The Chronicles of being BONGO !

Its been 6 years since I have owned a cellphone.I remember the days when a nokia 3310 used to sell for a premium price of 10k and used to be the holy grail of mobile phones out there…reason? it had an internal antenna…that means you do not have a stick poking in your nose when you answer or make a call trying to look hip in a public place.Frankly not many people in my country used to own a cell phone back then and the moment one flashed out one in a public place,you were bound to become an attention magnet.I got my first cell when I was doing my third year in engineering.After a lot of convincing and citing some fancy reasons I finally got one-a Sagem MW3020-a cute little silver colored handfull with its dick sticking out like its cheap-o brothers at that time.The rich kids in my college had Sony Ericssons.Didn’t knew or understood too much about cellphones and cellular technology back then but the ads of Sony Ericsson in the television were glossy enough to give a ‘middle-class’ upbringing the sparkle of desire in the eye.And Sony Ericsson T610 was ruling the roost back then.Compact dimensions and extreme multimedia capabilities including a camera-what else could a mortal ask for ?Numerous times I watched those ads and thought that if I ever make money I am going to get one for myself. But since my pocket and luck both are in a constant cometition of hitting new lows since my birth,I had my dick tied to the MW3020. The fone stayed with me for the next 2 years till I got my first job at infosys.But by that time it was showing its signs of age.So my father this time was fortunately so happy with me that he took me to a mobile shop at Majestic in Bangalore the day before my first day at office and got me a new one.Its was a chep-o still , a Motorola (donn remember the exact model) but with a color screen and a camera…..I was spell bound … a cellphone with a color screen and camera ? Thats what the rich kids have…. I was like that rickety slimy character in Lord of the rings , always looking for an opportunity to blurt out “My precious”.But my tryst with “my precious” was short lived.Soon after I was introduced to the Candy Floss Corporate world of Infosys,I used to take occassional strolls in the old city on weekends.Reasons being lack of friends and absolute disinterest in matters which others found interesting.So one such weekend I suddenly happened to see a SE T610 on display and my longing for the new precious overwhelmed me so much that I spent most of my entire months meagre salary in exchanging the motorola with the brand new SE T610.And it stayed with me for quite some time…about a year.

My Cell Phones after that didn’t live with me for long….Had almost all the nokias and the SEs around exchanging my handsets month after the other.To name a few I have owned Nokia 3230,6680 and Finally N70 which again lived with me for a short while.Soon I took up a SE M610 which within 6 months was old enough to give way for the monstrocity called HTC Herald which I Still carry today.Speaking of the Herald it has been my old faithful for the past one and a half year.Occassionally I was distracted by some very flashy models but at the end of the day comparing the features as well as the jaw dropping awe factor,the Herald was still a clear winner and will remain so among all other phones of its class till the SE Xperia X1 comes out.But heres the twist, I really do not intend to buy the X1.A simple calculation of economics and the resident excel sheet has been an eye opener howling out to me the absurd amount I have spent together all these years on a device which I use only to call and browse a few sites including the 42K spending for my HTC Herald.This time I am back to basics….no impersonation of CEOs and I don’t have a girlfriend to win anymore.But guess I will still require a lot of features of my herald like an ultra high resolution screen , keyboard(must), thinness, Bluetooth, Wifi and the monster battery life all at a price that wonn make me feel like an ass two years down the line.To my knowledge two upcoming handsets fit that bill not taking into consideration the newest N series from Nokia which is not my target in so many ways.One is the Nokia E71(White) and the other being the 3G Iphone.But may be at the end of the day I will still settle for the E71.I still trust the hardware keyboard than any other fancy input mechanisms and hey I said already that I definitely don’t want myself to look like an ass in the coming year(s).

So riding the wave of the next generation handsets I paused here for a moment just to put things in perspective.For the sake of flashiness and having the hippest handset around I have spent enough amount which if properly invested would have got me some very handsome returns today.I think that this pause was worthwhile and may be having the HTC with me for so long made me realize that you don’t need a holy grail to be at the top.The holy grail here will still make and recieve calls and let you surf debonairblog while in transit and the guy next to you will have a cheap-o which will do the same thing with equal panache.The perspective itself is deterrant enough for me to not to invest in the next Holy Grail-Xperia X1. E71 will do just fine for now and the next few years.