During the Christmas season, my Sony Ericsson P1i started croaking. It dropped calls. The system hung. And messages often didn’t get sent. Needless to say, I was disappointed. Sony produced great phones and I’ve been loyal to the brand since 2004. The phone went to my techie bro who wanted to gut it and I went to the bazaar to get me a new one.
My first choice of course was an Ericsson. I eyed the Experia since it was the company’s successor to the P1 and the device boasted an armada of tools that would make a netbook quiver.
I almost bought the Experia save for the customer next to me who was fiddling with the new iPhone 3G. I never fancied Apple gadgets before, but that phone really caught my eye! Unlike most touch screen phones that hassled you with a stylus, here was a sexy phone that worked great with just a finger. I placed down the Experia and picked up a demo iPhone.
Swish swish swish. I had mighty fun swinging icons around- almost reminded me of that smart computer in Minority Report. A tap here, a tap there and the device yielded functions on an intuitive level.
Who wouldn’t love this gadget? Calling can be made in just a few taps and texting was a breeze with large onscreen buttons. Yeah- I made occasional errors, but the T9 dictionary suggested superb corrections along the way and even picked up on new words in my alternate language. I was impressed. No more than five minutes of experimenting and I considered myself an iphone master without even looking at a manual. (it was the first Apple product I ever owned too). That speaks a great deal for usability.
I bought the iphone.
Oh, I should mention that the nice clerk suggested that I unlock the unit since I used a carrier that was as of yet unsupported. It cost me almost $40 to do so.
I left the store and used the phone all day. It was pure pleasure. It never hung, it never hiccuped. I thought everything would be perfect- that is, until I turned it off for bed.
The next day, the phone refused to find signal. I flicked it on and off numerous times, but no dice. It turned out that the sim card had to be ejected and reinserted before signal appears in 3 minutes. What a hassle. Apparently, this is the problem of unlocked or jailbreaked iphones. I felt depressed. It was like going out on a date with a godess then discovering she had bad breath.
Oh well. Are there any iphone users who’s found a fix for this problem yet?
