K508i - To buy or not to buy

This December I will be celebrating the 3^rd anniversary of my Ericsson A3618. For the information of those who have no idea what I am talking about …long before Sony Ericsson there was this Swedish company called Ericsson that made mobile phones. In the 1980s they believed that mobile phones were not that great a market to invest in. So they decided to concentrate on their core business of making telecom equipment for telecom companies and lost the race for the mobile phone market to Nokia. Now they are fighting to get it back with Sony by their side and Sony Ericsson is putting up a really nice show.

The W800i is really cool, but pricing it as Rs 25k is really bad. But that’s not a problem since there are plenty of people willing to pay that price. Even I was planning to get one before I realized that to buy a W800i or any its new brothers and sisters in the market, I would have to save for a really long time and the purchase would reset my bank balance to zero.

[My Inner Self]-:- “God! Why can’t you give these software engineers a gift of a million dollars after they pass out of college so that they don’t complain about the meager salaries they make as trainees at IT companies?? So what if their meager salaries are way above what an average India makes?? If it can’t get them the latest mobile phones, ipods and laptops, of what use is it?”

So I finally locked my attention on the best possible option in the range I could afford. The Sony Ericsson K508i, I could play 3D games on it, and click the occasional photograph. I could also read MMS that my friends send me. What’s the big deal about the MMS?? Well I have never see an MMS on my A3618…since it has no MMS capability, all it shows is some grabbled up ASCII text when I receive a MMS. And I have only heard and read about technologies like IrDA, GRPS etc…never experienced them.

So I called up my parents to get the green light for the purchase. Though I would be making the purchase out of my own pocket, I thought it would be better to ask them. My father coolly told me not to worry about the money in my bank account…let it grow…get it become 1 lakh …don’t get itchy fingers and blow up money on useless things. My current phone works right? “If you mean I can use it to talk just like I can in a public phone booth? Yes!” So let things be the way they are. Save the money for the future.

It was great listening to dad say all that on the phone, while I tried to cover the phone with my hands least the girl sitting next to me on the company bus sees my prehistoric mobile phone with its paint gone in several places. I was greatly troubled after the call. Should I keep myself ready for the unknown future or blow up money on getting a new phone to play with?

[My Inner Self]-:- “Man! I hate this! Why do you have to dump all these painful policy decision making on me? I have enough troubles to think about already! Tell you what, isn’t there a girl by your side with a Nokia 6600?”

Yes! Why?

[My Inner Self]-:-“Ok…Now listen the Nokia 6600 has everything you want. So why don’t you just knock the girl by your side on the head and grab the Nokia 6600 and jump out of the bus”

No! I can’t do something like that.

[My Inner Self]-:-“Why not? You worried that you will be caught? Or is it about Right and Wrong?”

No! I am a Nokia hater. I won’t even think of doing such a thing in my dreams.

[My Inner Self] and all nearby souls in chorus -:- “OOHHHH!!! We have a Nokia hater among us.”

Nokia phones are so terrible. Ugly stupid designs, useless User Interfaces. I wonder why most people buy Nokia.

[Passing by Soul 1]-:- “That right, when I walked on the earth as a mortal. I used both Nokia and Ericsson. Ericsson phones have a much better UI than Nokia.”

[My Inner Self]-:-“Ok I will sleep over the problem and let you know about what to do”

Yeah! Whatever, its 5pm now, the company’s net server just opened up for net access, gotta browse. Don’t disturb me. And all you souls get lost. No peeping over the shoulders while I type my email passwords.

[My Inner Self]-:- “These software engineers are crazy”