Woo Hoo! I have got a new toy! It's a Sony Ericsson K530i! The phone was given out for free... Yup! I am not kidding. It was given out for free by Maxis to its One Club members. So, you might be wondering about what the catch is to get such a freebie. Well, there is a catch.You must subscribe to maxis 15o plan for 24 months and if you decide to cancel, you need to pay back the remaining number of months left under the contract at a rate of RM 100 per month. Let's say that you have 12 more months to go, you must pay back RM 1200 penalty to Maxis.
Anyway, I have decided to go for it due to three main reasons. The first one is that the phone is FREE! The second reason is that my phone bill always exceeds RM 150 per month and the last reason is I need to replace my aging Nokia 6020 that have served me well for years even though it had been subjected to many bad and rough treatments.
The worst and the latest incident was when it decided to take a swim in a toilet bowl last month. I would spare you the details on that but amazingly the phone is still in a decent condition.
Back to the new K530i. The 3G capability is a feature that I would like to try especially when my sister in law in Jakarta just bought the same phone before the Raya. The main purpose is for us to make video calls so that they can talk and see Pasha at the same time.
I have my 3G service activated and the phone configured but I could not make any video calls yet. I called up Maxis and asked the lady how to check whether my phone is configured for video call correctly or not. She asked me to check for the 3G icon on the phone and I asked her how a 3G icon looks on a Sony Ericsson. She as me too look for something that looks like 3 boomerangs. Boomerangs? She must be kidding me! I told her that I have not seen any boomerang on my display so far.
She asked me to test by sending a MMS message and that went okay. Finally, she said that 3G signal in Shah Alam is still not that strong for video calls and they are expanding the coverage bit by bit. That really hisaplah apa2 pun... Anyway, I need to get to KL and see whether I could get boomerangs to appear on my phone or not... Boomerangs?
Any 3G Sony Ericsson user out there that can confirm about this Boomerangs stuff?
Okay... So the 3G experience has kaputted! Other than that, a few things that I like about the phone is the bigger and brighter screen and the multi alarm function so that I can set multiple alarms at one go without having to set them as appointments in the calendar. The 2 MP camera is quite good and the radio is awesome! The availability of the Memory Stick Micro™ (M2™) slot and Bluetooth™ added more plus points to the phone.
The part that I don't quite like or may be not used to yet are the messaging functions such as, the space button is at the bottom right instead of the center as in a Nokia and the keypad is a bit hard to press at times. It would be easier if you have a small hand. Ladies would not have that problem. Other than that, since the phone is quite new, there are very limited accessories around. I need to wait a bit for a plastic casing or the screen protector to come.
In general, I would say this new toy is really not bad at all and let see how it will respond to the same handling that the 6020 had gone through.
