Phones: style is just as important
Jul 26, 2007
THERE were times — in the 1990s when making a telephone call was a pain. Some people were lucky that they had landline telephones at home.
By Timothy Bukumunhe
THERE were times — in the 1990s when making a telephone call was a pain. Some people were lucky that they had landline telephones at home.
But although they had them, making a call, especially if it was to a foreign land, it was not a matter of picking up the receiver and dialling away.
You had to place a call to the Post Office who would give you a reference number and then let you know when to expect your call. And if you were lucky enough to get your call, the connection was so bad that one often had to shout at the top of the voice to be heard.
Then somewhere along the line came the Starcom revolution. Phone boxes sprung up all round the Post Office and Entebbe Road and by inserting a ‘credit card’ one was able to make a phone call. If anything, it offered an alternative and in its time did just enough to improve telecommunication.
Enter the era of Celtel, and the pager. While the latter was a non-starter almost from day one — presumably because if somebody paged you and you were in an area where there were no phone booths or one did not have access to a telephone, that was it.
And though Celtel as the first cell phone provider in the country, they simply made owning a cell phone a rich man toy. Not only were the phones extremely expensive, billing was in dollars. Having a cell phone then, put you a class apart from the other man or woman.
When MTN joined the market everybody wanted to have a phone. And When MTN came to Uganda, a cell phone became affordable that even the common man could afford. Then nobody gave a hoot as to what cell phone they owned. As long as they had one that was good enough.
Today it is not just about owning a cell phone, but, more importantly, what kind of cell phone is it, how small is it and what are its features? But going down memory lane, do you remember the first cell phone that you had?
The Ericsson GH688 then was a phone to be marvelled at. It was square had an aerial and most importantly it had a green light that would flash. That green light was important, especially when people were in the nightclubs. With the light flashing, everybody knew you were connected and you were the talk of town.
But not to be outdone, there was the Nokia 1610 that weighed more than a kilo of sugar. Despite it looking like a brick and being weighty, everybody had one. Unlike the light phones that exist today, the 1610 was hard to steal because the moment a thief tried to prize it from your pocked, you would easily notice it was gone.
It was so heavy that if one was to put it into their shirt pocket, it would literally rip off the shirt pocket after a couple of hours. Everybody who owned the 1610 would wear it proudly by hooking it through the belt of their trousers.
As the Ericsson GH688 began to be seen as the common man phone, the market was flooded with the Ericsson 628. While it looked very much like the GH688, the difference was the shorter stub aerial and a blue face. We all went out and ditched our GH688 and Nokia 1610 in favour of the new Ericsson.
After their bulky phones, Nokia suddenly woke up that even here in Uganda, there was a time when everybody had Nokia’s candybar-style cell phones. Sporting a monochrome display, an external antenna, and a boxy, 5.2-inch tall frame, the Nokia 6160 was the company’s best-selling handset of the 1990s.
The somewhat sleeker Nokia 8260, introduced in 2000, added a colourful case and lost some of the 6160’s bulk: it stood only about four inches tall and weighed 3.4 ounces, compared with almost sic ounces for the 6160.
Before the Motorola StarTAC was introduced in 1996, cell phones were more about function than fashion. But this tiny, lightweight phone ushered in the concept that style was just as important, ultimately paving the way for today’s sleek-looking phones like the Motorola Razr.
This 3.1-ounce clamshell-style phone, which could easily be clipped to a belt, was the smallest and lightest of its time. In fact, it was smaller and lighter than many of today’s teeny-tiny cell phones.
Today, most cell phones come with a built-in camera. But, just a few years ago, a camera phone was hard to come by. In 2002, Sanyo and Sprint debuted the Sanyo SCP-5300 PCS phone, which they claimed was the first mobile phone available in America with a built-in camera.
At its highest resolution, it captured VGA (640 by 480) images—a far cry from today’s 5-megapixel camera phones like the Nokia N95.
Though the Sanyo SCP-5300 PCS never really hit the Uganda market, Samsung introduced one that looked similar and was heavily favoured by female students on campus and the Dubai traders.
As cell phones continued to get thinner and more stylish over the years, it was the debut of the Motorola Razr v3 in 2004 that took design to another level. With its super-slim lines and sleek metallic look, the Razr quickly became the must-have accessory.
Three years later, it remains one of the most popular handsets on the market. The Razr were three of the four best-selling handsets in 2006 and is increasingly popular in Uganda.
It promised to bring together the best of two worlds: Apple’s excellent iTunes music player and Motorola’s cell phone design expertise.
The Motorola Rokr, released in September 2005, was the first music phone to incorporate Apple’s music software. It allowed users to transfer songs purchased from iTunes to the phone for listening on the go.
Unfortunately, users found song transfers to be painfully slow and many were stymied by the 100-song limit imposed on their music collections.
Still, this handset paved the way for today’s music phones, including the Motorola Slvr and Razr V3i, which are making head-way here.
Popular today are; Nokia’s stylish ‘brick’ the N70 and N80. With two integrated digital cameras with flash: 2.0 megapixel with 20x digital zoom (1600 x 1200 pixels) and VGA with 2x digital zoom (640 x 480 pixels) and a built-in 30 MB memory and supports, it has a high resolution (176 x 208 pixels).
Samsung SGH-Z400 is a slim tri-band/3G (UMTS) slider-phone featuring two megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom, Bluetooth, GPRS, USB, MP3, and 262K colours two.
The phone weighs107grammes and has a stand-by time of 320 hours. A hit with females because of its battery life beautiful screen comfortable keys and good speakerphone.
In 2006, Nokia came out with the Nokia 8800, which is referred to as ‘the stainless steel wonder’. This is a great little phone in the true Nokia tradition. What I mean is if you are buying a candy bar mobile/cell phone, there is no one that knows how to build them better.
This phone is built in stainless steel, crystal display and has 262k colour display. The slide on this phone is sturdy and solid. Again true quality.
The 8800 is slightly over five inches thick, a little over four inches long with the slide closed and approx 4.5 inches with the slide open.
The best part is when you are done and close the slide, the phone’s keys are not exposed to accidental calling and the battery holds a charge all day long.
THERE were times — in the 1990s when making a telephone call was a pain. Some people were lucky that they had landline telephones at home.
But although they had them, making a call, especially if it was to a foreign land, it was not a matter of picking up the receiver and dialling away.
You had to place a call to the Post Office who would give you a reference number and then let you know when to expect your call. And if you were lucky enough to get your call, the connection was so bad that one often had to shout at the top of the voice to be heard.
Then somewhere along the line came the Starcom revolution. Phone boxes sprung up all round the Post Office and Entebbe Road and by inserting a ‘credit card’ one was able to make a phone call. If anything, it offered an alternative and in its time did just enough to improve telecommunication.
Enter the era of Celtel, and the pager. While the latter was a non-starter almost from day one — presumably because if somebody paged you and you were in an area where there were no phone booths or one did not have access to a telephone, that was it.
And though Celtel as the first cell phone provider in the country, they simply made owning a cell phone a rich man toy. Not only were the phones extremely expensive, billing was in dollars. Having a cell phone then, put you a class apart from the other man or woman.
When MTN joined the market everybody wanted to have a phone. And When MTN came to Uganda, a cell phone became affordable that even the common man could afford. Then nobody gave a hoot as to what cell phone they owned. As long as they had one that was good enough.
Today it is not just about owning a cell phone, but, more importantly, what kind of cell phone is it, how small is it and what are its features? But going down memory lane, do you remember the first cell phone that you had?
The Ericsson GH688 then was a phone to be marvelled at. It was square had an aerial and most importantly it had a green light that would flash. That green light was important, especially when people were in the nightclubs. With the light flashing, everybody knew you were connected and you were the talk of town.
But not to be outdone, there was the Nokia 1610 that weighed more than a kilo of sugar. Despite it looking like a brick and being weighty, everybody had one. Unlike the light phones that exist today, the 1610 was hard to steal because the moment a thief tried to prize it from your pocked, you would easily notice it was gone.
It was so heavy that if one was to put it into their shirt pocket, it would literally rip off the shirt pocket after a couple of hours. Everybody who owned the 1610 would wear it proudly by hooking it through the belt of their trousers.
As the Ericsson GH688 began to be seen as the common man phone, the market was flooded with the Ericsson 628. While it looked very much like the GH688, the difference was the shorter stub aerial and a blue face. We all went out and ditched our GH688 and Nokia 1610 in favour of the new Ericsson.
After their bulky phones, Nokia suddenly woke up that even here in Uganda, there was a time when everybody had Nokia’s candybar-style cell phones. Sporting a monochrome display, an external antenna, and a boxy, 5.2-inch tall frame, the Nokia 6160 was the company’s best-selling handset of the 1990s.
The somewhat sleeker Nokia 8260, introduced in 2000, added a colourful case and lost some of the 6160’s bulk: it stood only about four inches tall and weighed 3.4 ounces, compared with almost sic ounces for the 6160.
Before the Motorola StarTAC was introduced in 1996, cell phones were more about function than fashion. But this tiny, lightweight phone ushered in the concept that style was just as important, ultimately paving the way for today’s sleek-looking phones like the Motorola Razr.
This 3.1-ounce clamshell-style phone, which could easily be clipped to a belt, was the smallest and lightest of its time. In fact, it was smaller and lighter than many of today’s teeny-tiny cell phones.
Today, most cell phones come with a built-in camera. But, just a few years ago, a camera phone was hard to come by. In 2002, Sanyo and Sprint debuted the Sanyo SCP-5300 PCS phone, which they claimed was the first mobile phone available in America with a built-in camera.
At its highest resolution, it captured VGA (640 by 480) images—a far cry from today’s 5-megapixel camera phones like the Nokia N95.
Though the Sanyo SCP-5300 PCS never really hit the Uganda market, Samsung introduced one that looked similar and was heavily favoured by female students on campus and the Dubai traders.
As cell phones continued to get thinner and more stylish over the years, it was the debut of the Motorola Razr v3 in 2004 that took design to another level. With its super-slim lines and sleek metallic look, the Razr quickly became the must-have accessory.
Three years later, it remains one of the most popular handsets on the market. The Razr were three of the four best-selling handsets in 2006 and is increasingly popular in Uganda.
It promised to bring together the best of two worlds: Apple’s excellent iTunes music player and Motorola’s cell phone design expertise.
The Motorola Rokr, released in September 2005, was the first music phone to incorporate Apple’s music software. It allowed users to transfer songs purchased from iTunes to the phone for listening on the go.
Unfortunately, users found song transfers to be painfully slow and many were stymied by the 100-song limit imposed on their music collections.
Still, this handset paved the way for today’s music phones, including the Motorola Slvr and Razr V3i, which are making head-way here.
Popular today are; Nokia’s stylish ‘brick’ the N70 and N80. With two integrated digital cameras with flash: 2.0 megapixel with 20x digital zoom (1600 x 1200 pixels) and VGA with 2x digital zoom (640 x 480 pixels) and a built-in 30 MB memory and supports, it has a high resolution (176 x 208 pixels).
Samsung SGH-Z400 is a slim tri-band/3G (UMTS) slider-phone featuring two megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom, Bluetooth, GPRS, USB, MP3, and 262K colours two.
The phone weighs107grammes and has a stand-by time of 320 hours. A hit with females because of its battery life beautiful screen comfortable keys and good speakerphone.
In 2006, Nokia came out with the Nokia 8800, which is referred to as ‘the stainless steel wonder’. This is a great little phone in the true Nokia tradition. What I mean is if you are buying a candy bar mobile/cell phone, there is no one that knows how to build them better.
This phone is built in stainless steel, crystal display and has 262k colour display. The slide on this phone is sturdy and solid. Again true quality.
The 8800 is slightly over five inches thick, a little over four inches long with the slide closed and approx 4.5 inches with the slide open.
The best part is when you are done and close the slide, the phone’s keys are not exposed to accidental calling and the battery holds a charge all day long.