Part 2. I Finally Found The Phone I Was Looking For...

I was considering Samsung Galaxy Y.   At a price of about 6 thousand pesos,  I would get an Android phone running Gingerbread 2.3.5 with 2 MP rear camera, a processor of 830 MHz,  180 MB ROM and a 290 MB user-available RAM, bluetooth, WI FI, and a 240-by-320-pixel 3-inch capacitive touch screen.  Looks and sounds perfect to me.  Well, yes, considering my budget.  LOL.

Almost everywhere I look, people seem to have been bitten by this KOREAN BUG, I mean Samsung bug.  Bwahahaha.  It's like when you say ANDROID phone, it's synonymous to Samsung.  Yeah, okay, I agree, not quite!  Having this feeling of still being not satisfied, well, the screen is okay but the size is, hmmm, I think a bit small for me...  I began considering those locally manufactured mobile phones.  With the same price, I can get a phone with DUAL SIM that's dual stand-by.  But then again, I hear some people chattering, probably in the same predicament as I am, that the locally manufactured ones are not that sturdy...???  Maybe, some more time is needed for these manufacturers to mature... and besides I don't like the TV in the phone.  I don't know why.  Maybe because it reminds me of knock-off cellphones sold at Divisoria?

So, I kept walking.  My feet are dragging me to explore some more.  Did I tell you that my feet are independent from my  brain.  He-he-he.  And it's even psychic.  LOL!  At the end of the CyberGateway in Megamall, there's the ALCATEL kiosk.  Okay, ALCA-what?  Isn't that an old manufacturer of landline phone units?  Curious and intrigued, I went over and looked at their mobile phones.  To my amazement there it is... the GLORY hole.  Sorry!  I mean Blaze Glory dual sim phone.  And it's on sale!  From the previous price of 7,999 pesos, it's now down to 5,999 pesos.  Woah!  It's the same price as the Samsung Galaxy Y.  I have to check its specs.

Okay, so the screen is a bit bigger than Samsung's.  It's a 320-by-480-pixel 3.2-inch capacitive multi-touch screen.  Great!  The rear camera is 3 MP.  Check!  It even has a "panorama" shooting option.  Check-check!  It runs on 2.3.5 Gigerbread.  Check again!   Oooooooh.  This phone's getting a lot of checks.  Soon it'll be a checkmate.  LOL!  CPU is 650 MHz.  O-oh!  Lower than the Samsung's.  But the ROM is more than twice, 512 MB, so I guess that can compensate for the lower processor speed.  Ha-ha-ha.  I am seeing myself trying to justify the pending purchase.  Must see more advantage here...  Oh, I see that the battery has better amperage (don't know if I used this word properly).  Alcatel has Lithium-ion battery of 1300 mAh.  Samsung has 1200 mAh.  This means that Alcatel's will last longer, I suppose.  WI FI and bluetooth.  Well, those are pretty much standard.  Oh yeah, Alcatel is heavier.  It weighs around 120 grams while Samsung weighs around 98 grams.  This is actually good for me.  Alcatel feels like a phone and not like a toy.  What else?... what would decide my purchase?... Then there it is.  It's DUAL SIM, DUAL STANDBY!  I must have this phone... NOW!

So, I bought ALCATEL BLAZE GLORY 918N and VERY HAPPY about it.  I was so ecstatic that I convinced my sister to buy one.  She wanted the white one (there's 2 colors to choose from, black and white) but opted for the black one.  The rubber surface of the phone makes it more appealing and of course serves its purpose of easier and more secure grip.  Haaaay!  I finally found the phone I was looking for.... I know because my feet are already tired.  LOL!

P.S.  I was told by the customer rep that Alcatel is a european brand.  Woah!  Makes it even better...

I-oh-so-lhaaaaaaaaavet.

I Finally Found The Phone I Was Looking For...

You would not believe the countless hours I spent scouring stores and kiosks in malls all over Metro Manila just to find that, uhhhm, "light-bulb-moment" phone.  Every second was worth the effort.  I finally found the phone I was looking for.  I have now in my hands ALCATEL Blaze Glory 918M.

I am very happy with my old phone, the MOTOROLA Q8.  Yeah, I know.  The phone is already more than 3 years old and runs on Windows Mobile 5.  What's great about this phone however, is that its keypad is QWERTY where 3 years ago, such feature can only be found in top-of-the-line BlackBerry's and HTC's.  At a sale price of 12 thousand pesos in 2009, the MOTOROLA Q8 without WIFI is a steal.  LOL!

Aside from the usual SMS and call functions, I also use the MOTOROLA Q to store records of my daily expenses.  That's pretty much what I needed from a mobile phone.  I was contented and happy with it.  Then came this wave of cellphones and handheld devices (i.e., tablets) packed with awesome features running on a sleek operating system with unbelievably super low price tags to boot.  Wow!  I cannot keep myself from thinking of several reasons to justify the need to replace my "o-oh!-by-now-would-be-deemed-jurrasic" super sturdy, "why-won't-you-die?" working phone.  Now, I just can't contain myself.

My feet started to walk to the direction of the mall's section where gadgets are being sold.  Yes, my feet are independent from my head.  I just can't control them.  Bwahahaha.  I began comparing functionality and price.  Well, it's mostly price since it's the main consideration.  A new phone after all isn't in my budget.

As expected, with myself contradicting myself, and giving in to the "itch of the flesh", well, mostly from my fingers wanting to touch those "capacitive" touch screens, I bought a SONY ERICSSON XPERIA W8.  It's an ANDROID phone and a walkman.  This combination, I like!  There's even a pair of speakers given out for free (that's gorgeous by the way and sounds fantastic) and a discount on the price.  I got the W8 for only 7,200 pesos from the Sony Ericsson retail center in Glorietta.  I thought it was a steal!  Alas, after just a little time playing with my new powerful and "soundtastic" phone, I got bored and went back using my Q8.  Woah!

Why?  Well, I got frustrated with the W8.  The ANDROID version 2.2 (Froyo) is awesome but lacks a lot compared with the newer and yummier versions - Gingerbread, Honeycomb, and Ice Cream Sandwich.  Oh, they make me hungry.  My one source of frustration is with the W8's limited internal memory.  You can only obviously download a limited number of applications.  This constraint has been addressed by the later versions where you can opt to place the downloaded app to the external SD memory card.  Sigh....

So my feet began wandering again, store after store, kiosk after kiosk, mall after mall.  To my utter surprise and disbelief, I have found ALCATEL BLAZE GLORY!  It was a glorious day, indeed!

... to be continued!

My Oh-so-ever-loyal-why-won't you-quit Motorola Q8.

My Whirlwind-romance-thought-to-be-flexible-froyo-limited Sony Ericsson W8 Walkman Phone.