Cell Phone

aptly named for mumerically obvious reasons. in years to come, we will be according these indispensible wonders of our virtuous capitalist age their full and proper title... one brain-cell phones. as that is precisely the number we each will have remaining unmicrowaved.

and no, Hanle y, i don't have sprint -- i got AT&T. at least it ain't Verizon (a/k/a Satan's phone company).

All same friends, today: "Check out my cell phone."

Everyone in America but me owns a cell phone.

I did always used to rant that they were evil, but that's really only if they are abused by smug yuppie chuckleheads who take it upon themselves to yell into them obnoxiously at inopportune moments.

I have a big, heavy Alcatel mobile phone which cost me £19 in March 2001. It is pay-as-you-go on the Virgin network. Someone told me the other day that it looked like a trainer (running shoe) as it is heel-shaped. The only deficiencies that bother me are that it can only txt in UPPER CASE so it seems like I'm SHOUTING and it doesn't have predictive txting, which would be handy. The numbers are wearing off the keys - I might write them on or carve them. I resent the constant pressure to upgrade to a more expensive model....there are at least two different "is your mobile an embarrassment to you" commercials doing the rounds on TV. I met someone a few weeks ago with the same model phone, but theirs had a translucent turquoise case instead of my opaque black one...it looked like a miniature i-mac, which was cool.

Surely the popularity of txting is partly due to its cheapness. If this proce differential doesn't exist in the US, I can well imagine a situation developing where txting is considered rude. Mind you, who did you talk to about it over there, Alan? I find it hard to imagine txting being unpopular with high school kidz.

interesting fact: i didnt get a mobile until june 2000

Short answer: Combats.

This is one of those times that proper toilet manners can be of a lot of use: because I flushed before fully adjusting my attire, my phone was clean, if inert. This didn't make my friends any more willing to lend me their phones to put the SIM in.

I am useless (i.e. slow and clumsy) at text messaging, and hardly ever bother with it. I use the phone a lot though, as I'm out-and-about all day at work and it's the only way people can ever get hold of me. This is sometimes A Bad Thing.

Today I have kept it switched off deliberately and have been pretending I am in a bad signal area. This makes me feel like a bit of a renegade, but the silence has been lovely.

I have been known to send the odd text message.

You are not alone. I intend to keep it that way permanently, as I've mentioned on other threads. Nicole's story is a good one as to why they can be useful or even necessary, I admit.

I wish I could afford to invent a phone that had options to add effects to your vox like reverb, echo, turn up the mids...

I think I'll change my ring tone to mix things up a little.

talkng sx ass :(

I love txting, but I only just discovered how to do it this summer. I taught some of my friends how to do it, so now it's kind of fun- although I HATE predictive spelling, arrrrrrggghhhhh!!!!!!

"Oooh! I've got a txt msg!"

"oh."

I like how in 80s movies, successful people (show biz agents and the like) are always shown cruising down palm-tree lined highways in convertibles clutching a phone the size of a toaster.

You find the pay phone and dial. ;-)

i still want to know what jon's beef is with cdma!

yes, nath!
basically it is a gold razr.

Does anyone have a Blackjack?

revive! i'm perhaps seriously considering the pearl now. i always swore i would never be one of those blackberry people, though!!!

My 637 conked out late last year and I switched to a Nokia 6682...

http://www.ubergizmo.com/photos/nokia6682_small.jpg

I purchased it unlocked, so I can use it with any sim card. Right now I'm using T-Mobile, but I might switch in a couple months when my contract expires. I love the phone and I'm still going to keep it whenever I go to Europe since it can use Euro-GSM frequencies and pre-paid sim cards.

I used an iPhone for about a hour last week and got pretty adept at the keyboard. Once I got over the habit of trying to mash my finger straight through the phone I discovered that I can type faster on that than I ever could on any Treo, Blackberry, etc.

so i really think i might plunk 50 bucks down for the LG env

am i stupid? i just am SO FUCKING SICK of flip phones, and it's so cute, and it has the flip out keypad thing which i just think is so cool

i have this and i kind of want to marry it:

http://x.msmobiles.com/portal/images/other/xda-trion.jpg

what keyboard layout is that where 'Z' and 'Y' keys are where they are?

does blackberry have real web browsing?

yeah, a little bit! oh also wtf is w/ the D&G razr? lame.

-- tehresa, Thursday, July 12, 2007 7:36 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Link

i dont like my razr anymore but i still like this one. sweet color.

that gold nokia is a pretty kitty though

ste: the layout on mine is normal, but mega bonus points for such a thorough keypad letter roll call.

um so i got this LG env situation and i'm totally digging it. right up my alley. that's it!

i want a sidekick. but then i'd have to move to the us. they don't have it here. :-(

i... bought the pearl. but, i am resisting getting the internet services just now so i don't become one of those blackberry people i hate. it just seemed like a much nicer phone than anything else i saw in the stores.

i lasted all of 24 hrs. I am in trouble now...

in the elevator at work today, this girl was using an awesome phone to text and i had to ask - it was a sidekick. so then i pulled out my enV and it was funny. tehresa that is so funny, does that mean u have invested in internet services? i have to look up a picture of the Pearl...

i don't know if i haven't had too many phones or something, but i am absolutely in love with the LG enV. i can't stop looking at it. it's obscene.

yes, i has the internets on my phone! a;sldkgj i think i will actually get rid of it after my trip to buffalo (where internet is scarce and so i won't have to bring laptop). having e-mail all the time can actually be very annoying.

i know that's what ppl tell me but still, i'm so jealous of you! i was THIS close to downloading mine on my phone lst night - $20. i resisted for now...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6b/Nb-generic.jpg

whaaaa

I just got my job to give me a Blackberry Pearl. ^_^

oh my

http://images.techtree.com/ttimages/story/80673_blackberrypearlwhitebig.jpg

now i'm really jealous of you all and ur Pearls. what color?

black as my muthafuckin' soul

I hear those things have vicious delay on calls. I still want one.

Colleague won one of these:

http://handcellphone.com/wp-content/themes/green-marinee/phonepic/PRADA-Phone-LG-KE850-1.jpg

Pretty but impractical. Will scratch like a bugger and thanks to touch screen starts doing things if your ear touches it during a call!

Ah, this one is a bit better:

http://www.dialaphone.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/LG%20KE850.jpg

How is the PEarl one sizewise? If it's like an ordinary phone... then I'd pass. I saw a Blackberry in the shop the other day and was tempted. ALthough I don't know why I'd get it, as I'm rarely "out and about".

I saw that Prada phone in another shop. Doesn't seem that great to be honest.

It is maybe half an inch longer and 1/8 of an inch wider than an iPod Nano. Maybe 1/8 of an inch thicker.

It's wonderful.

Actually it's more like 1/4 of an inch longer.

trackball = awesome

pearl vs. curve?

The Curve is super-reminiscent of my Treo 750, only thinner. This is a good thing. My company hasn't hopped on that bandwagon yet, at least not for lowly frontline managers like me (I bet our entire senior operating team has them).

I got my first cellphone last year. Forgot it on the bus last month and haven't seen it since. Poor thing wasn't even a year old.
So, I went on and bought a supercheap Vodacom thing called "Vodafone". It's pretty swell. It does phone calls and SMS and that's IT. It's nice to find a product that does what it's supposed to instead of being yet another electronical swiss army knife. Also, the screen is one of those low-power "electronic ink" things, so I can read the display even in the sun.
Now if only I can get hold of the dynamo that lets you charge the phone by bicycling around... that's the coolest thing ever.

is it this thing oystein? - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Motofone_F3

my parents are in the UK for six weeks and they bought one - it cost 20 pounds. it's pretty awesome actually! and super-thin - almost nano-esque

am i the only one who reads the thread title as "sail phone" a la cedric the entertainer on country grammar? why yes, yes i am.

Yes, Tracer. I keep mixing up "Vodacom" and "Vodaphone", and somehow that's resulted in me mixing them up with Motorola as well now. Good grief.

so i think i'm gonna go for the mobile web... i mean, it's only an extra five dollars. if i'm paying all that i might as well have a fully loaded fone.

why is that Prada fone so fucking hot?

i did it. i can now check ILX on my cell phone.

Oh goody...

am i the only one who reads the thread title as "sail phone" a la cedric the entertainer on country grammar? why yes, yes i am.

I often say "what my gonna do without my sail phone?" which is what one of eddie murphy's bratty daughters sez to him in one of his awful movies.

I think I have spotted an area the world is lacking in -- cell phone reviews. Useful ones, I mean. I finally got the phone I wanted, and I'm tickled and all, but the process was painful, and all throughout it, reviews of phones were no help. CNet is an obvious shill -- every phone is just dandy with them. "The battery life was a little disappointing on this phone. It only lasts about an hour. Seven out of ten, though." Uh... no, you see, that's a deal-breaker. For anyone. YouTube videos are well-meaning, but suffer uniformly and severely from listing features instead of benefits. Random googling often turns up the back page of newspapers, with reviews that say things like, "We were able to dial a call in 3.6 seconds, which is about average." (Paraphrasing the Washington Post there.) I don't even know where to start on a statement like that. Maybe you'd be faster if you got used to the keys? Maybe I'm not trying to set records with my keypad? Maybe that's just a stupid thing to measure? And "user" reviews are always the worst. Teenagers saying "I love it! It looks so cool!" or company plants. I'd rather get a restaurant recommendation off of Yelp.

Anyway. Go through enough of these reviews, and you start to get the impression that there are no empirical standards of goodness or badness when it comes to phones. And yet, I know better than that. There's a hole here.

The problem is probably partly that I'm shopping down-market, so nothing I'm buying has much wow factor. But I'm not exactly alone, and somebody needs to gather some authority in saying that anything AT&T gives you for free with your plan is a shiny slippery turd. Because otherwise, you know, it looks cool.

I think I have finally come to the decision this iphone was not a good idea. My invoice was ridiculously high. I'm gonna haggle. Bastards. Belgium is known for having money hungry cellphone companies.

I have an old phone that I want to use but no sim card. Can I open an account with att (I'm in the US) without buying a phone?

yep

I am trying to be somone who uses one - I carry it but I dont use it - why call anyone? why get a call?

lol that the cheapest AT&T plan is $40 a month

that's nuts - my wife's payg mobile broke last week, and she wanted a decent handset to replace it; for £14.50/month on O2 she got a free SE Xperia Arc + data + calltime.

(which is what, about $25 these days?)

In this society, almost everyone has a cell phone. To call someone on their cell phone, however, a cell phone number is required. Unless the caller knows the recipient personally, finding his/her cell phone number can be quite frustrating. This article will list a number of ways that the reader can find someone's cell phone number.

Local Phonebook

If the recipient lives nearby, one source to check for a cell phone number would be the local phonebook. Phonebooks do not always have cell phone numbers listed but it is certainly worth the effort to look. Even if a cell phone number cannot be found, the local phonebook will most likely provide some form of communication with the person the caller is trying to reach, be it a landline number, pager number, or address.

Yellowbook

If the local phonebook does not have the recipient's cell phone number listed, another source to try would be Yellowbook.com. Yellowbook is basically an online national phonebook so there is a good chance that if the person is listed at all, the caller will be able to find it. In addition to phone numbers, Yellowbook also displays information about the person's address, email address, business, website, and more. Yellowbook may not have the person listed at all but there is no harm in checking.

Myspace

Another source to use to try to locate a person's cell phone number is their Myspace profile. Myspace is fantastic for locating people because nearly everyone has a Myspace account and many people fill their profiles with personal information, including their cell phone number. Aside from their profile, the reader can also check the person's bulletin board messages or status updates which usually also include the person's cell phone number. Myspace can also be used to just contact the person directly through private messaging.

Facebook

Facebook is basically the same thing as Myspace and is a great source to check if the person cannot be found on Myspace. Even if the person can be found on Myspace, they may not have their cell phone number listed. If that is the case, the caller should definitely check Facebook to see if the person has listed more information there. When searching Facebook, use the same protocol as searching Myspace: Check the person's profile, bulletin board messages, and status updates to see if they listed their cell phone number anywhere.

Forums

Another great place to find someone's cell phone number is a forum. Almost everyone participates in some forum or another and many times, they list their cell phone number somewhere. Simply type the person's name and the word "forum" into a search engine and go through the listings until an actual forum is found. If and when it is, check the person's profile first. If the person's profile does not list his/her cell phone number, check his/her signature or recent posts.

Website

If a cell phone number cannot be found via forum, the next place to look is the person's website. The person may or may not have a strict website, but he/she probably does have some sort of blog or "About Me". Type the person's name into a search engine and see what comes up. If there is a trace of the person at all, follow it until results are found. The person may have a business website or some other professional profile in which his/her cell phone number is probably located.

Friends & Family

If none of the above has worked, get in touch with the person's friends or family. Even if the caller does not know the recipient on a personal level, his/her friends and family will be very easy to find and contact. Simply use one of the above methods to contact the friends or relatives of the recipient and ask for the person's cell phone number.

The National Registry of Cellular Numbers

The National Registry of Cellular Numbers is a massive online database of cell phone numbers. If none of the options above have worked, callers can use this registry to search for a specific person. The registry includes a regular name search in which users input the person's name and city to find their cell phone number as well as a reverse search in which users input the cell phone number to find more information about the person. Obviously in this situation, callers will be using the first option. Regardless, search results cost $14.95 for Basic Access and $39.95 for Advanced Access.