II. Again, it was not the best phone. But it was much faster that a few other phones in the same category. It had a faster processor. It had 1 Ghz and 512 MB of RAM. It also had a 5 megapixed camera and lot of other features. The most impressive feature of course was the 3.7 inch Super Clear LCD with Gorilla Glass. Everything in the screen looks much better than it does in other areas. But, I still used it as a secondary phone. I loved my Nokia 5800 just as much. I did not want to give up on it.
However, its age started showing. It had started heating up. The Bluetooth had stopped working. I had lost three styluses for the phone already. So, I decided to get it fixed. I was hoping to keep it aside just as a special phone that I could show it to others. For once money did not matter. I went to the Nokia Care center, and I told them to do whatever it takes. I just wanted the phone fixed. They kept it with them for a week. Then one day they called me and told me that they could not fix the problem. They did not charge me anything, but all was lost. It worked, but it never gets charged properly anymore. I am afraid that it might blast into smithereens. So, it lies in my drawer. I try to use it once in a while for my transactions. But it seems to have gone into a coma. I will try to get it fixed again in Kolkata. But until then, it shall lie there in Coma. My lovely Nokia 5800 Express Music, I miss you. You are my best phone ever.
Love
Kobi Illegal
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