Be Excellent To Each Other

It's the removable SD that makes me want the original. It has less RAM though. Toby's had the 8Gb for a few months now, drop him a line. He's very pleased with it.

I've had pretty good service overall, they've just ballsed the order process up. I'd get an iPhone elsewhere if I could but it's tied to O2. There is no other phone on the market that I can see myself being willing to commit to an 18 months contract for.

I've just tried to request my PAC from O2. Naturally, they put their most determined kiss-arses on this line, as you will obviously never ask for your PAC unless you want to leave them. The bloke insisted (twice I said I don't want to discuss it) that I tell him why I thought O2 sucked, so I did.

He then went into the usual 'good' service mode where they have to say your name at least twice in every sentence to show how customer focused they are, and other things like 'just to advise you, Mr Webber' etc etc etc.

I wasn't really convinced, and any goodwill that he may have managed to scrape back was soon lost when I have to fucking write off to some godforsaken PO box in Southampton to get my PAC number, apparently.

rich - I tried to ring and tell you to check out Dial-a-phone if you don't like 18 month contracts - you can get N95s with a number of providers for very good prices on 12 month contracts from them.

Call them back, because that's bullshit.

By the way, I really like the look of this:

http://www.htc.com/uk/product.aspx?id=46038

Oh - and dial-a-phone are hideous arseholes.

He claimed it was 'procedure'... what's a good way to call bullshit on it?

Especially considering they can just refuse because they're gonna lose me anyway...

Couldn't answer, soz. I'm iPhoning it in I'm afraid. Also Craster's right, Dial-a-Phone are cunts.


Orange do the same. Up to 14 days to send your PAC out by post, then they lose it and SMS it to you anyway. It's just delaying tactics.

Looks nice but I've had a HTC/WinMob phone for two years now. NEVER AGAIN.

From Ofcom's website:



It specifically says phone them.

That's the thing, I did phone them... and they gave me a disconnection reference number, which I have to post to the address in Southampton along with my name, address, mobile number and sign it to indicate I do really want a PAC.

The OFCOM thing doesn't seem to address that or any funny internal procedures that will take effect once you phone your provider.

Yeah - I don't think they're supposed to make you jump through hoops though.

It's settling that I really don't want an iphone enough to leave 3.

When Apple get their head out of their arse we'll talk.

I toured the phone shops today. Which, er, makes it,

PHONE BUYING! Live from a very rainy Cardiff Queen Street!

First stop was the Three store, in the Capitol Centre.

Three will do me an N95 8Gb for £27 a month (500 minutes/texts), rising to £33 if I add in the £5 1Gb/month data download package. Which is nice. The bloke very patiently showed me his phone in action (as the display model's battery had died) and did his best to answer my strange questions (he had no idea what Flash was... and thought I meant the one on the camera). When he went to check the stockroom this little Indian bloke started to ask me a question before noticing my fleece was 'Network Rail' and not 'Three'.

Next stop, the surprisingly large Vodafone store, St David's Centre.

Vodafone present a slightly intimidating image. Their vast, minimalist store (everything is either white or red) was staffed by a large number of immaculately uniformed staff standing ready to attack with the sort of Hitler Youth precision of Wimbledon ballboys/girls. Vodafone will do the N95 8Gb for £35 a month: 700 minutes, 250 texts, 'unlimited' internet, and a special bone-us: free Nokia satnav for three months! This raised a rather crucial point that had not been mentioned anywhere else nor in any of the literature I'd been reading: Using the phone as a GPS thing is free, but if you want to be told you should have turned left 250m ago, it'll cost you €70 a year. Ouch.

The whole reason I'd wanted the N95 is that it did the GPS satnav thing, having to pay an added subscription is a bit of a kick in the nards. The ever-mighty Dr Gaywood has helpfully provided a link to let you haxx0r Tomtom stuff in and use it instead, but... still, argh. I hate being fickle like this - this morning, I'd been almost convinced of the Viewty.

As I write this, the Vodafone brochure is open next to me. Each phone has a pretenious 'title' underneath its name. The 8800's is 'Sapphire Arte', which my perverted mind has interpreted as 'Sapphic Erotica' (NSFW!!!) so I'd best move on. It doesn't help the facing page has a vaguely jailbaity girl peering saucily* across a tree branch as if she's about to quickly carve herself a buttplug from the the bark.

*She looks a bit wonky, to be honest, like she was bussed in from Lithuania or something and will make more money for this one degrading video shoot than her entire village will make in their lives. "Please British Husband, I make you happy!"

Directly across the way lies the T-Mobile shop, and safely away from that increasingly worrying tangent.

In stark contrast to the army of Vodafone people, there were only two T-Mobile staff. She didn't seem to know much, but it was pretty clear their deals sucked balls - I either bought an outrageously expensive contract, or paid a substantial amount up front for the phone. She also claimed that they 'weren't told' how much the satnav packages cost. Which is a bit like selling fishing lures but not knowing which fish will be likely to go for them.

Virtually next door, the Virgin Media shop, who at least employed vaguely fit birds.

Unfortunately, they don't do N95s, and she almost gave me a heart attack when she told me that the satnav thing costs '£90'. She burbled something about it maybe being for two years, or whatever. Or things. Yes.

NOBODY had the Viewty available to try. Every time I asked about N95s, the staff members pulled them out of their pockets (as they all had them), which should tell me something. The nice chap in Vodafone did go and get me an LG Secret to try... and it's cack. An epic miscalculation of design.

The entire screen is touch sensitive... but only works in full touch sensitive for ONE MODE (media extensions or something). The rest of the time only the bottom quarter is touch sensitive, and all it does is work like the directional buttons on a normal phone.

WITH ONE HUGE FLAW. In the middle of the 'up/down/left/right' portions is the button you have to press to confirm your selection. And it is so tiny that the way the flesh of your finger squishes slightly as you press it virtually guarantees that you'll also inadvertently press up or down and then select the wrong thing. It's absolutely idiotic, and is even worse than the 6230's original selector dpad thing.

By this stage, I'd had about enough. And, sensing I was about to walk back to the car, it started to piss down. And even better than that, I stopped literally as I reached the car.

MY OPTIONS, THEN:
1. Get an iPhone 3G, using my anger (which has been logged with O2) as a blunt instrument to obtain one.
2. Get an N95 8Gb, and use SECRET LUNIXS TRICKS THAT ONLY GAYWOOD UNDERSTANDS to navigate.
3. Get an LG Viewty, and resolve to buy a seperate Satnav... but then forget to and then wind up regetting it.
4. Just keep my somewhat tatty 6233.

The other option is of course a Blackberry.

Thinking about it, I'd probably go N95. And that's saying something as the only Nokia I've ever owned was a 3310, preferring HTC devices.

I found out today the address of their (RIM's) career's site is (and I'm not kidding, click the link) http://www.rim.jobs

They deserve a sale or million just for that, it's gotta be deliberate.

I suspect someone else has bought that URL for comedy reasons and directed it at that site.

Actually it probably is RIM - it is the same registrar as rim.com.

RIM trade in the UK as Blackberry, purely because we find their name sexual.

I've [heard rumours] that you can [buy] the Garmin Mobile software and just install that and it works, as long as you [pay for] the correct code to unlock it. Then you can just [pay for] future updates.

I got one in May - £30 a month for 24 months on O2, with 600 minutes, 1000 texts and unlimited (no actual number of bytes specified, but don't take the piss) internet. Except the bloody thing has got a fault whereby every fifth (or so) call I make, the sound goes all wrong (right from the ring tone onwards) and everyone sounds like Daleks. I'm waiting for O2 to sort out replacing it, but every email and phone call to them results in different and contradictory information, which is a bit wanky.

don't buy a blackberry... all managers seem to be more stressed after having one, checking their mail constantly etc.

Just think of the 'Blackberry' in GTA4.

"Dad, I just hit a home run!"
"I'm emailing work, shut the fuck up!"

I am absolutely furious/gobsmacked/etc

O2 just rang, and said 'Hello Mr Webber, you contacted us yesterday to request a PAC number and disconnection, can I ask why that is?'

I asked if the chap I'd been on the line with for over half an hour yesterday had made any notes regarding what I told him. I was told no. I told the bloke that that pretty much answered his question, then, that their customer service is so bad when someone tells you a list of complaints, absolutely no notice is even taken.

He said the only note was that I had called, and that previous to that I had called regarding going abroad to Canada (which means they are even shitter than I thought, as it was fucking noted down that I was going abroad and I was STILL CALLED WHEN IT WOULD BE FIVE IN THE FUCKING MORNING FOR ME) was it to do with that?

I told him I saw no point in telling them AGAIN what the problem was as they clearly didn't care, but said it should suffice to say that they don't listen to their customer (me) or each other.

I've just had quite a good phone call with O2 about getting my replacement phone. I think it can be a case of whether you speak to a good person or a shit person. Of course, you can't always tell which one it is at the time...

Their email support is shockingly bad though. Although not quite as bad as Nokia's. In my experience, obviously.

That whole "the only note on your account is..." bollocks when you're pointing out how shit a company's service has been is annoying, isn't it?

Yup... and so far I seem to only have spoken to shit people. The bloke yesterday SEEMED good but has since been revealed as shit!

In my previous job in customer relations, I would always make detailed notes of any further contact we had from customers regarding one of their issues. We were strongly encouraged to do so, and people who didn't make notes got bollockings (and quite rightly, if only for the sake of your poor colleagues who'd have to deal with a poor customer who has to relate their problems yet again because you were too fucking lazy to type it in the first time)

Now I just need to decide... Three or Vodafone. Off to look up how hard/possible it is to unlock a Three phone (Vodafone told me they will do it for free after you've had it 12 months)

Holy crap, that is a lot of phone.

Yeah, nice plan that was.

So, do you have an iPhone?

I had a shit time with them so wrote directly to their MD at their Slough address. Someone from the team of people who deal with complaints that get sent to him rang me up and everything was solved quite quickly.

So write to the MD at their Slough address and bypass the system. Worked for me. (looks for Dimlie thumbs up icon but there is none).

If Dimril is reading, I would also like an Alan Sugar Dimlie. Thank you.

Nope. Queued for about 10 mins on Friday morning before deciding it was probably gonna be a while.

So I went to work and read about the credit server issues, the IE-only software on Apple machines and the no 16gb phones. They are apparently ringing me when they get some in. On my work phone.

Yay O2~!

O2 have just done a door-step swap to replace my N95 8GB.

Within ten minutes of this, I've established that the new phone has the same fault as the old one. Arses.

Does anyone else have this combination of phone and network? If so, is it normal that every few (between say five and ten) outgoing calls you make, one of them sounds all distorted, like an FM radio that isn't tuned in properly?

I spoke to O2 and they're going to swap it again. I asked the bloke if I was being too fussy and if this is just something I should live with and he said he'd never heard of this problem. Certainly no previous phone I've had has done this.

I finally got my PAC on Friday, but the Three store was so busy that I had to come back this morning. I now have a shiny new N95 to spend the next few weeks being baffled by. At the moment, I'm struggling to comprehend while some of the file manager operations (like moving files around folders) can't be done in the Gallery view like on my 6233.