new mobile phone and the ‘global phone test’

SE K530i – my new phone, just bought 2 days ago. click on the link to see a bigger picture of the phone.

some of you (regular visitors, that is, which i know, very few) would have remember that i had my handphone stolen (picked from my handbag in a crowded bus) in april this year. i had to use a very very old phone (sony ericsson, no colour display, very tiny screen) for the time being until i get a new phone. i was hoping that i would win a phone in one of the contests i joined but me no luck lah… until now… more than 4 months, no get phone from contest and no good samaritian offered me a phone too.

well during those period (from april onwards) i had been on alert here and there for new phone. been visiting tech forums for phone reviews. at times been thinking of getting a second hand phone but lots of people advised me not to. so i checked out lots of different phones from website, esp the mobile88 website.
i like sony ericsson (SE) brand (my last 2 phones used) so was thinking of getting a SE phone too. i did contemplate on buying nokia but then i had never really like nokia though it is touted to be the best. precisely the reason i guess… being best, so many people have it, it is so common, i do not wish to have it.

well yesterday afternoon i went to a mobile shop in macalister road to look for a new phone.  the main features i was looking for is bluetooth and FM radio. i would want 3G too, if it is affordable (within my budget of below RM1K), if not, it is not important. i notice many of the W series phone (walkman phone) are quite nice and within my budget but i never like walkman/music phone. listening to music on the phone is not for me. i also don’t quite like the cybershot phone as to me camera on the phone is not important. i’d rather use the digicam for real photo taking. so i guess my need is a multimedia phone. i want to be able to use my phone as a modem to connect to my axim x51v PDA for getting on the net.

i would have bought the S500i if it has radio (it has no 3G too). it looks pretty cool and stylish. it is a slider phone, which i don’t mind but i never like clamshell phone. anyway i finally settled on the K530i, which is a relatively new phone. i was out only somewhere in april this year and the official announcement of the phone was in june this year. well, this phone has all the features i needed. i realised it was more or less the same as the K610i which i lost – the difference is that it has FM radio, stereo speaker and memory card (M2 – but it is not included!)… oh and i think it also has some GPS capability (which doesn’t matter to me since i can use my PDA for that).

well how much did i pay for the phone? RM800. AP set. i was told original will cost over RM1K. since this phone is only a few months old, they do not have any ‘protection’ accessories yet like a plastic covering or leather case but thank god they pasted a screen protector for me. well i still need to shop for a plastic casing later one.

so this latest phone i bought is my 5th phone. the very first phone i bought (in 1998) was siemen C25, then siemen S25. third one was SE 700i. and the last one, SE 610i. i normally don’t change phone often, like how some do, changing their phones like changing clothes to keep up with the latest or to be able to show off, or simply they have the cash to throw around!! yeah, if i have the cash to throw around e.g. maybe if i am like liewcf who earns thousands a month through blogging, then i can afford to change phone every year. (of course it also doesn’t mean that those who can afford it will want to change phone often).

ok so that’s about me and my phones. now about the ‘global phone test’ carried out by readers digest (in their august. issue) to find out from the public ”what would you do if you found a mobile phone’?

a team of reporters from readers digest had carried out the experiment. they worked in pairs. one left the phone behind in a busy public place such as a food-court, while the other observed the phone discreetly from a distance. they then rang the phone after a few minutes and waited to see if anyone would answer and return the phone, or if the finder would call them on a preset number they had programmed into the handset OR if the finder will keep the phone for themselves. the test was carried out in 32 cities all over the world, using 960 phones.

what the researchers did was that they pretend to leave a phone behind in restaurants, banks, or any public places. then they call the number of that phone to tell whoever answer it that it is their phone and can it be returned to them please.

the result was that on an average, 67% of the phones were returned. 75% of asian cities had over half the phones returned. three of the top 5 cities that record the highest number of honest people who returned the phones were in asia!

it was interesting to read some individual cases of people who returned the phone and who didn’t returned the phone. go read the august readers digest if you haven’t yet.

so what would YOU do if you find a mobile phone? keep it for yourself or try to locate the owner (from the phone), or hoping for the owner to call?

i found a mobile phone once on the road… and yes i returned it lah (ahem. me honest type, see). actually it was both my sister and i who found it. we were walking on the road after dinner at a kopi tiam when we spy a phone on the ground. we picked it up and wonder what to do with it. well i told my sister, maybe the owner will call the phone, so let’s wait and see. true enough, after a few minutes the phone rang and a frantic lady’s voice was heard to say "you are holding my phone? i lost my phone. can you please please return it to me?" so i asked her what kind of phone and where she lost it to make sure that she is the owner. at that time we were travelling in a car on the road, going to return home already. as at that time we were just about to turn into the jelutong expressway, we ask her if she could come there to meet us, i.e. hopefully she is somewhere nearby. she said ok she will come and meet us.

we stop the car by the roadside and waited several minutes. a car drove and stop behind us and a lady got out and walked to our car. "you are the one who called?" my sister asked. we show her the phone and she said yes it is hers and she need it back urgently since she has lots of important phone nos. in the phone. when we returned the phone, she wanted to give us some cash to thank us. of course we said no. then she said that she sell hokkien mee at the cecil street market so if we dropped in, she would give us a free bowl. haha. at least she is very grateful and had wanted to reward us, but really, it never crossed our mind not to return the phone, as we believe we should not keep things that are not ours.  one of the tester of readers digest who found the phone and returned it, said it aptly,  "you find things and you lose things, but you never lost your honesty."