Well, I am not an Impulse buyer, but sometimes, some deals and offers are too hard to resists. So, ended up buying some electronics stuff in the last few days, which I kind of wanted to buy at the back of my mind.
- Got a 1 GB RS-MMC card with MMC Adapter - from meritline.com - got it for around $29 including shipping. I can use this card with my Nokia 6600 and also the Canon A610 digital camera.
- Mobile Bluetooth Headset - Got Logitech Mobile Freedom Bluetooth Headset from amazon.com for $27.50 - which is pretty good price. The actual cost advertised by logitech is around $59.99 - Also the reviews on this product is pretty good.
- Got a PNY 1 GB Mini Attaché USB 2.0 Flash Drive for around $20 (no rebates etc) from dell.com. This one yet yet to ship from dell.com.
- Bought a Mobile USB travel charger for iPod - No more PC/Laptop required to charge the Nano! - got this one for around $6!
I dont say that these would be the best ever prices that I would ever get these item. But its always best to buy when good deals are available. The catch is, these deals dont last long!. Good deals expire with a blink of the eye!!!! …….. ….there is always another time, but you need to keep an close eye on the deals available.
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August 4th, 2006 at 02:55pm
Finally after 6 months, managed to get a cell phone without any deposits. I guess my credit history is starting to build up now. The last time when I asked for a cell phone service, I was told to deposit $750!!
I still say cell phone market in US sucks. The service providers dictate the market. No good handsets to choose too. You are kind of forced to buy from the limited range of handsets that the services providers have to offer.
After doing some major research, I opted for T-Mobile service. The service plan is pretty decent (Get More 1500), but is quite expensive compared to the mobile service back in India. With the plan, you are kind of forced to buy a cell phone, and T-mobile had very limited variety. Nothing compared to the barrage of cell phones available in India!.
I picked the Motorola Razr V3 (silver), since it was decently priced (keep in mind that I have an 1 year contract!). I had also read lots about its looks, and its coolness factor. Its supposed to be the Best and the “Most Happening” phone in the US of A currently in the market!.
The Razr V3 definitely has the looks! Its cool & sexy. Very sleek and slim. Its got a very beautiful finish, and a 260K color TFT display. It has a decent battery life too. And that’s where it ends. I being a Nokia 6600 user, feel like a total handicapped using this phone.
Here are some things which suck big time about the Razr V3…
- Its a flip phone. So, you need to open the flap to make/receive calls. And, the Razr V3 is designed in such a way that its next to impossible to open the phone with one hand. So, if you receive a call while you are eating or using your other hand, its a struggle.
- The phone is not at all extensible. Its got very little internal memory (5 MB), and there is no way to increase it. No slots for memory cards either.
- The phone boasts that it can play MP3 tones. Yes. It does have a great stereo sound, but with 5 MB of space, you can only store ring tones, and if you are lucky enough, you can store a MP3 song or two.
- It has a 4x digital Zoom camera - but the 640 x 480 resolution sucks big time. This phone deserves a better resolution camera.
- No Video recording. …….. and even if you could, you wouldn’t have enough space to store the recorded clips.
- Using Bluetooth, the phone could not detect most of the other Bluetooth devices that were around. But the other devices could detect and connect to the Razr V3. Once connected, I could transfer files as usual.
- There is an small stamp sized display on the outside (on the flap). But, you cannot do any customization specific to this display.
- The phone supports Java, but its very very slow. Again due to space constraints, you cannot load lots of applications
- The phone does not recognize WAV files!!! However, it plays Midi files, and MP3 files as ring tones.
- No support for .rm (real media) files when it comes to video. Neither can it play DivX encoded files (.avi).
Compared to the above, if you consider the features, my Nokia 6600 beats the Motorola Razr V3 hands down! While I came here to the US, I had brought my Nokia 6600 from India. So, after using the Razr V3 for couple of days, Now I am back to my Nokia 6600! I plan to use the Razr as a back up phone! Just in case. Or may be… just to ’show off’. hahaha…
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July 25th, 2006 at 01:14am
Cell Phones. One area where India rocks. No questions.
Ok, lets see the differences :
- In US, first of all, its very difficult to get a cell phone connection!. You need to have a good “credit history” to get a cellphone. If you don’t have a credit history, you need to pay some deposits. And guess what? I was told that I need to deposit $750 to get a cell phone connection since I did not have any credit history!!! In India, almost everyone can manage to get a cell phone service. No major deposits etc!
- In US, almost all the providers ask you to sign a 1 year or 2 year contract. In India … “What contract?? Are you kidding?”
- In US, you get a mobile phone with your plan. This is good one way, but then you will have to sign a one year contract for sure (and pay some money for the handset…offcourse less than the market price - but this depends on the plan and the phone in question)!. In India, you have the freedom and flexibility to select your phone, based on your budget, from Rs 500 to 25,000! And you can change your handset anytime (except CDMA providers)
- In US, the airtime charges (or the call charges) are way too high!! There is air-time charge for incoming calls too!. In India, incoming is *free*, and the outgoing calls tooo are hell lot cheaper compared to US. Infact, I had almost forgot the term “air time charges” !
- In US, some plans charge you for receiving SMS !.. Nice way to get screwed!. In India, I don’t know of any plans where you get charged for receiving SMSes.
- In US, sending out SMS is pretty expensive (from 4 cents to 40 cents!!!). In India…….its 1/10th the price!
- In US, prepaid SIMS are contract free, but are way too expensive. i.e., the postpaid plans them self are expensive, but prepaid is more expensive. In India, the call charges on pre-paid and post-paid are almost comparable.
- One more point is, in US, with most of the plans, you get some free minutes. If you are within the limit, then you are safe. But if you exceed, then you will be charged like crazy. And the minutes are used even if you call a Toll Free number! Most plans count the minutes for incoming call too!
I also noticed that in US, Nokia handsets are not that popular. I haven’t seen many people use Nokia handsets. I found more people using Motorola handsets.
Clearly, India is far ahead! Hope to see similar progress in other areas too!
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March 15th, 2006 at 08:22am
Update - Oct 25, 2005: Finally my GPRS is working on BSNL Prepaid. Check update number 4 given below.
Does anyone knows how to activate the BSNL’s GPRS service for prepaid connections in Mangalore, Karnataka (south) ? Please leave a comment if you can help.
Here is what I have done so far (I use a Nokia 6600):
1. Sent a SMS to 3733 with the text ‘ACTGPRS’.
2. Received a SMS within a few minutes saying my request is received, and the message asked to wait for a confirmation SMS.
3. Confirmation SMS from +444 received tell me that GPRS and MMS service has been activated.
4. I called up the customer care for the configuration settings. They SMS’ed me the settings. (You can get the settings from : This Place too. Its available on the BSNL site too.)
5. Installed the settings. Its as simple as saving the SMS.
6. Tried to connect to the net using opera/netfront/services (built in browser), using the access point created by the configration settings.
7. It tries to connect, but so far no success. The GPRS signal indicator (the little “G”) blinks for sometime and then disappears. No specific error message.
9. Sent a SMS again to 3733 with the text ‘ACTGPRS’, to which I got a reply back saying, ‘GPRS and MMS services are already enabled’.
Has anyone successfully set this thing up ?
I have called the customer care, spoken to them ‘n’ number of times, but its of no use. Typical government stuff.
Any pointers to success would be really helpful.
Update 1 (Around Sept 19th, 2005) : BSNL customer care folks told me that the GPRS service is down for a few days and should be back online withing couple of days.
Update 2 (Sep 26th, 2005) : Called up local customer care center at Mangalore. The person says that Nokia 6600 handset has some problem with BSNL GPRS network! - Can anyone confirm this ? Cant directly trust these folks. Everytime you call them, they give you some new reason. If I get a chance, i will check it with an different handset. BTW, the solution suggested by the BSNL local guy is to upgrade software (firmware to the latest version - costs around Rs. 500).
Update 3 (Oct First week) : Spoke to one more person at the local exchange. Could reach that person after getting redirected atleast 5 times. Almost always, the person at the enter end, conviniently gives one more number saying that the next person is ‘the’ person who can handle this!. Finally, I end up talking to a technical guy (I think!). Now, this person doesn’t say anything about Nokia 6600 problem. He says even he wasn’t able to access GPRS for a couple of days. Asks me to call in a couple of days. I call back after couple of days. He says some settings have been changed just a few days back, and he doesn’t have the settings. Asks me to call back after 20 mins. I call back. Says, settings are too lengthy. Says, he cant tell the settings over the phone (WTF???). Points me the BSNL webpage mentioned above to download the settings. I downloaded the settings again. No change. Still no GPRS. Anyone from BSNL with a decent knowledge of whats happening … reading this ?
Update 4 (Oct 25, 2005) : Finally got my GPRS activiated today. The endless calls to the customer care turned out to be a total waste. Yesterday, I called up the local customer service center in mangalore. They refered me a the number of JTO of mangalore. JTO inturn gave me one more number. It was kind of endless chain. Finally I landed up with some technical person. The person confirmed that all my settings were fine. Then he checked the system (HLR) and told me that my GPRS wasn’t activated at all!. WTF!!!!!!!. He told me that at Mangalore, he wont be able to activate it, and he gave me the contact number of a person in bangalore. The person at bangalore told me that I need to call him up again today. It seems this is happening all the time and that he is fed up. Some how, the reporting system says that the GPRS is activated, but in reality (switch) it isn’t.!
So, I gave the same person a call today. And finally, he enabled my GPRS access. Now, I am able to browse on my phone. But its quite expensive. Only in emergency!
Update 5: For the benefit of all everyone, here are the correct GPRS Settings for BSNL south users for Nokia 6600. These settings work for me.
Navigate to : Menu -> Tools -> Settings -> Connection
Select GPRS (Second item on the screen)
GRPS Connection -> When needed (if you select when available, GPRS will be always active, and you would be charged. So, use with caution)
Access Point -> gprs.cellone.in
Click on ->Back
Select Access Points (first item on the screen)
Option -> New Access Point -> Use default settings
Connection name -> bsnl-gprs (can be anything)
Data Bearer -> GPRS
Access point name -> bsnlwap (not bsnlsouth)
User name : ppp
Password : ppp123
Authentication : Normal
Homepage : http://localhost/home.wml
Then….
Options ->Advance settings
Phone IP address -> Automatic
Primary name server : 0.0.0.0
Secondary name server : 0.0.0.0
Proxy server address : 10.31.54.2
Proxy Port Number : 9401
Done.
If you want to browse the net using Opera, then you must set the proxy server address and proxy port number mentioned above in opera settings too. The same holds true for other browser too.
If the above settings don’t work, then clearly, your GPRS is NOT activated by BSNL. Call up the local BSNL exchange, and ask them to check if GPRS is activated in the HLR.
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September 16th, 2005 at 02:19pm
Finally after lot of R&D, yesterday i could finally browse the net over my 6600 using my PC’s internet connection over bluetooth !
Two things are possible.
1. You use the GPRS of your Mobile phone and browse on your PC.
2. You use the DSL (or other high speed connection) of your PC to browse on your Mobile phone.
#1 is pretty simple, and is very easy to setup on Nokia 6600. But #2 is not that simple. After reading lot of forums, i found that Nokia has on purpose blocked this feature in 6600.
If you have already done a search on this topic, you would have definitely come across this page. But the instructions there are quite cryptic, and not very clear. So, i did lot of search on various forums, and finally got it right. What i have done is, i have basically documented the steps that i followed to make it work. Do give it a try!. It might work for you as well. If it works (or doesn’t) do comment here!
Steps…
First lets set up the PC. Things to do on PC :
- Deactivate all the Checkboxes in mRouter (at least the ones of the Bluetooth COM ports)
- Goto Bluetooth settings and Deactivate everything else in Local services than Bluetooth serial port, note the com port you set as bluetooth serial port
- Goto Phone and Modem options, go to “Modems” add a new one, activate “I will select it from a list”
- Choose “Communications cable between 2 Computers” from the list (in Standard Modem Types)
- Select the COM port from step3
- In the modem settings set maximum port speed to 115200
- Goto Network Connections and create a new connection (wizard)
- Select Set up an advanced connection -> Next
- Accept incoming connections -> Next
- Check the Communications cable between two computers -> Next
- Do not allow VPN connections ->
- select a username you want to give access to your pc over Bluetooth (that’s the username you will set on the phone later) -> Next
- Select Internet Protocol -> Properties, select “TCI/IP address assignment” and set the IP range to something like 10.0.2.2-10.0.2.254
- Remove Internet Connection Sharing from all interfaces
- run cmd.exe and enter the following commands:
netsh routing ip nat install
netsh routing ip nat add interface "YOUR LAN INTERFACE NAME" full
netsh routing ip nat add interface Internal private
YOUR LAN INTERFACE NAME has to be replaced with the name of the interface connected to the internet
- if there is a “Bluetooth Network” connection in Network Connections delete it
- In network connections choose the incoming connection just created, and open its properties.
- Click on the users tab, check the last checkbox which says “Always allow directly connected devices to such as palmtop computers to connect without using a password” (this step helped me!)
So, that’s the setup on the PC. Next we need to configure the 6600
- Download gnubox6600.SIS and install it on your phone. Search Google for GnuBox
- Create a new Access Point on the phone (Setting|Connection|Access points|New access point|Use default settings).
- Use the following settings for it:
- Name: Bt (This name is important, the gnubox software will look for it, since its hard-coded in the code)
- Data Bearer: High speed (GSM)
- Dial-up number: e.g. 2222. It doesn’t matter what you have here as long as it’s not empty
- Username: the username you gave access to the incoming connection earlier
- Prompt password: No
- Password: Password for the user on Windows
- Authentication: Normal
- Advanced Settings: Use Login Script Yes
- Advanced Settings: Login Script
CHARMAP [windows-1252]
LOOP 10
{
SEND “CLIENT”+<0×0d>
WAIT 3
{
“SERVER” OK
}
}
EXIT KErrNoAnswer$OK:
EXIT
Be careful that you get it exactly as show here, including line breaks. You could save it to a file, send to the phone and copy-paste to the settings.
- Advanced Settings: Use PPP Compression Yes
- Run the program you installed at step1 (gnubox)
- Inside gnubox: Options-> 2box Direct -> Bluetooth, select your computer, leave gnubox running in background
- Run the nokia wml browser select “Bt” as access point and connect.
- You can also use any other internet app like Agile messenger, real player, opera, profimail etc
I was able to connect, and view my website and could read this blog too. I was also able to receive and send out mail using profimail, and the built-in mail client.
I hope this posting helps all the Nokia 6600 owners, specially in India!
Update (Sep-16-2005) : Check this page and this page for more info on GnuBox for nokia 6600
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March 30th, 2005 at 04:36pm