comparative perceptions

As you will soon be aware (assuming you read the next post) or are already aware (if you've already read it, though I find that unlikely) I have a new phone.

What I hadn't previously mentioned is that my wife decided to get a new phone on the same day. She is much less stalwart than I am about her choice in phones so has a greater choice at her disposal. She settled on the KRZR K1. Although I would never have chosen it for myself, I quite like it. It's small, but heavy which makes it feel metallic and solid, rather than overweight and cumbersome.

When I was looking at it on the table next to my old 6310i I realised that in actual fact, aside from being narrower, it is the same height and (surprisingly) the same thickness. The thing was though, it looked quite a lot smaller. This got me onto how we look at devices and how we determine whether we think they are large or small.



Courtesy of sizeasy, the above image shows the top down view of the comparative sizes of the 3 phones. Since within 0.5mm they are the same height, I chose this as the most representative view.

I came to the conclusion that expectations entirely define perception of size. I don't expect phones to be thin, so my phone, although it's the widest by far, to me seems small. Dimensionally the nokia is indeed closest to a standard house brick which has the relative dimensions 100 x 45.3 x 28.1. The KRZR to me seems narrow but thick. Since it is only a whisker narrower than the nokia I presume this perception comes from the fact that it's thinner, but at the same time my perception of it being thick comes from the fact that I see it as a small phone, but it's thicker than a phone that I consider to be small-ish.

I think I've failed miserable in translating my thoughts into my blog, so I'm going to quit before I can get any further behind.

here comes a new challenger!

Is there any hope for me? LG and Motorola would have to improve their software dramatically, ericsson would need to make slight design improvements and slight software improvements and nokia need to either use the right software on the nice phones or improve their designs. In short, no - there is no hope.

It turns out that I was wrong. There is hope, and it comes from a mobile phone manufacturer that I had completely forgotten about - Samsung.




I went into the shop on Friday to whinge a little more about the lack of phones that interest me and noticed a slim black samsung on the rack. I asked the guy behind the counter if I could play with a real one. I played with it for about 15 minutes and I found it ok. It was presented well and didn't have some of the major deficiencies that I found with other software. Also style wise the phone is pretty, it's slim, has a nice screen and is quad band.

After getting home I checked out some reviews and they were positive. I went into another store to get a better price and was warned that it's no ericsson or nokia with its battery life which I found frustrating, but not too off putting. So long story short, I decided to buy it and see.

Having played with it for 3 days now I have some opinions. Although I could now go on for hours about all the things I dislike about it, I have to attribute that to my nature. The truth is that deep down I do like it even though there are some things that I need to get used to.

oh nokia..

.. why do you forsake me so!

I've always had nokia phones and always liked them functionally. It would be unfair to say that nokia didn't used to have stylish phones though. My first phone was the banana phone they used in the first Matrix (you know, the good one of the "trilogy").

I also owned the rather diminutive
8250 which really was not just the most stylish, but also the smallest phone at the time.

Sadly now, if you want a decent looking nokia phone, what do you buy? They're all ugly bricks. I currently own the 6230i which I bought to replace my 6610 (which was the last nokia phone I liked).

At this point I need to reiterate though - the functionality I really love. The software updates have become better and better in small but significant ways since my first nokia. In 1 touch I can make a call, write a message, use my calculator, use my calendar, open the camera mode (but not directly take the picture which is a good thing), browse my contacts. In 2 touches I can set a countdown timer, set my alarm clock, switch modes, convert currency. All of those functions I just mentioned I really do use all of the time - yes, even the camera for shots like this. It's fast, the text is easy to read, it ticks the connectivity boxes (bluetooth, ir, triband etc), it doesn't have stupid options in stupid places (for instance the ericsson C button on a contact is a shortcut for delete - really, how often do you want to delete a contact versus cancel out of the address book?), it contains all the functions I use and none of the one I don't... but... it's a fat ugly brick.

However there is hope! Recently they released the E50, which for the puritans out there even optionally comes without a camera. It's slightly taller than most phones (dare I say more phone shaped?) but it's thin (well, for a nokia), it has a very hi-res decent sized screen. Style wise I really love it - I want a phone that looks like a phone that has the great nokia functionality I have come to know and love. I played around with this phone in the shop on Saturday. It's awful. I could have cried.

It's a nokia phone sure, but it's got some crappy symbian bullshit software on it. I don't want to carry a frigging personal management system in my pocket, I just want a phone with simple software widgets! It's everything I love and hate all rolled into one. Why can't phones be more like computers - you buy them and then install your preferred OS?

Since I need a new phone (I don't treat them particularly well) I'm actually going to have to buy the successor to my current brick, the even more brick-like 6233. It's exactly like my previous nokia purchase - slightly fatter, no better.

Is there any hope for me? Well lets see - LG and Motorola would have to improve their software dramatically, ericsson would need to make slight design improvements and slight software improvements and nokia need to either use the right software on the nice phones or improve their designs and stop trying to be so friggin radical with their bulky "style" oriented phone. In short, no - there is no hope.