Its personal.

Today's been somewhat of a bad day. Long story, but I endeavour to be just like how Pocoyo looks from my last post. Happy.

As reported, I went with my dad to the mobile shop on Saturday, with him being intent on getting a new phone, and me, intent on making sure he gets one that suits his habits. Its not as simple as you'd think when you have been using a series 40 nokia for a while, then switching to other models or even brands. Arriving at the QQstation (the mobile shop), we quickly asked the assistants for the working display model of the Sony Ericsson k800i....

Before I proceed, I feel I must mention a bit of background of my dad. He's primarily a Category 2 user (refer my prev blog posts). Its only recently that he's developed an interest in multimedia capabilities in his phone. Mp3's and camera megapixels. After introducing him to the potential of his (old faithful) nokia 6230i, lets just say, and I'm not ashamed to admit it, that its got more mp3's and sounds than any of my phones ever had. And photos, there were over 200+ photos saved in the memory card. So, as you can imagine, camera megapixel quality has now taken over as the only major criteria for him. (even though he owns 3 pretty-good digicams)

Anyways, back to the k800i. There I was, demonstrating the capabilities of it with my dad standing next to me, the many sales girls all in front of us, looking at us in amusement. I showed him the camera features, with its autofocus and zooms, its messaging systems, its internet connectivities.... the works basically. It seemed pretty set that the "K" would be the likely choice. And then, while the salesgirl was struggling with taking out my sim card (hey, k800i owners would not debate with me on this, but it is super difficult to remove em!), my dad then caught sight of the Nokia n73.

Another piece of background on this, me pops has been reading numerous reviews (which I recommended to him earlier) on all these camera phones. So he's pretty knowledged about whats good out there and what recommendations there are.

So, I began my pitch again, "the camera features...autofocus and zooms.... messaging.... internet... the works", emphasizing this time, that n73 is a symbian phone. Meaning, more complex to use than a k800i, and definitely more complex than a nokia 6230i. I additionally highlighted that the fonts for symbian phones aren't exactly big, or adjustable. So if he was ok with that, then no worries. What DID catch his attention, aside from the camera qualities, was the 240 x 340 screen size. You gotta admit, photos do seem better on a bigger screen and especially with the new Nseries standard 262k TFT screen resolutions. I think that was the deal breaker. Coupled with the fact that Nokia, for him, was "familiar",with "no need to learn another system" .... the k800i never stood a chance.

(Personal note: N73 IS pretty impressive, especially with the first ever auto-focus capabilities. But, having said that, its just TOO familiar. Afterall, the n80 and the E61 does have the same series 60 3rd editions... which to me... is... boring)

With that, my dad is now a happy owner of the new n73. I spent most of last night at his place sorting out the syncronisations of data and saving back his good ol'mp3's and photos from his ol'banger of 6230i into a 1Gb mini-SD I had lying around. Yup, by the time I left, the scorching n73 was good to go.
However, I do foresee many, many, M-A-N-Y more candid photo snapping during family functions or even just out of the blue. But, that's ok, that's my dad. My loveable-techy dad.