joining the Dark Side.....

.....does not involve dressing in black or making heavy breathing noises whilst trying to strangle people with the Force. Nor does it mean that I start to paint my finger nails black, listen to dodgy music and start to write terrible excuses for poetry.

What it does mean, is that I have bought myself a new phone.....

The perp?
Samsung E900



As usual mu main and probably only real concern is how big the phone was going to be. I walked into the usual shop (name omitted to prevent flagging) wanting to have a look at the D900 (also from Samsung) because the promised thin factor of the new phones seemed promising. Alas, what they fail to tell you that while the phone is quite thin (12.9mm according to Samsung) they fail to tell you about how big the "face" of the phone is. As you can see above, the E900 has a smaller face than the 6230. Although it is a little wider, it is also thinner and has a smaller "pocket-profile" than the 6230. The D900 on the other hand, has a face almost as big as my metal tin does (probably smaller...). On first impressions, it srikes me as being pretty much the same sized when closed, as the Motorola RZR phone so while it is thin, it would still take up valuable pocket space in terms of width.

Anyway, the E900 looks better than the D900 which is probably what counts for more....


After buying this thing, I had a quick look at what other people have said about the phone. What strikes me is that nearly everyone who bought one and didn't like it, complained about the touch sensitive buttons and how doing certain things like sending an sms is maybe one or two button presses more than what they were used to.

No offence to these guys but if you wanted a phone that worked in exactly the same way as your previous phone, then you might as well go and buy another phone from them (no prizes for guessing who this probably is). Why bother complaining about it? Sure, the phone (and every other phone for that matter) is never going to be as simple to use as a Nokia and depending on the model, probably isn't going to be as stable either (Esp. Sony Ericsson) but that's the price of buying something that is slightly different. Of course, in an ideal world, everything is done easily and without problems but in a world where each brand has to be slightly different and where one brand has a near perfect user interface, it's hard to be as easy without being the same.

i have no problem using the phone and c'mon, the differences usually only relate to which button you press. If you can't be bothered to learn to press a different button, then you're better keeping your old phone and donating the money you were going to spend to charity.

I have to say though, two things do kinda bug me about the phone....
Firstly, that lovely and shiney front facia, like the ipods that inspired it is going to be a bith to keep grease and smudge free. I can already image a religiously regular cleaning and polishing going on.
Secondly, the stupidly annoying animations and screen images when you access certain features. If you know about cars, then you'll know that on the new-ish Aston Martin V8 Vantage, when you have turned the ignition and have just pressed the starter button, once the engine turns over, the display screen shows a little bit of an animation and three words come up:
"power... beauty.... soul...."
Ugh.... cheeso supremo
and that is exactly how these animations and images make me feel.
Samsungfun? (ok.. it's the name of that users/owners club...)
No thanks.

For the record, if I do wear a lot of black and make heavy breathing noises, it's not because of the Dark Side...