Hans Across The Interwebs

When my latest phone, the K850i turned out to be a complete disaster of a phone I decided to start looking for a phone that would better satisfy my different need in the toy/tool department. I ended up reverting to a two year old phone combined with a mobile broadband subscription on my MacBook Pro.

I’m just going to stop looking for a one device end-all be all. It’s just doesn’t exist right now and it may never. Cram too many functions into a device and it’s irrevocably going to suck at everything. And the biggest problem of these superfunction devices is their usability. They’re not fun to use.

So when I started looking for a new phone I was recommended a few really nice phones like the Nokia E61i and the Blackberry 6300. All nice devices that do many things. Which I wanted. In the end I’m always a road warrior who wants to be online all the time. I need my mobile communication fix.

But since I usually have my laptop with me anyway, it makes much more sense to get my computer ‘always online’ than to have another device to partially take over some tasks when I’m not on my home network. So I shelled out for a mobile broadband subscription.

And my phone…will be just a phone.

Why Technology Sucks
I’m just asking way too much of todays technologies, I know.

Get 1.8Mbps on your mobile laptop? Not where I am.

Apparently I have no 3G coverage in my house. Sure, I’ve got Wifi here, but I live in a pretty central area so what’s it going to be like elsewhere? Only GPRS which is getting me about 240Kbps download right now. I’ll test a few more places tomorrow while I can still change providers.

But get to this: the connection software hasn’t been updated for Leopard 10.5 yet. It starts, then crashes. No connection for you! Second Tier Support: “We only support Windows PC’s” (it says OS X on the box, so I ask for someone who knows what he’s talking about.) Next guy: “we’re still talking to the software supplier. I can’t promise it’ll be here within a month.” So I end up just getting the software myself for another freakin’ EUR 89,25.

What is wrong with these people?