Nirenjan’s Space

I bought a bluetooth headset for my Nokia phone over a year ago…

The HS-26W was plagued with problems from the day I bought it. A week later the gadget died. Since it was just a week since I bought it, I managed to get it replaced with an identical piece. Two months later, that died.

I took that piece to the Nokia service center on Mount Road. They told me that they could not repair it and would replace it. Fine, I said, but the replacement took another two months to arrive. Two weeks later, the replacement gave up.

Finally, when I went back home last month, I managed to return it and get a refund on the product.

Come on, I can expect one piece to fail, but all the replacement pieces as well???

It’s been quite a while since BSNL brought out their 2 Mbps broadband service, and it looks good… however, there is one major drawback that I’ve noticed and it’s not with the service, it’s with the modem that they have provided.

I have a Huawei modem (WA1003A, I think…) which has Wi-Fi capability (supposedly). My home network is primarily wired with my laptop on wireless. That’s where the problem arises - the wireless functionality of this modem is totally hopeless. The only saving grace is that the wired part functions without any trouble.

Thankfully, I have a NetGEAR wireless router which I bought about a year ago to use when the old modem was around (that didn’t have wireless). Reconfigure the router, wire it to the LAN, and Hey, presto! Wireless capability is upto maximum.

So, here goes, my latest gadget acquisition…

Nokia HS-26W Bluetooth Headset to be used in conjunction with my old toy - Nokia 6681.

Nothing great by way of features, but then again, a headset is a headset, not a toy. Anyway, the voice quality is pretty good, although it does get a bit cumbersome wearing the set for a long while - tends to press my ear a bit.

I have watched the entire Matrix trilogy, especially the car chase scene in Reloaded, at least a dozen times. What captured my attention was the phone that Morpheus used in Reloaded. I surfed around a bit and found the phone - Samsung SPH-N270. The phone design is amazingly cool. But unfortunately, it lacks in features - no Java, no games. But for what it lacks, it pretty much makes up by what it offers. The interface is superbly designed, each menu displaying a short clip from the Matrix and from Reloaded. One of the ringtones even features Cypher’s dialogue from the original movie - “Why, oh why didn’t I take the blue pill?”

One thing to note is that this is a fully functional phone and not a toy. The tragic part is that the phone was only offered for the American CDMA and AMPS networks, and hence is totally incompatible with GSM networks here. The second tragedy is the price - approximately USD 500. The third - it’s no longer available in the markets. But for the price, the offering doesn’t really seem worth it.

The funny part is that I drool at these gadgets so much that I’d love to have one. But I am my own enemy when it comes to purchasing these gadgets. That’s when my common sense takes over…