A Keitai to stay.

About 2 days ago, my urge to get a new phone finally kicked in.



This is a phase I always go through, and it normally happens because I have commitment issues with my mobile phones, when I am stuck with a phone for too long, it starts to bore me and I have to go get a new one. In the past, during my secondary school days, the desire to get a new phone was a lot frequent because phones during that time all looked very different, there were many form factors to choose from and the form factor I always ended up getting enticed by were the flip phones.





Nowadays, all the phones in the market are all the same boring candy bar form, huge screen with a single button on the front. I used to be able to tell phones apart from far away, only needed the smallest detail to distinguish if it was a Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson or a Samsung etc, if it was the latest model or an old one, that was how obsess I was with phones in the past, I looked at phone reviews when I was bored, I knew my friends phone models and specification more than they themselves knew, I even did a presentation about mobile phones when I was in Poly for my English class because I am a phone junkie. In my defense, the presentation was a lot more interesting than it sounds.... probably because of my nervous laughing fits which I was having under controlled relatively well at that time.




Anyways, I decided since all the phones in the market currently are so shit ass boring, it would be a great idea to go look at some Japanese Phones on the internet instead, that was 2 days ago and because they have the most awesome flip phones in the world, that was when that urge became an obsession.




I have gotten Japanese Phones in the past before, or keitais as they are known in Japan, in Sim Lim Square and I did not have a good experience.




The shop I patronized was called Tiffian, I remember calling the shop up and talking to the boss, asked him about the phones and was told that the phones were brand new, but I went there, I found out the phones were NOT actually brand new, when I made my purchase, instead of getting me a sealed unopened box like any other mobile shop would, the boss just took the one I was playing with from the display case and said that was the phone he was selling, I was baffled, so I asked him if that was brand new, he insisted that it was and so I then went on to enquire where the original packaging was, where was the box as well as the accessories that comes with it like the original charger, because he didn't give me an original charger but a third party one that probably cost less than 10 bucks, he, being the scammer that he is, said I had to pay extra for it and by "it" I meant the box, like the bloody box with the instructions manuals and warranty, and apparently if I wanted to get the other accessories,I had to purchase them separately, at this point, I feel obligated to point out that I was extremely fucking stupid and gullible at that time, so I just took his word for it and got it anyway because I was desperate to own a keitai of my own.... the cost was $280 or thereabouts.

THIS IS NOT MY PICTURE. I don't even have half of what was in this box.

I bought the SO905i model from him and this was what a "BRAND NEW" SO905i should have.

Check List
The Phone - Check
The Charger - Half Check (mine wasn't the original one)
Charging Dock - NiL
Earphone Adaptor (one of the white box) - NiL
Data Cable (one of the white box)- NiL
Instruction Manauls and Warranty - NiL
The Box - NiL


This is a secondhand phone that was being sold on the Yahoo Auction and it has even more things in it than the supposed "Brand New" set I was getting from the Tiffian guy. 

Went home and found out the phone had some issues with outgoing call, so I called up the boss with my home phone that very night and he said I could go back the next day and he could either give me a full refund or I had the option of exchanging it with another model, with a top up fee... being the desperate whore for a keitai I was at that time, I went with the latter and topped up to get an even nicer looking one, and I'm sure if I had asked for a full refund instead, he would probably have tried to find fault with the device and not give me the full refund. So I topped up about an additional $80, I think, to get a nicer model. I remember going there with a friend of mine, and he was not pleased with my decision to not get the full refund, thinking back, I should have listened to him, but at that time, it was actually a little annoying.

NOT MY PICTURE

Got a Black SH906i cost me around $360 or thereabouts.

Once again, no box, just the phone he took out from the display case at the corner of his shop, and he didn't even exchange the charger, he said they were the same type so I could just keep the charger I was holding on to and just keep using that.

Obviously not original because those 2 phones were made from by different companies, the first one was Sony Ericsson and this beauty of a flip phone was from Sharp.

The new phone worked fine and it was around 2 days later when the initial excitement of getting a new phone died down, I got a bit suspicious about the "new phone" and decided to do some research on the shop, because I'm really slow like that, stumbled across the hardwarezone forums and found out that the shop had a very bad reputation, to the point users were actually finding the picture of the boss and pasting it all over the forums to make a mockery out of him.



 Apparently all the pictures of the phones that were shown on his website, pictures which shows the handsets still in their original packaging, were stolen from another keitai seller, who was a lot more reputable, and as if that wasn't bad enough,  he kept insinuating on the forum post that he was working with the other seller...


"You can contact me (contact no.) , reputable seller, or Jane or whatever the fuck her name was (contact no.) for all your keitai needs."



 ....like they were working under the same company, which was of course not true at all, he was working with that Jane chick because I have seen her at the store itself, but he was obviously not working with the other seller and the forum users know that and outed him for it, it was only then did  I actually realize I have been duped into believing the phone he sold to me was "Brand New" when in actuality, it was probably stolen from somewhere, allegedly, I mean got no box, no original charger, no accessories, all he had for display and to sell were just the phones on their own.




So I decided I didn't want to keep the phone if I don't even know how it was obtained in the first place and thus I sold the phone back to the guy. I called the boss the following day and told him I wanted to sell back the phone, I wasn't about to go and confront him about lying to me, most of the time they will make a huge scene or something to that caliber, so I just said I wasn't used to the OS and want to stick with my old phone, he was all friendly about it and said he will buy back the phone yada yada, but with a hundred dollar reduction... went back the next day and I pass him the phone , he takes it, looks at it and goes...

"I have to minus another $100 because you take off the screen protector. No screen protector very hard to sell as first hand."

Complete bullshit, the moment you took it out from it's original box packaging, it's no longer first hand, it's called a display unit and display units should never be sold as "brand new", but apparently, to him, first hand meant with screen protector and used by someone for less than 3 days, disgusting, but because I really didn't want to hold on to that phone anymore and also didn't want to deal with him, I just agreed and sold the phone back to him with a $200 loss. It was a very expensive lesson learnt.



That's why now I hardly ever shop at Sim Lim Square... unless they have that STARetailer logo on their sign.

Gave up the idea of getting a Japanese Phone for a while, for like 5 years, until 2 days ago when I decided to take a look at the reputable seller's webpage, sgkeitai.  I know he can be trusted because I have seen a lot of positive feedback about him in the hardwarezone forum and I did try getting a keitai from him once, but his prices were a little too steep for the non-working student I was at that time compared to that Sim Lim Square shop, with very good reasoning.... but now that I have an income, I decided if I was gonna get a keitai, I was going to get it from him.

Whats-app him about the phone yesterday, and my interest in getting it,had a bit of back and forth before finally making a decision this morning and ended up making my purchase today at Marina Square.

This time, the phone came in the original packaging, there was the charger, the charging dock, the usb cable, the phone, memory card and really anything that's suppose to come with the phone came with the phone.

 Sharp Softbank 007SH. 

The amount I paid for that phone, I could have gotten a PS4 and still have some cash leftover. It was crazy expensive at $650, it's not even the latest model, in fact, the model was released back in 2011, the reason for the steep price was because it was the first android flip phone in the market in Japan and apparently the only one that's software unlocked, which means any SIM card will work on it. Plus this was the last 2 sets he had that came in white, a model that has discontinued production in Japan

I was very excited when I first got my hands on it, but after 2 hours in, I got over it because it was the laggiest android I have ever used.  It's running on Gingerbread, the last time Gingerbread was considered "UPDATED" was 4 years ago when I first got my hands on the Xperia X10, which I lost in the bus on my way home, 2 weeks after I bought it, what a fucking idiot, the phone was huge and I didn't even realize it had slipped out of my pocket it in the bus until like 2 days later because that's how often I use my phone in the past.




Anyways, the amount of RAM the 007SH has is abysmal, the internal memory is less than 300mb and really, it's so unbearably slow compared to my iPhone because of all the bullshit third party software the company has decided to install in it, plus the pathetic amount of RAM it has.... I can't root it because it's a Japanese handset and also because I am not sure how to, that's why I had no choice but to return back to my iPhone.

Swivel Screen is always nice, although I do worry one day the hinge will just break when I suddenly get OCD and have to swivel that screen a hundred times before I can feel go back to my regular schedule of doing nothing productive.

I still have another SIM card, so I just stick it inside and let the phone have the ability to switch on and be the fucking awesome flip phone it is, but because of the pathetic RAM and very sad 256mb of internal memory, my initial attempts at trying to install all my social networking apps just ends up bring the whole system to a crawl. 

Whenever I try to open the facebook app, it will load for a few second and then crash like it's fucking teasing me. Good thing I am not addicted to Facebook, sadly, I am addicted to Youtube and if this phone can't even run Facebook, I highly doubt Youtube works, probably just explodes japanese confetti in my face when I try to load a video.

When swiveld and closed, it just becomes the thickest and most sluggish android phone I have ever used. I always thought my Huawei phone was laggy, but I found something else to take that title and to think it's a Japanese Product, losing to a China product. Both are released in the same year, the Huawei in the latter quaeter.

I can install Whatsapp and this SMS Go app, apparently the Japanese don't SMS but instead sends emails to each other, so no built in SMS application, which is a little odd. 

The phone is now essentially just a very sluggish android device without the capabilities of a phone, sucks that I paid so much for it. I have since done a factory reset and only install WhatsApp, an SMS app, 9GAG and Opera Browser because Chrome only runs on Android Jellybean and Firefox slows the phone down way too much.

The other phone I was actually eyeing was the Android Flip phone from Samsung that's running on Jelly Bean, and only available in China and Korea, I think, sgkeitai was also selling it, but unfortunately, it was $999, and I wasn't about to go and spend $1000 on a phone that I won't be able to trade in in the future. I really wanted that model though, if I had gotten that and it was as "smooth" as my old HTC Butterfly, I would probably have sold my iPhone away to recover some of the damage from my bank savings account. But that is a Korean flip phone and no one does flip phones netter than the Japanese, another reason why I went for the Keitai, plus it looks nicer than the Samsung one..

I wouldn't say I heavily regretted buying the phone because it's ultimately a flip phone keitai, a thing of beauty in my eyes, but it's just too underwhelming for me. I would have loved it if I had bought it like 4 to 5 years ago, when Facebook, Twitter and Youtube was done solely on the computer.... but now that I require surfing them before I actually decide to try and get some sleep, it's just not going to work out. 

Oh, and the battery is pretty bad, like really fucking horrible, it apparently hardly last a day on full charge , when I asked the seller about it, he  laughed and then acknowledged that the battery was indeed pretty bad. I wasn't even using it and within 5 minutes the battery dropped 2%, it was on freaking standby mode and it dropped 2% in 5 minutes, that's bloody ridiculous.  But I'm probably going to keep it, as a spare phone when my iPhone suddenly dies on me, because that's the only valid excuse I will have for using it as my main phone.