Fancy mobile phones - Can anyone explain it?

[YouCrazyDiamond]

I don't get it.

I have a £60 Nokia mobile phone. I only bought it because the Siemens C35i I had been using for four years stopped working. It sends messages and makes/receives calls: exactly what I want a mobile phone to do.

Lately a friend of mine spent something like £350 on a new mobile. The "old" one worked perfectly and was a fancier model than mine. So what is the fascination and obsession with these rip-off mobile phones?

Do people have to go on the internet when they're on the bus? Are those camera phones essential? Will you really have no friends if you don't have a £3.99 fancy ass ringtone?

Those little snappy camera phones fuck me off big time. I detest people randomly taking crap photos when you're just out for a pint at the pub. Infact, I would really like to smash the fuck out of people who continually snap pictures like that. It's a massive pet hate. I'm a relatively calm person though :) Fair enough having a camera phone if you're James Bond, but for us normal folks it's a pointless gimmick.

Ringtones should be illegal and phones should be set on silent vibrate by default. When was the last time you had a bus journey without some stupid fucker with a horribly annoying ringtone abusing your poor ears?

Email and the internet is for computers. End of. Phones accessing the internet is only useful for people that like cheating at pub quizzes.

So, can anyone that feels the need to update their phone every six months and fork out stupid amounts of cash for something they don't genuinely need explain why they do it? If it's an image thing then I really pity you :)

[Dr Pirate]

I have a camera phone because I wanted to take photos on my phone. I have fancy ringtones that I get online (WAP) for free, But I'm not the kind of person to sit at the back of the bus playing them all to my mates.

[White Noise]

grrr, its people like you that really annoy me. ok, the point about people buying them to look good does seem a bit shallow and tacky ringtones really do suck.

if you want a phone to just call and message people then thats cool but you've gotta understand they can do so much more, not only for the sake of it but to be helpful and practical. when i'm old, grey and have difficulties remembering my own name it'll be nice to look at some pictures of a fun night out. if my phone didn't have a camera on it then many nights would be lost. also its such a pain carrying around a real camera and getting the film developed, or spending more money on a digital camera when you're already buying a phone. Decent phones nowadays can be used as MP3 players, there's something else off the check list of expensive things you don't have to carry around. forget pda's too, with most phones you can synchronise outlook and your phones contacts, calendars, tasks, etc too. there's a whole list of other things you can do with your phone, most of them useful in you're everyday life *nods muchly*

£350 does sound A LOT of money for a phone though, was it pay-as-you go? if so, tell them to get it cheaper on contract =oS

[MrG]

you dont understand that they are rather expensive to make

even with pay as you go handsets they lose out a little and make the money back through tariffs, thats why handsets on their own are more expensive

[noog]

you dont understand that they are rather expensive to make

even with pay as you go handsets they lose out a little and make the money back through tariffs, thats why handsets on their own are more expensive

expensive to make? are you serious?

[Monserrat]

YouCrazyDiamond dude, I got my Nokia 6600 last year for a meagre £20.

The camera facility is a useful note-taking utility. I see a billboard advert that I'm interested in, but I won't necessarily remember what the contact details or web site is on that billboard. So I take a snapshot of it. When I'm back at home, I can then action it.

My phone does has WAP, but I don't really use it.

Games are useful for passing the time on a train journey. But sometimes, I'd just rather read a good book :-)

CrazyDiamond, you don't have a very good case here.

[Kermit]

I have a C35i (free from TheSite) and it works. I send texts and calls, and receive texts and calls. T'missus has a camera phone ("free" with her contract") and she only ever uses the camera on long bus jounreys when she's bored.

It's just a toy. I don't see the point in £350 phones, even if everyone at work does take the piss, saying I got it from Beamish (a Victorian museum near Durham).

[YouCrazyDiamond]

I was at a Snow Patrol gig a couple of months ago and standing near the back. All through the gig I could see the lights from these morons' phones as they held them up to take crap quality pictures or, even worse, record a song as a grainy video with crap audio. It's things like this that make me think these phones are taking over peoples' lives. At another gig a few months ago my mate had some tossbag sticking his arm in front of her face so he could try for the fourth time to get a shot of Damien Rice. Seriously... Shite.

I don't believe any 'normal' person has such a hectic life that they need a mobile phone organiser to keep it going.

Maybe it's the way they're advertised as a fashion accessory that really forks me off big time. The adverts with people dancing down the street to some stupid beepy ringtone make me want to kill the TV.

Phones are for phoning people. And they shouldn't ever be allowed to beep.

[Dr Pirate]

I use the organiser in my phone all the time, its a god send. If you don't want to use it fair enough but don't try and tell others its a total waste of time.

[Blah]

if it were not for my phone i would not get up on time in the mornings because it is the combination of vibrations and tone that wake me.
I would miss most of my lectures because i am forgetful and set reminders on my phone to tell me to get my arse wherever i need to be.
I would have nothing to time my egg with while im boiling it.
I would not have peoples addresses to hand when needed
I wouldn not be able to note down important things i see when out somewhere
I would have missed quite a few trains without checking train times using WAP
I would have failed in finding a cash machine without WAP, the time i was looking for one in a place i hadnt been before
Most of the time i would not know what the date is
And as i am crap at maths i would be stuck when a calculation needs to be done, as i do not carry a calculator everywhere i go

I have the 6100. I got it for free. Its not a fancy phone in any way. Its compact and has everything on it that i need for every day life. It doesnt have a camera but i would like one, because i dont want to take my expensive digicam everywhere. I like to take photos when im out and about.
I use a standard nokia ringtone, as i dont want to rely soley on vibration alert. I dont play them and i dont buy them. If i was offered a dudey one for free i would take it

Is this a crime?

Get over it comes to mind!

[Dr Pirate]

Free poly ringtones that you can get via wap > www.ringtonenation.com/wap/index.php#homern

There you go, spiffy ringing tones for free :D

[Blah]

Free poly ringtones that you can get via wap > www.ringtonenation.com/wap/index.php#homern

There you go, spiffy ringing tones for free :D

nice one :)

[Dr Pirate]

anytime :)

[MrG]

expensive to make? are you serious?

i hope that wasnt sarcasm

and yes i am serious, they might not be expensive as much to produce them, as it was to origionally design, test, and engineer working prototypes etc

[White Noise]

Phones are for phoning people. And they shouldn't ever be allowed to beep.

Thats the point though, they're not just phones anymore. Since when should anything stick to its origional specification anyway?

I think you're just bitter cos you can't work out how to use one :p

[AlmightyBob]

Im with diamond. I have an ancient Nokia that i dont even know what model it is. It makes calls and sends texts. That is it. How much did i pay for it? £10.
I would never in my life pay the extortinate amounts of money for these spangly new phones that really dont have anything you need. The ability to have a blue frog that makes an anoying noise on your screen or the ability to record very poor quality 5 second "movies" really dont seem that important. Thats probably my biggest problem with new phones, the cameras on them are rubbish. For that amount of money you can buy an amazing digital camera....i mean, thats what you take pictures with isnt it?
When theyre a million quid cheaper, a million times more technically advanced and not such a status symbol, i may consider getting one....but i doubt that'll happen in the forseeable future.

Peace

[Monserrat]

FFS, I have said this already, I got my Nokia 6600 from the Orange Shop for £20.

[zard]

My phone sings, dances and if you ask it nicely, it'll cook you an egg as well.

The note taking function is very handy for me, as people are often asking my to look things up for them, or get company contact details. The ability to send photos is nicer than the actual quality of photos. CornishAngel and myself have swapped a few while she's been away at uni.
Ringtones, yeah, given, most ring tones that people have are very frustrating, either cause of the frustrating noise level, the very annoying nature of the "tune", or just the poor quality of the tune. But then, if everybody had the same ring tone there'd been even greater disturbance as every single person on the bus would be reaching for thie rphone at the same time.

At the end of the day, innovation is not something to be sniffed at. Yes the picture quality is poor, yes the sound recording quality is poor. Things will improve.

On a side note, did you scoff at those people in the 80s that had the big brief case based phones? Bet you thought that if you need to make a phone call that you could use a payhone or wait until you got home or into your office. And now you're here saying that you use a mobile.

(For the record, I use a Siemens SX1, and it was free on my contract.)

[JsT]

I don't see how you can call image quality 'poor' on all camera phones. For example today I went out and to prove a point I just happened to take several random snaps, here is a random one of them. The quality is better than a lot of 'budget' digitial cameras, which is what the occasional photographer would use anyway.Can you tell that it was taken on a phone?

http://members.boards.ie/jst/Image013.jpg

[MrG]

my dads digital camera from ages back took worse pictures than that

[Mr_Wobble]

Camera phones can be fun, but the quality is still too poor to be used as an everyday camera. I'll have one when they're about 2+ MP as that's useful (provided the sensor is of good quality).
I agree that it's irritating having people take piss poor quality photos on the things all the time in the pub, or at concerts - a forest of arms waving their phone about in your way.