I bought myself a new cellphone early last June. Not because I want to, but because I needed one. You see, as I was trying to reconnect my 2-year old Nokia 6610 to the computer via the data cable, it suddenly conked out and started asking for a Restriction Code, which I have never heard before. So I rebooted the phone and it shows a “Contact Service” message that won’t go away. Gah. Looking it up, it seemed that it was a very bad thing.I suspected that the software got corrupted and so I brought the unit to Semicon at SM Southmall. That was a Saturday.

You could say that if the phone had to break down, the timing couldn’t be more perfect since I was able to successfully connect the phone to the PC before it got corrupted and therefore I got all the messages and contacts backed up on my PC. So I wasn’t worried at all if ever they needed to reformat or reflash the software. Hassle nga lang because I have no phone for the meantime.

They told me to go back after a few hours and so I killed time in the mall by window shopping. When I got back, they told me that they had to keep the unit overnight. Bummer. I wen’t back the next day and they told me that they have to forward it to their head office. Grrr.

I couldn’t wait and so I withdrew some money and bought myself a Nokia 6030 for 5,250 pesos (it was being sold for almost 500 bucks cheaper elsewhere, but I didn’t care. ) Several of my groupmates in the office have the same phone and so I knew that it’s almost practically the same as my broken 6610 in two key aspects: it has no camera, and it has an FM radio. Hehehe. Anyway, I got the repaired phone within the week as well, and now my mother is using it.

So how’s the new phone faring? Well, it’s undeniably a slightly less-powerful model, but I’m contented with it. So far. Let me run with you the key differences.

Pros. (In rough order of importance.) Cord anchor at the bottom instead of at the top. Nicer looks. Themes. Optional grid-based menu system. Better-sounding polyphonic tones. Nicer FM radio controls. Presence of long-idle-mode status icons. Greater-sounding FM. A more effective alarm clock. Programmable idle mode buttons (Yay! Pressing left brings up the new message screen like before, but now, pressing right brings up the calculator, and pressing the right function key brings up the alarm clock.) GPRS settings auto-detection. 16-bit color screen (65K possible colors) instead of 12-bit (4,092 colors). An additional function key (takes a short time getting used to, but selecting things takes fewer keystrokes now). Better hands-free kit port (the old one was too fragile). Practically costs half as cheaper. Insane battery life (the battery last much, much longer [around 5–6 days] than the old one, even when it was new [around 3–4 days]). xHTML browser instead of a lowly WAP browser (I used the WAP over GPRS feature in my old phone extensively, and now mobile surfing is such a breeze; then again, I have already racked up too much charge in my bill). Predictive Taglish text input (you wouldn’t believe how faster it is to type messages now; then again, my messages are now longer [since I don’t do txt spk anymore] and I can’t do blind text-input).

Cons. (Again, in rough order of importance.) Dual-band only, instead of tri-band. No stopwatch and timer features. No IR. Slightly heavier and bulkier. No to-do list feature. No separate volume control buttons. Date and time have to be reset everytime you take out the battery, no matter how short the time. Fewer memory for messages. No official USB data cable.

Despite the impressive number of pros, that last con, I predict, might be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back. The phone has absolutely no sort of connectivity features whatsoever (no Bluetooth, no IR, no data cable option). So there is no way to officially back things up on a PC. There are third-party data cables being supplied for the Nokia 6030 but this is of course not supported by Nokia. Also, the Nokia PC Suite doesn’t recognize the 6030 and so you also have to use a third-party phone manager software like Oxygen.

I haven’t felt the need to back things up on my PC yet. But if ever the need arises, I’d probably scout Greenhills and the other usual suspects for that elusive 6030 data cable. Then I’d download Oxygen and hope that the PC software doesn’t suck as much as the Nokia PC Suite and that the phone won’t conk out this time.