Nokia 1112: Back to the Basics

I wrote before that I usually go through cycles of having high-end phones and then coming back to basic ones. Well, it seems right now I’m in the basic part of that cycle, and perhaps I’ll stick to this for quite some time.

I arrived home the other night with a flat cellphone battery. My SmartPhone (vintage, with Microsoft Smartphone 2002 software) apparently died while I was driving home, and I didn’t realize this until yesterday morning. So when I charged the phone, I went through the usual boot-up sequence, entered my PIN and just left the phone on the table to charge. But as I checked on it, the screen said I had to input my PIN again, as the first try was an error. I keyed my code in correctly (and carefully) but the phone suddenly said my SIM card had been blocked! I had to key in my PIN unblocking key (PUK) before I could use the SIM again.

SIM Blocked!

Horror of horrors, I lost the PUK slip years ago, when I first purchased the prepaid SIM card I’d been using. Those things were designed to get lost, since they’re really thin and small. And my mobile provider wouldn’t give me the PUK–I don’t think they really disclose that to prepaid users (maybe they don’t even have records).

So I ran off to the nearby mall to see if anyone can unlock my SIM, to no avail. I decided, instead, to check out the latest phone models if I found one to my liking. I was set to buy the cheapest, but reliable, model. A couple of my siblings own the Nokia 1100, which I thought was pretty decent for a very basic phone–it did just what you would expect from a mobile phone: calling and texting. It even lasts a week on a single charge (my brother found this useful when we had a week-long blackout because of a storm).

Basic or Higher Model?

I was also thinking of getting a Motorola L7 (SLVR), but it cost about five times my tentative budget. I could have opted for zero-percent installments on my credit card, but opted against it. After all, I’m no longer such a cellphone junkie like I used to be a couple of years ago, when I had to have the latest and greatest in cellphone technology. Also, after almost a year dealing with the Smartphone’s interface, I opted for something simpler.

So I got what I originally came for: a basic model. And instead of the 1100, which was a dated model, anyway, I got the Nokia 1112, for the equivalent of $45 with prepaid SIM.

(more…)

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