Introduction
Despite all protests from my wife, I applied for a Reliance Mobile India Phone and opted for the Coloured Handset by paying Rs 15, 000/- extra for that. My logic was that it is not everyday that I am going to buy a new mobile phone. When you buy, buy the best. My opinion about the service provider will be dealt with elsewhere, here I am discussing the coloured handset that I received. I hasd a choice between a Samsung handset and a LG handset. I chose the LG handset as it was smaller, sleeker, lighter and had a bigger screen than the Samsung handset. What follows is a short descriptions of the novel features of this handset.
LG RD7130 Cutting Edge Colour & Multimedia
Main Distinguishing Features
Large, Easy-to-read, 8-line, backlight LCD Display with status Icons.
Paging , messaging, Voice mail and Caller ID
24 Key Key Pad
Long Battery standby and talk time with an additional battery
Choice of 62 ring sounds
Menu-driven interface with prompt and easy operation and configuration.
Call privacy inherent with CDMA encoding
Any key answer, auto redialing, one touch and speed dialing with 99 memory locations
T9 Text Input
This is an easy method to input text. You need to press a key only once for each letter of a word and the inbuilt spelling system spells the correct word for you. In case there are more than one word with the same key combination, youcan select the correct word by switching between the words by pressing the ‘0’ key. In case of a new or unknown word, you insert the word using the ABC multi tap text input once and thereafter it will be stored in memory and can be input using T9 text input.
Personal Phone Book Memory
There are 1000 personal phone book memory locations where you can store four phone numbers with 32 digit capacity for each phone Number. This gives you a 4000 telephone Numbers capacity. Memory locations 1 to 99 are used for speed dialing for the most frequently used numbers. You can also assign a different picture to denote each phone memory location for ease of identification.
Besides a name you can add a memo to assist in identification of the individual. You can group your phone book entries in groups of business, personal, family, friends, workgroup (your bosses or subordinates), VIP (girl friends?), others or no group for ease of location. There is a provision for secrecy. If you set the secret on, the number will not be displayed to snooping individuals.
Wallpapers and Banners
You can display different banners on your screen in various styles, alignments, colours and back ground colours. Wallpapers can be displayed in full colour by either down loading from the internet or from sms. I keep changing the wallpapers everyday. I currently have a fab pic of Lisa Ray adorning my screen.
Planner
The Planner has four features which are very useful.
Scheduler to enable you to store your schedules for reminder. With a poor memory I constantly need to be reminded or my wife’s anniversary (Oops sorry our anniversary), my wife’s and kids birthdays. I can conveniently forget friends anniversaries or birthdays or important appointments with MouthShutians now that my mobile is there to remind me.
Alarm gives an alert at the preset time. you can have the alarm once, Mon-Fri, Mon-Sat or Daily. I currently have “Raghu Pati Raghav Raja Ram” to wake me up. You can chose from amongst 62 tunes.
Calculator to carry out your calculations. I place a call to my broker, buy or sell some shares, quickly calculate the balance and then place a call back to sell or buy some more.
World Clock to know the time in various locations of the world. When I am chatting to someone on the computer I quickly check to see what is the time where my pal is.
On the Net While on the Move
While on the move, I can check my mail on yahoo, send off line messages from Yahoo, log on to the messenger and chat with friends.
Connect to the Internet Through the Computer
I do not need a land line now (bye bye BSNL). I can connect to the internet using my mobile phone and get high speed broadband connectivity using a lead and requisite software. The internet experience is much better than the landline connection which gives only 56 kbps connection speed. No more waiting for ever for a page to open.
Auto Answer and Driving Mode
Unable to answer the phone? No problem, set the auto answer on and it will record the message of the caller which you can listen to later. Driving a vehicle? No problem it will inform the caller that you are driving a vehicle and take a message which youcan listen to later.
Call History
Call history can store history of upto 60 calls. Beware! Secret calls get recorded and are no more secret unless you delete the history. Your wife (or husband or for that matter Dad and Mom) can know exactly when the call was made or received, to whom and for how long. A sure give away if you have snoopy people around you (unlike me).
Ring Types
There are seven ring types to chose from.
Ring for the normal ring out of 62 tones or three downloaded tones
Vibrate when the mobile just vibrates,
Vib1+Ring when the phone vibrates as well as rings,
Vib2+Ring when the phone vibrates twice and then rings,
Light when just the lights come on without a ring,
Ascending when the ring tone keeps ascending and
Silent which is obvious(is it?)
Hands free
The Mobile comes with a set of hands free which is special because the wire is inside a nylon string which can be put around your neck. The chance of it falling off or the wire getting pulled reduces. Now you can continue to speak while on the move.
Conclusion
My LG RD7130 is a friend which is very handy and multipurpose. It doubles up for many things except perhaps for a wife :-). I wish it could do some cooking too. Probably some later additions may assist in that too.