Why My Next Phone Won't Be A Nokia.

I am going to take this opportunity to rail against Nokia and its shoddy engineering. I have a 6610 and I far as I know, it is a lemon. The keys will stop working for no apparent reason. I have sent this phone back to the shop where I bought it. The techs there opened up the innards, cleaned up everything, did a bit of soldering (I think; I was too far away from the technician to get a clear view of what he was doing.) and managed to make it working. For 10 minutes, that is. I had to return to the shop pronto within minutes of receiving it because the
keys started acting up again! Finally, the patient technician managed to make all the keys working like magic and I went home feeling satisfied. For a while.

I am not the only one having trouble with the Nokia 6610. Many of my friends have the same problem with their Nokia 6610 and 6600's too. One hapless owner of a Nokia 6600 had to send her phone back to the shop within a month of buying it.
Whenever anyone asks me, I tell them to stay away from Nokia phones.

When the symptoms first appeared within two months of buying the 6610, I thought the problems have something to do with the fact I crammed my gallery with so many pictures that the firmware didn't have enough memory to work with and crashed everytime it could. I got that warning from the saleslady at the shop were I bought the overpriced phone.

So, I deleted everything I could delete from the dang thing. WAP settings, browser settings, gallery pictures, blah, blah, blah. Can you imagine that? Nokia can't even produce software good enough to deal reasonably with limited memory.

I thought I have finally licked the problem because the phone worked after I deleted most of contents of my folders. Alas, it didn't last long. The phone worked for a awhile and then started refusing to accept key presses again. I then tried various magic rituals and incantations upon it. I had the key pad and cases
replaced several times. I even went so far as to bang the phone on the side of
anything hard everytime it refuses to work. Strangely, banging does work sometimes, everytime I bang the cursed Nokia, the keys will work. (That is the one thing this Nokia is good at. It can take a fall. I dropped it on the floor several times already and the worst thing that happened to it was the case falling apart.)

Finally, at the end of my ropes, I decided to send it back to the shop so they can work their brand of magic on it. If you are asking why I postponed sending the phone to the repair man its because I am the man who takes pride in trying to
solve a problem myself (even if said solution involves a fragile cellphone hitting a solid object) before giving up. Hell!, I know how to repair a computer's hardware and am very handy with a soldering gun myself.

So, last Sunday, I had my cellphone repaired. Today, the keys ain't working again! I am pissed. I am angry that Nokia would take so much of my money and give
me a trashy cellphone without any redeeming value whatsoever. I have old AT keyboards from ten years ago. Those keyboards have been used, abused, dropped and punched so many times, the keys have become stained and discolored, and the keyboard casings have developed cracks. Yet, the keyboards still work. I retired the
last of our AT keyboards last June because the hard drive finally died on the last of our AT machines. Were it not for that hard drive. The computer and its keyboard would still work perfectly. I find it hard to believe that the same company that produced the venerable and solidly engineered 3315 is the same company that gave us the 6610 and the 6600.

Nokia has forgotten why it became a bestselling company. It became a bestselling company because it sold good solid phones at an affordable price. Nokia has forgotten that. Next time I am going to buy a cell phone it won't be a Nokia. Maybe my next phone will be a Samsung, or a Sony Ericsson or even a Motorola. It certainly won't be a Nokia.

I have heard lately that Nokia is losing some market share to Samsung. Its not a lot but its worrying for Nokia. I am glad. I will be glad when that Finnish company loses so much market share it is forced to sell ice cream. That will be such sweet revenge.