Confessions of a cell phone newbie

Next to my three doggie companions and my mom, I spend lots of time with my nieces and nephews. I guess it is the plight of a Tita like me — the one who has time for doggies, kids and gadgets.

A typical conversation with my pamangkins (kids of my siblings or the kids of friends who have adopted me as their Tita) is never without lots of talk about what’s new in their lives, from current crushes, to “ewww”subjects to the latest finds. And then the conversation goes on and on when it comes to new gadget discoveries. Blame it on my unquenchable thirst to know just what moves these younger folks. (You know, if you want to discover the fountain of youth, like I sometimes do, talk to the young and see just how their lives work.)

“Can I help you with the Nokia 2680?” asks Cee, my 14-year-old niece.

“Why not?” I wonder aloud.

I watch Cee open the box and give me the specs that she likes about this new Nokia 2680 slider.

The Story Of Cee And The Slider

10:30 a.m. — Cee takes out the slider and squeals in delight at the midnight blue color of the phone. “It’s my fave color,” she says.

10:45 a.m. — Cee reads through the manual in speed-reading style (what kid these days is not in a hurry?) and recites out loud to me what are the best features of the cell phone.

“1.3-megapixel digital camera, large color screen, music features, Internet and e-mail access,” she rambles as she slips her SIM card into the phone.

11 a.m. — Cee customizes the 2680. She picks the profile, which best suits her tastes, loads the wallpaper, screensaver and one of the latest songs in MP3 format as her ringtone. She lets me pick the message tone.

“Kinda weird,” is what Cee calls my message tone alert. But she uses it anyway to please me.

“Did you know that the Nokia 2680 is the first slide cell phone for first-time users?” I ask Cee, as she ignores me. “The Nokia 2680 slider is a slim camera phone that offers a balance of ease of use and entertainment functionality, including an FM radio with recording capability and MP3 ringtones, and core mobile phone features such as an expanded phone book. Its integrated digital camera ensures that spontaneous moments are captured and shared.”

Bor-ing is the expression on Cee’s face as she tries to please me.

“Let me do the testing,” she protests.

1:30 p.m. — Cee brings the cell phone back to me and shows me just how much e-mail she receives a day. I am impressed because I didn’t know that she was such a big e-mail kid.

Cee lets me have a look at her e-mail.

“I just love this,” Cee says. “E-mail in a flash. This is ‘superer’ than my current cell phone.”

I am allowed to take a peek into her e-mail as proof that the e-mail works really well and quite quickly, too.

2:30 p.m. — Cee takes my three canine companions (Tasha and Gorby, the Toy Poodles, and Nik, the Mini Schnauzer) out for a walk. In the park, she gets busy taking shots of the doggies.

3:30 p.m. — Cee runs back to my room to show me just how good a photog she is, and she is right. The doggies look cool and that she was able to get herself into the photo amazes me even more.

4 p.m. — “I love texting on this cell phone,” Cee declares. “The keypad is easy to use and the texts get sent really fast.”

5 p.m. — Cee says that she wishes that the 2680 were not a slider cell phone, though. “Sometimes if you don’t hold the phone right it gets heavy on the top part. I have dropped a few other cell phones because of that,” she quips. “And, if it were light blue, it would be perfect.”

6 p.m. — Cee has loaded all her best MP3 songs into the 2680, and all of a sudden she is lost in the music of the moment.  

* * *

There are lots of people I know, just like Cee, who are in the habit of using their cell phones more for staying connected to the World Wide Web rather than just for texting and calling. And this is the market that Nokia seems to have had in mind when it introduced the 2680 Slider.

It is made for people whose expectations and demands in terms of functionality and design are similar to the geeks — but who would rather keep it simple.

With the 2680, Nokia’s most affordable megapixel camera phone with e-mail, Nokia remains committed to keep all its users happy. 

Measuring a slim 99 mm x 47.1 mm x 14.8 mm and weighing approximately 97 grams, the 2680 Slider is an entry-level cell phone from Nokia. While simple and smart-looking, the Nokia 2680 Slider is also quite cool as an accessory, fashion or techie. It comes in modern colors including slate gray, night blue, orange and violet.

It has this really interesting interface which is characterized by handy shortcut keypads that give its user more convenient access to his or her favorite applications. Of course, it does help lots that users have a wide range of wallpapers and screensavers to choose from.  

This dualband handset has a built-in memory of 32 megabytes, and supports SMS, multimedia messaging and email. The Internet is easily accessible using the Nokia 2680 Slide’s xHTML WAP 2.0 Web browser.

The basic features of the Nokia 2680 Slider include an expanded 1,000-entry phonebook, a speaker phone and lots of built-in games.

Another hot feature is its integrated digital VGA camera, which allows capturing of videos and images in 640 x 480 pixels. Video recording and video playback — which supports 3GPP and MPEG-4 formats — are possible through the VGA camera. The Nokia 2680 lets you select from a decent amount of chic photo frames, which can be used for those all-time favorite images.

Cee is one teenager who uses the cell phone as an extension of who she is. This means that the Nokia 2680 Slider is not just a cell phone to her, rather it is her.

“I will die without my cell,” Cee swears. “There are so many things that we have to keep up with.” 

When I last looked at the e-mail I got from the other younger people who have the Nokia 2680, they too, are satisfied users.

“I like the Nokia 2680 Slider’s camera and video support features, which shoot the photos and get the video just the way I want them,” shares Diego, a 20-year-old college senior. “The integrated radio has the best audio quality, making it my best friend during lonely breaks between classes.” 

And how. The Nokia 2680 Slider may not be loaded with the most technologically advanced capabilities of a cell phone, but its mid-range features are tops and are highly in-demand for budget-savvy cell phone users.  

To be young, free and in awe of life and its many high-tech developments. Ahhh, what the heck, to be young again…

That is what life is all about.