Tuesday 2 September 2008

Technological highs and lows reprised.

So, I don't want to write too much about the current state of my phone, but after mentioning previous troubles, I wanted make sure that people weren't under the impression that my telecommunicative issues were resolved.

Having finally resigned myself to buying a new handset to prevent the resetting problems I was having, and then further resigning myself to buying a pay as you go phone as the cheapest route to obtaining said handset, I did end up with a nice new shiny-looking phone. A phone with a whole other set of issues.

Problem one is that the phone seems somewhat disinclined to send multi-part messages. This means that I have to compose every message, however complex, as a single 140-character string, or risk the recipient only recieving the first part. While not insurmountable, it does lead to me spending rather more time constructing my messages than I did previously, which can hamper speedy text conversations.

Problem two is that the phone occasionally decides to cut off calls with no explaination . I don't make many calls, so it doesn't matter massively, but it's very frustrating. Luckily it usually only seems to do it once per call, so if I call the person back, it tends to be ok.
Problem three is far more annoying, and comes from the difference between the key layout on my previous and my new phone. The "1" key on my new keypad is marginally lower, which means that when typing quickly and trying to put punctuation into text messages, my thum hits slightly too high, and in fact hits the key above. The problem is that the key above is the send-message-without-confirmation button, the presence of which I have neither understood nor needed on any phone. It'll hopfully be something I'll get over as I geet used to the phone, but next time you're texting, imagine sending the message accidentally every time you use punctuation and contemplate just how astonishingly irritating that would be.

On the plus side, technologically, I finally got my hands on a laptop, specifically an ASUS Eee PC, on which I am typing this very post, whilst sitting in my living room, just for variety. I'm hoping that having a portable laptop will be something that encourages me to be a bit less tied to my desktop at home, both for blogging (and other such internetery), but also for entertainment purposes, since it'll allow me to watch media from my computer from anywhere in the house, and media from the internet from anywhere with wi-fi.

It has also reminded me just how much I hate touchpads on laptops, and a small mouse of some kind will almost certainly be my next purchase, to prevent me smashing the keyboard in frustration...

4 comments:

Hanspan said...

How long have you had the phone? If it's faulty, and I'd say switching off mid-call counts as such, demand a replacement! That's pretty shit really.

TheTelf said...

It's not switching off, just hanging up, and as such I have no idea if it's the phone, the SIM, the network, or me hitting the 'cancel' button with my big, clumsy cheekbones.

happylittlecynic said...

So, it only cuts off the call at most once per call. Umm... surely only by the magic of some warped space time could it manage to do it twice?

:D

TheTelf said...

Har har. You know what I meant. I was using "call" to mean "conversation occurring over one or more consecutive telephonic connections".

:P