I bought Technology !

Ideally, I  have a lot of time to read and write en-route to office and back home, but I usually waste it -thinking, staring at the roads, getting ready (make up-shake up) and web surfing for dirt cheap deals in my city but I often buy, well none.

I am glad that I could manage to write today about my new baby, my Samsung Galaxy GT 9000, also christened as S i9000.Well, I spent the last few days researching about phones, because I had it enough from colleagues and friends coaxing me to buy a new phone and desert my old one. Yes! That was the silly reason I bought a new phone, as such I was happy with my Nokia 5233 which is a normal touch screen phone and was good for my basic necessities of calling, texting and tuning in to the Radio. But I, admit that my new born Samsung has made me happier.:)

Earlier, I was apprehensive to dent in my riches by 20K (INR), on  a depreciating asset (Gold of an equal price, would be quite an appreciating asset),also I would any day spend that kind of money rather holidaying and travelling. But against all odds of mental upheaval, I bought the phone, and am I happy? I am smiling at this wonder. Only, that I find myself not as smart as this phone. In fact it’s over smart. I say so because it acts like my spokesperson going to Google\ Yahoo \ Facebook retrieves my contacts and adds them to my contact list. Excuse me! My phone contacts, have to be just phone contacts and that is why I ask you to behave just like a phone, don’t try to be a robot elevating nuisance levels, to more than what my IQ can handle.

The single and double touch on touch wiz made me a bit crazy, making me miss-dial people; when I only wanted to reply to a text, again the over smart thingy, you see.

Alright, but it lets me do a whole lot of smart things, or may be things in smarter ways. The super amoled screen is sexy and gives you the kick of owning a high end gadget, on a cheap note- makes you show off.

The excitement I felt when my dad bought me my first mobile phone - the Nokia 2100, during my second year of engineering is still un paralleled to any feeling of buying a new gadget. It had a sexy white light and actually taught me the basics of a cell phone. The call charges were IN Rupees 3/minute if I remember correctly, and not everybody had a cell phone. People generally liked to receive calls than to make one, and if they were important, they would be restricted to missed calls. But I, insisted on making calls, showing off that I could easily afford it and that is what I had got the phone for –calling, I mean. So people’s tendency had not changed, the technology did though.

Now, some things about the “Samsung techie biggie baby”, biggie because of its 4 inch screen (why were you thinking dirty?), baby - because mine is a month old. It essentially, is a technology power pack.I am exploring it more everyday and following are my observations:

·       The first thing that strikes about this phone is the 4’ inch,super amoled screen and it’s light weight (about 100gms).

·       Apart from the regular stuff, the swipe text input feature brings a smile to my face, though it took me some time to learn, to use it.

·       Live wall paper option instills Life in the phone making it very attractive.

·       Navigation is very good and the response time to open applications is by far less (courtesy the 1 Ghz proessor).

·       There are seven home screens each of which can be customized by adding \ removing widgets from a given list.

·       Be careful with the data sync function when accessing Google \ Yahoo etc for the first time.It prompts for your opinion, the default setting of which is smugly “On”.

·       A-GPS (assisted GPS) is quick and responsive but it took me two days to understand it’s functionality and the requisite to use an internet connection, unlike what most web sites say – that you don’t need an internet connection.

·       Dual clock feature is quite handy, if you have calls with or are travelling to client locations.

·       It’s just like a mini computer which you can use curled up in your quilt,because the response time is too good.

·       Video and picture quality is much better than other phones in this range having a 5MP camera.

·       This phone gave me a lot of problems in the second week as people complained of noise \ disturbance whilst I spoke. I took it to the service center (rude staff, more on this later), who identified it as a firmware issue and upgraded it [Gingrrbread – 2.3.3 is the latest version].It worked fine for a few days, but this problem is occurring again.

·       The Aldiko ebook feature allows downloading and reading e-books (useful for avid readers like me).

·       All share, allows you to play files from your phone to another player and vice-versa.Memo allows me to quickly scribble and take notes(I am not sure if lower version mobiles had this earlier too).

·       Layar feature is something I have yet to explore.

        You can check and enable \ disable settings in the phone by using secret codes for this model (available on the ineternet).For technical specifications, click here.

This is what my one month old baby has showcased till now, more to be added later. I would recommend this phone but you can also check HTC Desire, Samsung SL 9003, Nokia N8 in this range. Happy phoning (not literally!).