Cell phone

Today I actually had a student correct me when I said “mobile phone.” “No, Emily,” he said with his typical lascivious half-grin, “You’re American. Say ‘cell phone’.”

Leery students notwithstanding, I did get a new cell phone last week, and have been so preoccupied playing with it that I haven’t got around to giving it the full post-of-praise which it deserves:

(2007.July.6 - I took down the picture of the phone because people searching for it were screwing up my stats. Anyway, if you're the curious / bored type, you can still find what it looks like with this link)

Sony Ericsson W300i

Featuring (according to the brochure):
- Walkman telephone
- built in camera w/ 4x digital zoom
- video recording and playback
- MP3 player, stereo FM radio
- 20 MB built-in memory plus 256 MB memory chip

and other cool things that I don’t know technical-type words for, like:

- the ability to make Gorillaz’ 19-2000 my ringtone (although that might be a bad thing; it makes me not want to answer the phone so I can hear it play)
- being able to take a picture and have it be my wallpaper
- ridiculously easy transferring any kind of file - MP3, video, pictures - both onto and off the phone (mostly that’s not ’cause of the phone itself, but due to the fact that I’ve got a Mac. And everything is easier with Mac)

So in short, I’m in love with this phone. It was totally worth the price. And mentioning price... I saved the best part for last:

This phone in American costs $230 (that’s 44,000+ forint)
This phone in Australia costs $313 (that’s 47,000+ forint)
This phone in England costs 139 pounds (that’s 51,000+ forint)
This phone in Western Europe costs 220 Euro (that’s almost 58,000 forint)

I got mine from the T-Mobile office at Interspar in Szolnok, Hungary for 25,000 forint. I don’t know who’s responsible for this miracle of capitalism, but yay, Hungary! Yay, Sony Ericsson! Yay, T-Mobile! I love you all.