New Post, New Phone

Yes, yes, I know I haven't posted for a coupla weeks. But I been busy, see. Gotta monster web-design project onna pretty tight schedule. Anyway, here's the new post. Which follows on from an earlier one.

Phones powered by Google Android have been crashing out of the skies in a rain-like manner. So a couple of weeks ago, I'd seen the one I wanted on the Interwebz. It's the HTC Desire (stock photo - sorry, can't be bothered to take my own pic):

It was, of course, a bit of an adventure to get one. My local Orange shop had never heard of it. The next one down the road (Calle Bravo Murillo has phone shops every 500 metres), had it on display, but when I asked for it the guy brought out an HTC Hero and said it was more-or-less the same. Hmm. The next phone shop I came to was Vodafone, and they had the Desire. I went in and asked about it, but they said it was only for self-employed people and small businesses - I qualify for that, but didn't have the required documentation on me. She couldn't explain to me why I couldn't have it as a particular (an individual), so I gave her a verbal slap and went on my way. Finally, I came to an Orange shop that not only had it in stock, but also let me have it! It cost me €78 plus 1100 Orange points, and I had to sign up for an 18-month data plan on top of the unfathomable call/SMS plan I already have.

But it's a damn fine phone. As a phone, I've had no problems with it - you can grip it any way you like, and it still works (despite what Steve Jobs would have you believe). It doesn't look great, but neither is it uglee. The rubberised plastic back and sides are pleasant to hold, it has a solid feel to it. It connects to everything (FaceBook, Twitter, GMail, Google Maps, Flickr) and has toys to let you play with those things.

My only criticisms are:

1) The battery life isn't great. This isn't a huge prob for me, 'cos I'm in the office most of the time. But it does need a charge every single day. Having said that, the charger is USB, so you can plug it into a laptop to suck some juice if you really need to.

2) It takes a long time (2-3 seconds) to switch the screen orientation when you turn the phone sideways. In fact this option is turned off by default, so I suspect somebody (Google? HTC? Both?) knows about it.

And that's it. An amazing phone. And I have to give credit to HTC - they've obviously bought lots of Apple products, and learned how to package a product. And I love their tagline: 'Quietly Brilliant'. Yepp, they are.

Mobile Madness

I've been wanting a new phone for quite a while now: quite apart from the lust factor of a shiny new gizmo, my current phone is pretty knackered. Of course, being a geek, I don't just want any old phone, I want a top o' the range number that does all kinds of useless stuff. I want one that's as stylish and funky as the iPhone. In fact, I want an iPhone, but since Tellyfuckingfonica have exclusive rights to that gadget, I won't be getting one.

So, I've been researching the market, and what I want now (actually more than an iPhone), is a handset that runs Google Android, specifically with the HTC 'Touch UI' skin. So that restricts things somewhat. The HTC Magic is exclusive to Vodafone, and I'm with Orange: moving could involve a JazzTel-style debacle. But as I passed the local Orange dealer yesterday, I noticed an HTC Hero in the window: from only €9! I went in to enquire, carefully not building any expectation that I would actually walk out of the shop with a new phone.

The sales assistant said it was only €9 if you were a business or self-employed. My hope-rating increased to 2/10. I am self-employed (autonomo), and I can prove it! So we talked about packages and lock-ins - we're looking at €32/month, minimum 18 months. That's not bad at all. She gave me forms to fill in, and my hope-rating increased to about 5/10.

But the first question slayed me: did I want to keep the same number I had with my previous supplier, or get a new one. I asked where was the option to switch my existing contract with Orange to this one, and keep the same number? There wasn't one, because you can't do that. Hope-rating: 0/10.

But, she said, you can get the phone as an individual, but you'll have to pay something (I already knew from previous research, the 'something' starts at €209). She fiddled about with the computer. It turned out I have some Orange Points, so the 'something' is only €180. That's way too much right now, but maybe when a large outstanding bill gets settled, I'll do it. As an alternative, she offered the HTC Tattoo, which also runs Android, and is very cute. And 'only' €89 with my points. Hope-rating 1/10, I went away and checked out some reviews - they all admire the phone greatly, except for the crap touch-screen (resistive, rather than capacitive) that makes the thing virtually unusable. So I won't be bothering with that, even though I could get it from Vodafone for €29.

Y'know, phone companies really do get on my tits. Sometime soon, HTC or some other bugger will bring out a new phone running on Android. It might be offered exclusively thru Vodafone or someone else. As a new customer to them, I'll get the phone for almost nothing, and Orange will do nothing to stop me - they won't say 'oh, Keefie, don't leave; look, because we value your custom, you can have the HTC Hero for €9 after all'. I don't want to move to a new supplier: I've had no problems with Orange. But now they have the phone I want and won't let me have it for a sensible price.

I know these high-end phones are pricey: they are little computers, after all. In some ways, I think the UAE had it right. There was an open market in unlocked phones. You bought the one you wanted, stuck your SIM card in it, and off you went. The maze of offers, counter-offers, exclusives and value-adds here does my head in. And in this particular instance it hasn't increased my choice at all, in fact it's limited it to about zero.

Grrr.

UPDATE
So I thought, why don't I shut down my existing account with Orange, and then open a new one? I popped into the shop and suggested this, and the assistant said she couldn't see why not. So this evening I went yet again, armed with all the required documents. I'm buggered if I know what happened, but eventually she told me it would be €289 for the phone. WTF? What do you have to do to qualify for the advertised €9? She shrugged her shoulders - no idea. Feck. But it looks like there's tons of Android phones coming out in the next few months, so I'll just have to be patient and then take my business elsewhere.

Ridiculosity

For fairly easily-guessable reasons, my mobile phone bill didn't get paid this month. It's not a big deal, and I've been trying for the last few days to find out how to pay the outstanding balance. I finally managed to speak to an English-speaking agent at Orange who gave me an account number and told me I could pay it at any Banco Santander branch.

So I went to my friendly (not) local Santander branch, and tried to pay the bill. The teller laughed at me, and pointed to a sign: the one that says utilities and phone bills will only be accepted between the 10th and 20th of the month, Mondays to Thursdays, 0830-1030.

I'm not joking. These people are fecking mental.

UPDATE: THE NEXT DAY
Spoke to several people at Orange this morning. You can apparently pay via the post office, but it can take up to 14 days for them to bother to give the money to Orange (are they using PayPal, I wonder?). The only other option is to pay by credit/debit card, or do a transfer from a Spanish bank account. So I slapped some cash into my bank. Then I called Orange: gave them my card details, but they barfed at the 3-digit security code bit. Feck, double-feck, treble-feck. It fecking works for Ryanair and EasyJet! I'm just wondering if they're storing my card details in their database, rather than doing a real-time look-up (the card was replaced about six months ago - same number, but different code on the back). In which case I'm fecked.

Once again, all I'm trying to do is give the bastards money. All they're trying to do is come up with reasons why I can't. Feck, feck, feckity-feck. The modern world will be great when it's finished.

UPDATE A BIT LATER
The buggers have my account details on file: why can't they just press a button and get the money? Buggered if I know. Sob.

FINAL UPDATE
I called them again this morning, planning to ask for their full bank details so I could do a TT. But before doing that, we had another go at doing it with my debit card, and this time it bally-well-worked. (I suspect yesterday's lady thought it was a credit card). So, the next challenge will be to get some money into my account in time for the next payment in about a week's time.

New Toys [Nuevos Juguetes]

Money was a bit tight after Christmas (after ten years in the biz, I have found this has always been the case) but I had a couple of projects for Dubai-based clients and I finished them a few weeks ago. Since when I have been gently prodding and poking for my payments. One of them came through this morning (huzzah!), and I immediately set about spending it, safe in the knowledge that when the next one comes through it'll keep us comfortable for a couple of months.

First priority: a new laptop for MamaDuck. FNAC have been selling a Packard Bell laptop for under €500 since about Christmas-time. I don't know why it's so cheap - it has a fast-enough processor, 2 gig of RAM and an 80 gig hard drive. And wi-fi that works. It is amply capable of doing the things that MamaDuck needs it for. I went to FNAC this morning - they only had the display model left, and I bought it.

I also bought myself a new memory stick, because the old one is broken. I remember when any kind of solid-state memory cost £30 per megabyte. That was the price for years and years and years, until the only two or three factories in the world that produced this stuff burnt down within a few months of each other (oh yeah?), at which point the price went through the roof. But a dozen companies simultaneously thought 'there's a market opportunity, let's build a factory'; thereafter, the price of memory plummeted, and continues to fall. The stick I just bought is 2 Gb, and it cost €10. At the old price, if anyone was actually making such a thing then, it would have cost £60000!

To round off the day, I've been thinking for a while that I'm sick and tired of the PalmOne Treo 650 'smartphone' that I've been lugging around for a couple of years. And now that I have an NIE I can get a mobile phone contract that should save me a ton of money as compared to constantly recharging a pre-paid chip. Orange have a special offer on this month; upgrade from pre-paid to a contract (if you've had it for more than six months), or defect from another supplier, and you can get the Samsung U700 for free (terms and conditions apply, obviously: an 18-month lock-in to a €25/month contract). It seems ok to me: I've been paying 30 or 40 Euros a month to recharge my card. And this is one sexy-looking phone.

I have to wait till tomorrow to actually get my hands on it. Maybe they're doing a credit check, in which case they won't find anything for or against on account of me not having lived in Europe for thirteen years. Hmmm, might be a problem. But I have to say the staff at the Orange shop down in the Plaza coped extremely well with my feeble Spanish: they used an online translation website where they typed in what they wanted to say, and had me read the response on the screen. Like all these things, the translation was poor, but quite amusing, and I got the gist: you are gonna pay us a ton of money for at least eighteen months, sucker. I don't care, it's a gorgeous phone!