The phone E@L is travelling with is the E61i, for two reasons: a) he bricked Spikes's old iPhone the other week and he hasn't been in Singapore long enough lately to get down to SimLim square for someone to unbrick it, and b) the iPhone is only 2G.
Reason he dislikes the Nokia and prefers the iPhone: he can actually HEAR people when he is on a call on the iPhone. Its speaker is nice and loud. The Nokia's speaker is tiny and hard to locate precisely over his delicate shell-like... He has to press it so hard against his head that he frequently turns the stupid thing off. What's with the on-off button being on the face of the phone, right next to the speaker? Others with this phone have had the same problem.
ALl this week, when talking on the phone he's had trouble. He's been saying, "Speak up! Shout! I can't hear a freaking thing on this shit phone!"
So out for drinks last night with two of HK's Tech Gurus - HKPhooey and Spike - naturlich E@L checked out what pocket communication devices they were using. HKP was on the latest Blackberry and Spike had 2 iPhones with him! (No questions from anyone about this.)
Neither could come up with a convincing sales pitch for either choice, except that Spike wants to write an iPhone app like the farting thing that kept him so amused for most of the evening when he wasn't double fisting the jambon iberica and shouting at women passing on the footpath below. A successful app - sell a few million at 99c each and retire is the plan - would enable him to import his own pigs and avoid hassles with middle-men, like the chef at Uno Mas.
So anyway, WHY can't E@L hear anything on the E61i? Is it an E61i problem or an E@L problem?
Today he was at a health screening clinic with his employment. People were getting complete insurance check-ups, including a simple hearing test. Naturlich E@L asked for a freebie; hearing test that is.
"Sure, no problems," they said in Japanese (it is a Japanese clinic in HK).
Result: that Led Zeppelin concert in 1973 has a LOT to answer for... All the high frequencies are gone, lost forever in the cacophony of conversations from all around. E@L finds it really hard to follow what people are saying as soon as there is any background noise.
Bummer. Still, it doesn't help him decide what phone to buy next. One thing though, it will have to be a LOUD one.
E@L
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4 comments:
A friend of mine who has the iPhone has trouble hearing conversations; he's always reaching for the corded earpiece/mike thing whenever he gets a call. My hearing's pretty bad these days but I do okay with the iPhone without any sort of headset. And I don't use bluetooth because I don't wanna walk around looking like a Borg and don't wanna go fishing around in my pocket for the thing whenever the phone rings.
Ah well, whatever you do, don't buy anything that runs on Windows Mobile. Android phone? Wait for the Palm Pre? Google "mobile phones for the hearing impaired"? Cute young assistant, always at your side, who manages your phone coversations for you?
If you don't wanna get a 3G iphone (and I don't see why not), maybe Blackberry is the best choice for you - stable operating system and great system for email on the go, if you need that.
a question for spike - do you use the same phone when you travel? switch sim cards in other countries? i'm just starting to look at new phones for my husband. he works in africa, middle east and europe and has 3 phones, only one of which works stateside.
e@l, i'd also appreciate any suggestions you might have. btw, i can't get unlocked iphones here in the states.
I use the same phone when I travel and I don't get local sim cards. I need to have the same number wherever I am for business purposes. But I don't make many calls from the mobile when I'm roaming - I use local offices during the day and skype at night.
thank you for answering.
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