I have a Motorola E1000 and it is a bad telephone.
02 suck, blow and bite. Simultaneously.
So. I lost my T610 in the British Library. Bollocks. I phone up 02 and my SIM is blocked. I manage to get a brand spanking new SonyEricsson K700i out of them for free, a really nice telephone currently sitting in stroking distance to my left. To my right is the telephone I can use, a Motorola E1000. It barks. It sheds. It slavers. It is a dog. A big, lustrous Newfoundland.
It's my new phone.
How so, Hassan?
Well, inside the K700i is an unactivated 02 SIM card. This chip will never be activated; I will probably never use this telephone. Inside the E1000 is a 3G chip from 3. Around this SIM card is my new telephone with its tongue lolling out and it's big 'can we go for a walk now?' eyes.
I try to get the O2 card initialised. "It'll take a couple of hours', they say. 24 hours later I phone them up. Where's my network? "Oh", they say. "We entered the wrong SIM number." While I'm talking to them, I get the password removed from my file. The account I've had for nearly nine years is under the name of an old girlfriend; I've had authorisation to deal with the account all this time. God knows where this girl is today; we didn't keep in touch. About six months ago they started to ask me for a password, even though I never agreed on one. I got tired of this and said 'look, there's no password, take it off my file.'
A few hours later and there's still no joy so I phone them back. "You're not X [name of former girlfriend], they say. No, I'm me, I say. "Well, we can't discuss this account with you," they say. But I'm authorised. "No. There's no password. Goodbye."
So I'm sitting with a new phone tying me to a new 12 month contract and they won't turn the thing on. I'm paying line rental by direct debit for a phone I can't use and they won't even discuss it with me. I phone them again and again, trying to get someone to just listen. 02 are evil bastards.
Today I finally get someone to actually refer to me someone without a namebadge and they tell me that unless I find X [name of former girlfriend] there is nothing they can do. Buhbye. I hope you find X, I say. Because I'm not paying for a service I can't use. Buhbye to YOU, contract be damned. I lost my temper on the phone.
I cancel my direct debit. I write a letter saying don't sue X if you manage to find her. Buhbye, buhbye, buhybye.
I have to change my telephone number but then change is sexy, I tell myself. I go down to the 3 shop, where I can get 500 free cross-network minutes for £25 a month, first three months at half price. DAMN! You're ON! Where are the handsets?
"Over here," they say. "In this pen."
3 handsets are (forgive me) shit.
I'm into tech. I fix my friends' computers. I got Halo 2 for my birthday. But I do not want to watch football goals on my phone. I do not want to watch porn on the train. I do not even want to make expensive video calls. I want to talk to my friends and colleagues. I just want a handset.
The least evil is the E1000. It comes with one single theme, 'Colourblind Sadist'. Its ring tones are toxic. It is huge. It's an ergonomic nightmare, with a little sort of ThinkPad clitoris between the 2 and 5 keys and superdooper 3G-stuff buttons up both sides of the body where you will click them in the course of a reasonably animated conversation. The UI is counter-intuitive, cluttered, and awesomely ugly. Everything takes at least two steps using two different buttons. You can't just press C and delete a contact, an image, a message. You have to press 'more', scroll to delete and then click the little clitoris thingie.
You can't, in point of fact, make a call while you're charging the battery.
And I can't use a 2G handset on the 3 network without getting my account blocked.
Woof. I just received a text message.
So. I lost my T610 in the British Library. Bollocks. I phone up 02 and my SIM is blocked. I manage to get a brand spanking new SonyEricsson K700i out of them for free, a really nice telephone currently sitting in stroking distance to my left. To my right is the telephone I can use, a Motorola E1000. It barks. It sheds. It slavers. It is a dog. A big, lustrous Newfoundland.
It's my new phone.
How so, Hassan?
Well, inside the K700i is an unactivated 02 SIM card. This chip will never be activated; I will probably never use this telephone. Inside the E1000 is a 3G chip from 3. Around this SIM card is my new telephone with its tongue lolling out and it's big 'can we go for a walk now?' eyes.
I try to get the O2 card initialised. "It'll take a couple of hours', they say. 24 hours later I phone them up. Where's my network? "Oh", they say. "We entered the wrong SIM number." While I'm talking to them, I get the password removed from my file. The account I've had for nearly nine years is under the name of an old girlfriend; I've had authorisation to deal with the account all this time. God knows where this girl is today; we didn't keep in touch. About six months ago they started to ask me for a password, even though I never agreed on one. I got tired of this and said 'look, there's no password, take it off my file.'
A few hours later and there's still no joy so I phone them back. "You're not X [name of former girlfriend], they say. No, I'm me, I say. "Well, we can't discuss this account with you," they say. But I'm authorised. "No. There's no password. Goodbye."
So I'm sitting with a new phone tying me to a new 12 month contract and they won't turn the thing on. I'm paying line rental by direct debit for a phone I can't use and they won't even discuss it with me. I phone them again and again, trying to get someone to just listen. 02 are evil bastards.
Today I finally get someone to actually refer to me someone without a namebadge and they tell me that unless I find X [name of former girlfriend] there is nothing they can do. Buhbye. I hope you find X, I say. Because I'm not paying for a service I can't use. Buhbye to YOU, contract be damned. I lost my temper on the phone.
I cancel my direct debit. I write a letter saying don't sue X if you manage to find her. Buhbye, buhbye, buhybye.
I have to change my telephone number but then change is sexy, I tell myself. I go down to the 3 shop, where I can get 500 free cross-network minutes for £25 a month, first three months at half price. DAMN! You're ON! Where are the handsets?
"Over here," they say. "In this pen."
3 handsets are (forgive me) shit.
I'm into tech. I fix my friends' computers. I got Halo 2 for my birthday. But I do not want to watch football goals on my phone. I do not want to watch porn on the train. I do not even want to make expensive video calls. I want to talk to my friends and colleagues. I just want a handset.
The least evil is the E1000. It comes with one single theme, 'Colourblind Sadist'. Its ring tones are toxic. It is huge. It's an ergonomic nightmare, with a little sort of ThinkPad clitoris between the 2 and 5 keys and superdooper 3G-stuff buttons up both sides of the body where you will click them in the course of a reasonably animated conversation. The UI is counter-intuitive, cluttered, and awesomely ugly. Everything takes at least two steps using two different buttons. You can't just press C and delete a contact, an image, a message. You have to press 'more', scroll to delete and then click the little clitoris thingie.
You can't, in point of fact, make a call while you're charging the battery.
And I can't use a 2G handset on the 3 network without getting my account blocked.
Woof. I just received a text message.
Comments
And the reason that people are so slow taking up 3G is because if it's not very expensive indeed, like making video calls to the one other person you sort of know with a 3G phone, it is useless.
3G is crap. The handsets are like 1995 all over again. SonyEricsson really, truly do make a nice interface.