(a review I wrote on Newegg today, after Lena and I went twice to Radio Shack after her yoga class, to try to get her an adapter to use normal headphones, then the headphones - and no, it won't work with her nokla (i.e. nokla); had a great time at the shop, though, even the guy from AT&T came by and we told him what we think of them dropping that plan)
We now officially hate Nokia
Great computer which can even make phone calls. And it's unlocked, so no arm+leg deal with any of the forces of the netherworld. Good resolution, almost decent camera, lots of space (with the cheapo SD card courtesy of Newegg), full keyboard and it still fits in a pocket. With carrying over the SIM card from the previous phone (not locked, this works!) it was perfect to have everything in one pocket gadget: GPS, Wikipedia, email, messaging, phone and, if there's nothing better nearby, a camera. Combined with AT&T's prepaid web access at just 20$/month, this was the best thing I could get as a present to a geek daughter.
Did I say the camera is suboptimal*? It is. No big deal, it doesn't have to be.
But the headphones are killing. The weird one-wire-shorter deal, the soft part that fell off within a month and now they're scratching the ears, and above all the IBM (or Apple- or m$- or HP-) style "we'll lock you in" non-standard wiring on a standard jack... Tried to buy an adapter, "device not recognized" - yes, but you saw it. Tried to buy other phones, only one channel works. Seems to be they switched mike and one channel wires, so you'd have to buy headphones from Nokia only. Which is beyond "sucks" - since this morning, we officially hate Nokia.
...and the AT&T too, because within a couple of months they stopped that 20$/month internet for prepaid plans, and switched to some incredibly expensive scheme where you pay per megabyte. If that's the incentive to switch to a contract, we now hate AT&T too and may just sell this phone.
Too bad - a great machine, good design, but hey, corporate greed/policy has screwed up even bigger things. They wanted to squeeze a few dollars more? They may lose a customer for years to come. Just keep thinking no further than the next quarter, guys...
As Lena says to this, this phone is becoming a brick. Its purpose was to do text messaging, occasional call, to have web in her pocket (she probably consulted Wikipedia a lot during the day) and to carry music around. Now the web part is off and the music hurts, the padding fell off the earbuds. Phone and messaging? I have that for 30$/month, on a far cheaper phone.
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* any machine which m$ deems not worthy of the latest version of windowses is called „suboptimal“, which means „less than best“. Their way of telling you you own an obsolete tin can while trying not to openly insult you. Doublespeak at its best.