A farewell to old, good Nokia :(

1 December 2014 will go down in the history (of this blog) as the day when my Nokia 3110 Classic gave up the ghost. I bought the handset on 25 March 2008 and for six years and eights months it had served me almost beyond reproach. Much more reliable and much more durable than mobile phones produced these days, the Nokia would keep me company and had not been spared endurance tests. Over those years the Nokia survived being dropped several times (and went unharmed), withstood lying exposed to strong sunlight in temperatures exceeding +40C and unlike other phones remained totally indifferent when used in below –20C frost.

In the last two months the phone began to give first warning signs of the forthcoming end of its service. It crashed after being switched on and I had to wait some ten minutes before the phone returned to life, from time to time it also tended to lose network coverage and I had to shake it to help aerial catch the signal again. Despite those flaws I admit to have been too attached to the phone to think of replacing it with a less obsolete one. I am not fond of gadgets and the Nokia offered me everything I expect from a phone…

Then the fateful day came. On Monday evening I hooked in the phone to charge it up and after two hours I noticed it did not draw electricity from the charger. I grabbed the phone, but it did not react when I pressed any button. I called my number from the company phone, but it turned out my number was unavailable. I took off and put in the battery and turned it on again, waited until ten minutes when the phone is not responsive elapsed. The phone reacted only to numerical keys and had its menu accessible via navigation keys. I took the opportunity to recover all the notes I kept in it. Pressing menu and dialling keys resulted in the phone crashing for good. I tried to work out whether it was not the SIM card and sought many causes of the breakdown, but eventually gave up. Life of the phone naturally came to an end. Unexpectedly and swiftly, the Nokia let me down once, but properly.

Corpo smartphone unfortunately does not offer dual-SIM functionality, so I had to resort to the only unused handset I have in my drawer, namely Sony CMD-J70, “vintage” 2001. In 2007 I urged my friend not to throw out the phone his just then departed mother had used for six years and for seven years it has served as substitute phone when my parents’ phones (both low-end Nokias) were under warranty repairs or to me as a second phone, before I moved my number to Play. Sony had been idle for many months, so the battery perked up after some ten minutes since being plugged in to the charger. I have used the phone for six days and although the handset offers excellent quality of calls, writing messages on it (it traces back to times when T9 dictionaries were unknown) is a veritable nuisance and the phone does not read messages sent from newer traditional phones (oddly enough those sent from smartphones come through).

My first choice on what to buy was Sony Xperia E Black. At first glance it was not the newest model (it premiered in March 2013), but reasonably priced, seemingly durable and with lots of functionalities. The other day in the office it turned out my team-mate has that model and he complains about it. He handed me the handset and allowed to play with it for a while. When I took it into hand and saw how crappy devices it indeed was and then ran a thorough search on its quality on forums, I cancelled my order placed in the Internet shop I use to buy consumer electronics. I always choose cash payment when I pick up ordered stuff in collection point, so the resignation did not involve claiming back money, yet it has left me without a decent, normal phone (it lacks keypad locking feature which means it can initiate a call while kept in a pocket!) before a three-day business trip.

Actually reading Internet forums on handsets (one should make allowances for their contents, since many of the grumbles are written by people with exorbitant expectations) prompted me to revise my needs and expectations towards the new phone. I use the corpo smartphone, but actually am not fond of it, nor impressed by it. The corpo-phone has some limitations in scope of usage (restrictions on multimedia messages, downloading applications, private e-mails and social media), but apart from it I can have 1GB monthly data transfer to use up when I need to check something or to read some news or article and has built-in, though slow, GPS. I will gladly make do without a touchscreen and prefer a traditional QWERTY keyboard. I will appreciate reliable and durable, decently assembled phone with solid battery. It does not have to be fancy, I do not need it to swank about, it has to serve me well and meet my modest needs.

Finally I have made up my mind for Nokia Asha 302. The model was released in February 2012 and for this reason is not readily available in every bigger shop with consumer electronics, but garners excellent opinions from its users. Nokia Asha 302 was also the main company phone back at the Employer (I did not have one on account of not being eligible for company phone) and my colleagues, counting out those who expected too much, were satisfied with it. The only problem with it is that it takes some trouble to purchase it. I learnt it was available in Nokia shop in Żoliborz, but yesterday I could not afford to spend two hours to drive there to pick it up in person. Tomorrow I will check out whether any of the other two Nokia shops, in Śródmieście and in Ursynów, has any Asha 302 in stock. I sincerely hope they have some and price does not diverge from 248 PLN (superb price-quality trade-off) I was quoted by the Żoliborz outpost.

The thoughts on the phone could be put into broader perspective of critical assessment of unbridled consumerism and how most people relish on fancy stuff. Hard to deny, pursuit of only newer and more swanky goods also underlies economic growth and gives jobs to people, but when staring into the screen of the posh smartphone, it is important not to lose sight of other people…

Szajsung

Never ever before, during almost six years of blogging, hasn’t my temptation to commit my thoughts to the blog had to be suppressed by auto-censorship. No matter how preposterously it sounds, self-imposed constraints are the price to pay to stay in the charmed circle. The heading of his post could have contained idioms such as “to throw in the towel”, “put oneself out of misery”. Some of you are able to read between the lines, however haphazard visitors are quite likely to be kept guessing and may it stay so.

It is Scatts who excels at writing rants over crappy customer service, breaking down brand new cars or defective electronic devices. He has a gift of depicting his tribulations in amusing and quaint way. I do not wish to take away the primacy in grumbling he undoubtedly deserves. I need to get off my chest how irritating Szajsung Galaksi Srent might be.

From the word go… I actually don’t need a company mobile phone. Back at the Employer’s I didn’t have one and held dear being deprived of such perk. Many times I had to use my private phone to handle work-related stuff and my private number was spread around the company, but I always had the right (hardly ever exercised) not to pick up the phone when I was off work. At the New Factory everyone can theoretically expect to reach me at any time and it’s a nuisance.

I actually should be contented. The limit for private calls and text messages and 2GB data transfer package could easily allow me to give up on the private phone (something I won’t do since private stuff and work need to be separated) and actually the opportunity to check something online, such as timetable or tram route, is immensely useful. I also appreciate built-in GPS which consumes little data transfer. It all comes in handy and is convenient, but…

1/ GPS can locate you well, but before the phone finds your location, it needs to spend between two and five minutes searching, not very practical when you’re short of time.

2/ Despite running on 4G/LTE Internet connection, pages in the web browser load more slowly than with my shitty 3G Cyfrowy Polsat modem plugged to my laptop.

3/ The cell phone switches between “silent”, “vibration” and “sound” modes at its own discretion. Consequently either I do not know the phone is ringing or the ringtone, resembling flushing a toilet (called ‘waterfall’), resounds at least appropriate moments.

4/ Whenever I shake the phone (and screen is unlocked), it asks me to set up the starting display. It is quite bothersome and if I put the handset to the pocket or lay it somewhere, I need to do it gently, otherwise the request pops up.

5/ I have absolutely no idea why it randomly chooses what to display after unlocking or after entering the menu.

6/ The prediction mode does more harm than good in assisting writing. I eventually turned it off, since after the phone guessed a word, making the handset change its mind required too much effort.

7/ Due to restrictions, I haven’t downloaded any applications, so memory and operating system of the phone are nearly empty and despite this the phone tends to think very slowly and sometimes simply crashes and I need to wait a few minutes before the device comes back to life.

Besides, it’s a quite fancy device. Everyone in the office has the same model of Szajsung and almost everyone whines about its ample shortcomings. There is a rule that you should not look gift horse in a mouth, therefore maybe the rant is out of place. I don’t wish to blame the corporation which has equipped its staff in such devices, as they’ve done it in good faith and it was probably the best model they’ve negotiated with the telecom operator at reasonable price. It’s rather about the producer, opinions on whose products vary considerably, but the term “Szajsung” repeats disturbingly often.

The other story is that myself I can do nothing about faults of the phone, because it is not my property. I can of course report defects to the sourcing department, setting a huge bureaucratic machine in motion and embarking on more trouble than it’s worth. One workmate’s Szajsung totally broke down and he went through veritable hell to have it repaired… Shit happens, but the future seems bright anyway ;-)

For the record – today temperature topped over +19C, one could bask in the rays of autumnal sun in the afternoon. Although the weather is to break soon, October 2014 stands a chance of going down as one of the warmest in history of measurements. Until yesterday, average temperature was +12.7C. It eventually will be lower, but so far it beats October 2000 when temperature over the whole month averaged out +11.6C, but falls short of October 1907, the warmest since records began, when average temperature stood at +12.9C. May the warmth stay with us long!

The art of manipulation honed to the limits

The contract with our current Internet provider (Play Online) expires soon. Their service generally sucks. Connection speeds are comparable to those standard in Belarus and my shoddy modem stops trasferring data whenever it feels like. Wrangling with customer service of P4 is a big ordeal, so the decision to give up on them was an easy one. We don't know yet what company will our new provider be (only mobile internet is comes into play), but we have already taken steps to break up with Play Online. We send them a letter in which we noticed them we wanted to terminate the contract on its expiration date. In response we received a missive in an electronic form, scan of its print below. Watch out for the underlined words and phrases.

Now a small exercice in translation. A word which crops up four times in the missive, not accidentally, is aż, it doesn't have a short equivalent in English, so I decided to do it into Eglish as 'as much as'. Slightly stilted, if you have better suggestions, please let me know.

Ref. no. 2723****

Dear Sir,

We confirm the reception of your letter dated 2 February 2011 regarding the cancellation of services provided by P4 sp. z o.o.

On this occasion we are glad to thank Sir for the current cooperation and by the same token for placing trust in our company.

Especially for Sir we prepared an offer "RePlay Online Great with a discount" without a modem. As part of this bargain we offer you a discount of 10 PLN for the whole contractual period what adds up to a saving of as much as 120 PLN. The monthly allowance under this contract is as much as 5 gigabytes and the contract length is only 12 months.

There is also a possibility to prolong the contract for 18 months, under a modem plan. Under "RePlay Online for Christmas" special offer, the monthly charge for first four months will amount to mere 1 PLN. The monthly allowance under this plan is as much as 5 gigabytes. After the discount period ends, the monthly charge will be mere 45 PLN.

We will be pleased, if you get in touch with our Customer Service at the number *500 (call only from  mobiles in Play) in order to learn about the details of the offer and to place an order. The order will be effected by courrier free of charge.

If your decision is upheld, we inform that the Contract for the number +48791****** will be terminated on 9 April 2011, after the cancellation period, defined in paragraph 14 point 5 of P4 Terms of Telecommunication Services for Subscribers, expires. The current Play Online number will be transferred to Play Online pre-paid service, in which the service account may be topped up only when necessary. When the new plan is activated, Sir will receive as much as 1 gigabyte of data transfer to be used up within 30 days.

Yours sincerely,

Anna M****

Now some essential remarks.

1. Our letter was dated 26 January 2011. Why the hell did they change the date? Never mind that.

2. Especially for Sir (specjalnie dla Pana) is nothing but a barefaced lie. The same plan is offered to any customer who wishes to prolong their contract.

3. The contract set out 1 April 2011 as expiration date, so why did they discretionally prolong it by eight days? But to make up for this they gave 1 gigabyte as a farewell gift, so this can be forgiven.

Now let's get to the core of what I'm drivng at.
The word aż (as much as) was used four times.
The word tylko (only) was used once.
The word zaledwie (mere(ly)) was used two times.

Back in August 2007 I did my first job as telemarketer for another mobile operator. I went through some trainings and realised the importance of these seemingly unimportant words. A human beign feels a natural need to make a good deal. By using those words hard-sellers persuade their clients victims they do so, although the deal in fact is not a big bargain. Believe us, you'll pay so little and we'll give you so much. How can you turn down such a great offer?

That job was a big nuisance, but with hindsight proved to be a very valuable experience. Now I'm very sensitive to all kinds of manipulations I am exposed to and can make wiser and well-thought-out consumer decisions and I don't fall for all the twaddle I'm being said. And after all I sometimes sympathise with those poor people who sometimes call me to sell a product or a service and try to make me believe I can strike a great deal.