phones phones phones.
Seems like Nokia still has the most phones that have an actual infrared port. Given the cheapness of the hardware I don’t understand why all phones don’t have one. Anyways. I’m seriously leaning towards getting either a 7210, 7190, or 8390. The 7210 and 8390 are still current models, while the 7190 is older and kind of the granddaddy of the former two. Also the 7190 is the phone they used in The Matrix. The Sony Ericsson T310 is looking pretty darn spiffy too, but sold by Fido (although given my current situation, I’d be buying an unlocked phone anyways.)
Jonathan Wise says:
Added on December 9th, 2003 at 5:03 pmI had the 7190… it was like my 4th phone I think, so here’s a mini-review:
Good phone, classic Nokia elegant interface, scroll wheel was cool. The large screen was very nice for mobile web surfing, and when closed the phone was quite compact and attractive. And you feel very cool snapping the phone shut at the end of a conversation.
However it’s not spring loaded like the matrix phone (actually the Matrix phone was a prototype that was never sold) so you have to slide it down to talk on it — it does have active slide though, which also is cool. However while that’s the coolest feature of the phone, it’s also the most problematic. A small drop caused the slider to become misaligned to it’s rails and it became suddenly much less attractive.
Nonetheless, it had decent signal, and other than the slider was quite sturdy. In fact, I once threw my 7190 into a concrete wall and it worked fine — after i put it back together.
I’d rank the 7190 as my number 2 phone, due mostly to the coolness factor. It may be a little dated now though, as it was 2 years ago that I owned it…
Jonathan Wise says:
Added on December 11th, 2003 at 11:49 amPS: Wondering from where you can purchase an unlocked 7190…? And once you have purchased said phone, how do you get it programmed for a specific provider?
Victor Rehorst says:
Added on December 12th, 2003 at 12:47 pm1: eBay.
2: http://www.bongowireless.com