Am I the only one picky enough to spot these things, or has anyone else ever had a problem with something they’ve bought and wondered how the hell it got past the testing stage? I’m mainly on about mobile phones. Foreigners (and by this I mean you Yanks), please bear with me as I’m sure you have different makes/models to us. I’d be amazed if you don’t have the same issues, though.
I used to have a Nokia 3310 and a 3330 – one work, one personal. Before that, I had two “brick” Nokias, which were very much the same, worked in the same way and just happened to be slightly bigger. Now, these three phones all did the job they were meant to. Sent and received calls and texts. They keypads were good – clear, uncluttered, good spacing between keys and the keys themselves were responsive with superb feedback. That is, when you pushed a key, you got a “click” or “beep” for each press as well as the tactile feedback of knowing you’d hit it.
Each phone also had the numberic keypad, a hash, a star, two arrow buttons, a cancel and a menu button. Look at the links previous and see how clear the layouts are. Texting was a joy on those phones.
Enter the new phones. My current personal phone is a Nokia 3510i. First off, notice the extra two buttons. Also, the keys are rubbery and a bugger to press. The feedback’s lousy as well. The phone is so slow that often it doesn’t make a click or beep when you press them, so when you’re texting quickly it’s very easy to press the keys too many times.
In addition, it’s now harder to do some things that were a piece of cake on the old 3310/3330. A common example is receiving a text, replying to it, deleting the text you’ve input then deleting the one you received. Post-reply on the 3330, this used 2 buttons and a total of 7 keypresses. On the 3510i, it requires 10 presses of four buttons and you’ve got a very high chance of the thing quitting out of what you’re doing (if you hold the clear button down too long) and having to go back in and start again. Same job, almost half as complicated. The other bugbear is setting the alarm clock, almost twice as hard.
My new company phone is a Nokia 6230 which has managed to introduce another piece of interface-related crapness. The big central square button is actually five buttons in one. Four directions, plus if you “mash” it, it’s another input. They keys are too small and close together, and the maxiumum keypress feedback volume is vastly reduced, making quick texting a nightmare. This large button, though, is the biggest pain.
If you’re working quickly and don’t have fingers like pinheads, it’s far too easy to nudge up or down instead of – or worse, immediately before – mashing the big button as “accept”. I’d say more than 50% of the time, I end up selecting the wrong thing from a menu because of this.
Two other issues with it. I cannot change the font colour – it’s always black. When someone rings, my wallpaper picture doesn’t disappear. This means I can’t have a dark wallpaper picture as I end up with black on black text and can’t see who’s ringing. The other daft thing that’s slipped through is the “welcome note”. On the 3310/3330, when you designed the welcome note what you saw (including layout) was what you got. On the new one, you place your text, justify it so it’s centred and save it. Then when the phone comes on, it shrinks it to a font half the size, removes all the extra spaces and scrunches it in the top left corner.
Who on earth tests these phones? Nobody? Or someone who sucks up so they think they have more chance of testing another one? The whole point of testing things is to find what’s wrong with them, yet these things still make it to market. I really want to know why and how.
I also want to know if anyone has a decent, working 3330 available. I think I’ll pop in eBay. With any luck I can get a newish one for less than I can sell my 3510i for. And I can put my old NUFC logo on the backdrop.
Don’t get me wrong, the new features and stuff all have their uses – the cameras, voice recording, built-in radios and stuff. But what’s the point of having the toys when the basic functions of the phones are being made a nightmare to use?
Have you not written a letter of complaint to NoKia?
It seems though art slipping from you quest of total customer satisfaction Mr Purdie. How can they correct these features if their valued customers don’t let them know about their unintentional faux pas š
I was very upset when I reached the bottom of the post without seeing such a letter.
Go on. Write one. You know you want to š
Opps, too many <br>’s in that last post
Are you writing a letter of complaint to *me* for not writing a letter of complaint?! What do you want? Free vouchers?!
And you don’t need to put <br>s in – Haloscan picks up the carriage returns and converts them itself.
Don’t get a Motorola V975. Great looking phone, lots of lovely gadgets. Predictive texting is a bitch. Let’s be honest, when you press the 1 key while texting, 60-70% of the time you want a full stop, right? And you don’t mind scrolling through the options when you need a different punctuation mark. Except on this phone, the default punctuation mark seems to be the apostrophe. And the full stop is the sixth or seventh option as you scroll through. Who the hell thought that one up? And did he have something heavy dropped on his head when he was a child?
Well i have a Nokia 6230 and its fine for me š I just think your fingers are to big!
Thanks to Dale for pointing out that this rant beat the BBC’s version to publication. In fact, I wrote it over a month ago!
What I’m amazed at is that you are admitting that:
a. A piece of technology has got the better of you (congratulations – not many men will do that)
b. You can’t get a satisfactory result with your fingers (again, congratulations – most men think that any old fiddling about will get the desired result, IF THEY PROD HARD ENOUGH).
As for the letter of complaint, get writing. They keep me going – and let me know I’m not alone.
Ohhhh, free vouchers. Yes please.
Joe – it’s not how hard you prod, it’s where you prod and how you prod. Any decent bloke knows that.
Chris – OK, have one free voucher for a nice, hot mug of shut the **** up. But you’ll have to pay for the milk and sugar. Only one voucher per customer. Cash value 0.000001p. Non-transferable.
I don’t have a mobile phone. I do however have a PDA…when it’s unfolded it’s about the size of a sheet of 8.5/11 inch paper and I use a blue ball point pen on it ha ha ha. Hey, I only saw a Blackberry up close last week.
I’ve got a mobile number for you Hans! I think I may as well delete that then.
LOL @ Joe. You are so right. And his point still stands, Mosh – you are obviously not prodding in the right place, in the right manner, hard or not!
My complaint is that I shouldn’t have to prod like that. I’ve been prodding in a simple, efficient manner that works for ages. Come on, they don’t move *your* bits around or change how they work.
Oh, and Joe’s the proud *mother* of a bouncy baby boy…
Yeah, but we all work in slightly different ways. The basic buttons might be the same, but if you want to use the special features, you need perserverance and patience, and you will soon be pressing all the buttons in the right order with just the right pressure.