Mobile Phones and Sharetrader Access

[Snoopy]

Thanks Snoopy. The C7 has a short battery life between charges.
The operating system is slow to respond and if you enlarge the view
using the “pinch” mode it could take you to an unwanted page.
With sharetrader, if you want to select “page 15” for example, you
may get page 14 or page 16. It will not display charts.
Direct broking is a chart intensive site for the shares page.
Going back to a previously viewed page is also a bit of a hit and
miss affair. The screen is a bit dark compared to other makes of
phones and is hard to read when outdoors. A problem when
answering emails is that the phone has a curved back, meaning
that you cannot put it on a tabletop and type your message,
you need to hold the phone with your other hand.
Trying to book hotels or flights is a chore and some sites are not
compatible with the operating system.
Wifi sensitivity is low, particularly at airports and free public sites.
I think the reviews are written by “paid” reviewers.

The camera is good and using it as an ordinary phone is good.
The GPS drops out too often to be reliable and applications “aps”
have to be bought from Nokia whereas other phones have free
applications.

Wow thanks Heke! I think what you have written is the best cellphone review I have ever read! Not the best for Nokia, obviously. But best in the sense of a real world user telling it exactly like it is. You raise issues that I had never thought of, like cellphones with curved backs being that much more awkward to operate, that I will now bear in mind during my search.

If I interpret your review correctly, you are less worried about the hardware grunt behind your machine than the clumsy to execute software that runs on it.

I note with interest your comments on battery life. This is a big concern of mine too. My enquiries so far lead me to believe that spare batteries for Nokia (unlike most other brands) are readily available. So I had thoughts, if I went the Nokia way, of buying a spare battery pack and keeping it charged just to make sure that I never ran out of juice. Maybe that might work for you too?

The other point I would make about battery life is that (I presume) the larger the screen and the brighter the screen the more power it will draw. This is partly what is leading me towards looking at QWERTY keyboard phones (like the Nokia C5-00 5MP), which tend to have smaller screens. The other advantage I see of the QWERTY keyboard is their convenience for creating text. Having said this I have been very surprised at the difference in feel and usability of the different QWERTY keyboards that I have tried.

I will throw one thing back at you regarding the archaic Symbian operating system. (I can’t believe I am writing that when just a few years ago Nokia was the market leader!) I know that mobile phone viruses are not a big issue as yet. But I am sure that as internet capable mobile devices get more popular, they will become an issue. If you have a slightly left field operating system then there is less chance that miscreants will spend time writing a virus for that system. Symbian devices could become safe havens. The downside is that there will be fewer applications written for the less popular architecture. But if you can get the applications that do what you want, perhaps this is not a game breaking issue?

Interested in any reflections from you (and others) this post might stir up.

SNOOPY