It is a Nokia 6030. And frankly speaking I should have purchased it 2 months back, when had I lost my previous mobile because this model was released 2 years back. But I kept waiting for a newer model (Nokia 1650) to be released.
Nokia 1650 was supposed to release at the end of the second quarter. The third quarter also has come to an end but the model has not yet released. And moreover I would have to wait for feedback on Nokia 1650 from users after its release before purchasing it. All this would take at least another 1 month.
Waiting long enough (> 2 months) and also as Nokia 6030 is inferior only in certain aspects to Nokia 1650 (and actually has additional features such as GPRS, MMS when compared to 1650), I decided to go ahead with Nokia 6030.
And what is really interesting is that this is the fifth phone which I am using and I have not paid for any of the mobiles I have used. Here is some history on the mobiles I had used.
Mobile 1 (2003): The first one was my dad’s phone (I think it is the same phone which Keanu Reeves used in “The Matrix”). My dad had purchased it in late nineties for Rs.22000 (and this under a special scheme for doctors) !!! Just imagine the kind of phone you can get today for such a price. As far as I remember, outgoing and incoming both were as high as Rs.9/min then. After a few years, the charger stopped working and the battery’s life also reduced drastically. We were able to find a replacement charger but the battery problem couldn’t be solved. Therefore my dad purchased a new mobile and this piece was lying around. So during my third year of graduation I decided to use this piece. As the battery was dead, it always had to be plugged into the power source to work. Hence I ended up using this mobile as a landline phone. But nevertheless the thrill of having your own phone in your room and not using the common phone booth was great. But I couldn’t use this for long as one day while meddling with it, I accidentally broke the pin of the charger. And that marked the end of this piece.
Mobile 2 (2003-2004): My next mobile was one which I borrowed from my friend. What was special about this mobile was that it had no display. Oh yeah, I used a mobile which had no display for about 5 months :). But I should also mention that once in a couple of weeks, the display used to work for a few minutes (no idea how is this feasible). And during these few minutes, I used to try to explore it as much as I could. Eventually I understood the functionality so well that I was able to change the ring tone without the display working.
Mobile 3 (2004-2005): My first complete mobile, a Nokia 1100 :D. This was a gift on my 22nd birthday by my friends Swetha and Vamsidhar. But the haunting of display-less mobiles had not ended. A few months after using it, it fell from my hand accidentally and the screen broke. After using this display-less phones for a few months, I got it repaired. But this phone was not destined to be with me for long. Within less than 2 months of getting it repaired, I lost it when it slipped from my pocket in the cab when coming home after work. I immediately called up the car travels and asked them to check the cab but but it was too late.
Mobile 4 (2006-2007): The next phone which I used, Nokia 8310 was one of the best phones during its time (2002-2003). So how did I end up with this phone which was popular 4 years ago? Simple. It was my sister’s :). She got a new mobile for her birthday and she threw this old phone in the dustbin. I caught it midway and started using it. Alright that was a bit exaggerated :). Anyways, I really liked this piece because it had a HSCD modem which enabled me to connect my laptop to the net via GPRS. It also had a few interesting features compared to Nokia 1100. But even this was not destined to be with me for long. I lost it in August 2007 while watching Spiderman. And it was the same way I had lost my earlier phone. Slipped out of my pocket while I was in the cinema hall.
Mobile 5 (2007 – present): I was disappointed with the loss of the Nokia 8310 as I had to buy a new mobile (as I already had financial constraints). Seeing this my parents offered me to buy a new mobile for my 25 bday :D. And there is one thing I have learnt in my life, never turn down a gift offer … hee hee. So I went ahead and bought a Nokia 6030. I had spent a hell lot of time in deciding upon this model. For every few bucks, I seem to be getting extra features. And this made it very difficult for me to decide on a particular model. Anyways. I finally decided on this as it had most of the features I wanted and also I’ve seen good feedback about its reception quality. I have been using this phone for a couple of weeks and I’m very happy with it. It has got all the basic features – Colour screen, MMS, GPRS, handsfree, calendar and FM Radio. The only things which I feel lacking are support for playing the FM radio without the headset and HSCSD modem (without the HSCSD modem it is not feasible to connect your laptop to the Internet). I shall soon be writing another article on accessing this phone from the computer.
There it is, the history of the mobiles I have used so far. So at last, Rahul gets a new mobile :).
