Who has the money these days to buy new gadgets. That's right, not me. And though my old Android phone after a few years is looking a little chunky, scratched, and underpowered compared to what's in the shops these days it works fine and does everything I need it to do (which admittedly is not that much). But lucky for me I recently had the chance to accept a work phone that didn't really require much work on my part and, more importantly, money. The last time I had a Nokia it had a tiny green screen and it seems things have come a long way. This new one is quite big and looks pretty nice next to the other one. Its way faster thanks to all it's MHz and it's "Gs". It's quite pretty to look at on the table. The only major downside (besides being slippy) is its very shiny screen which, when turned off leaves me looking at the worst possible reflection of my own face, invariably looking down towards the ground and sagging; every single wrinkle looking like a chasm, exposed and exaggerated. It's not the most flattering look and every time I can feel a tiny part of my soul is crushed.

The phone that this commercial is advertising is a lot less impressive looking than the commercial itself (wooden phone, really?) Managing to chain together hundreds of wooden steps to play classical music is quite impressive. Reminds me slightly of the Rube Goldberg style Honda commercial from a few years ago. Timing the fall of the ball to the notes in the music its not bad, not bad at all. via Tokyomango

I finally committed myself to a new phone last week and thus consign my trusty ol' PDA and tiny screen nokia to a dusty shelf. Had my eye on this, the HTC Desire HD, for a while after seeing it was finally a phone with a big fat screen running something other than the old Windows mobile. This phone replaces my nokia 1650 which was the cheapest one I could find at the time and which itself replaces a nokia 1110 that I bought in duty free when I arrived here and which, despite it's tiny green screen, was stolen on a bus last year! (this in a city where every last person seems to spend every second of travel looking at their expensive iPhones) After my brief stint in Japan I just couldn't bare to pay lots of money for a supposed top end phone in Ireland with a crap tiny colour screen, even if it was 3G, compared to the amazing phones I'd seen in Japan, and even the relatively modest one I'd bought there had email straight away and a vastly superior screen to anything back in Ireland. So instead of buying an expensive phone with a tiny screen, I went and got an Acer PDA, which let me watch videos (I think I must have watched most of season 2 of the Wire on it), one they were reduced in resolution and sound quality, browse the web with a stylus whenever some generous cafe had internet access. I even managed to use google maps to find my hotel and play old nintendo games when travelling. So despite not really having used it as a store for contacts or appointments it's been in my bag practically every day. And all the time I thought how if there was just a phone attachment or something it would be perfect. Now with this phone I have that device. It does everything the Acer did (I don't have to squeeze down the videos), the screen is as big (widescreen now), I can use the internet without a stylus, don't have to rely on the wireless in a cafe, and install tonnes of apps. It even has a camera! A camera in a phone! Genius. Sure the iPhone has been out for a few years now, but with its smaller screen I'd hate watching video on it. But there are downsides, oh yes. You have to recharge it almost every day. Every bleedin' day! My nokia goes a full week without charging and even my PDA would last a few days of constant use. And if I was to consider carrying this on my body instead of in a bag I'd be reduced to wearing cargo trousers from 1997 with huge pockers. So in my bag it'll stay.

Another example of how mobile phones should look...all science-fictiony like.. via engadget