A random picture update
May. 17th, 2006 04:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
garoteIn case you were wondering about the allergen status of this month,
This month has also been the Month Of Getting Many Chores Done. For example, I finally bought some replacement fuses for the car radio. For about six months it's been using a mangled twist-tie and a knot of crappy headphone wire as a substitute fuse. Clearly I have the utmost respect for my equipment.
Also we finally got new phones. It was time, since my old phone was acting strangely - not reporting calls, suddenly dropping signal, and apparently losing my voicemails. The last straw was when it told me I had almost half a million text messages in my inbox:
So after going through a collection of phones with various problems, I finally found exactly what I want. The Samsung SGH-D357. A clamshell phone with a wired earpiece.
- I can make a call, close it, put it in my back pocket, and talk on the earpiece.
- I can wear headphones and listen to music while I talk, if I'm having a long slow conversation like during a walk home from work, and the other person can still hear me because the microphone is further down the wire (unlike a bluetooth headset).
- It's less wide and easier to hold than the over-rated RAZR,
- the buttons are easy to find by hand and have a good feel to them,
- it works as a Bluetooth modem for internet access (shut off for now),
- the theme can be customized and simplified via bluetooth file exchange,
- it doesn't have a stupid little camera,
- you can customize the main buttons,
- it displays the caller before you fold-open the phone,
- and YOU CAN DISABLE the DAMN BUTTON that connects to the ONLINE MINI-MALL CRAP store.
I WIN !!!!
The only drawback is that there's no iSync profile for it yet, so I had to upload my numbers "by hand" over Bluetooth using "Send vcards" in Address Book. Took about 15 minutes.
Samsung D357
Date: 2006-05-21 06:09 am (UTC)Re: Samsung D357
Date: 2006-05-23 10:50 pm (UTC)There are other apps online that do the same things iSync does, but support other phones - all of them shareware and requesting a fee of course - but none of those supported the D357 either. The only app that got close recognized the phone but claimed that my D357 needed a firmware update in order to fully implement the Bluetooth protocols that the app required. So several hours of online searching followed ... resulting in nothing. There are no firmware updates for it published by Samsung or anyone else. Argh!
Still, this is better behavior than the phone I had before -- an LG CG300 speakerphone that claimed Bluetooth support but would not successfully pair with OS X. I even rebooted the MacBook into XP using Boot Camp and tried to associate the LG phone through Windows, but no dice. It made me suspect that there was something wrong with the Bluetooth hardware in the MacBook... But when I physically brought the MacBook into the Cingular store and ran a Bluetooth scan (using iStumbler), it found half a dozen phones (the D357 among them) and had no trouble communicating with them all. So it was definitely the LG phone that had the problem. Grrr, arrr!
Anyhoo, now that I've got the D357 I'm happy. I miss the gigantic speaker on the LG CG300, but aside from that, the D357 is superior in every way.
(Incidentally, a store employee recommended the Sony Ericsson W600i as a good fit for me, since it also had full Bluetooth and a well-designed lock switch for placing the phone in a pocket while talking. He said it had much better signal strength than the D357. ... But after just a few minutes of playing with the keypad I became irritated with it.)