(brand disloyalty)

If brand loyalty has a flip-side sister, I would probably be its most fervent advocator.

My knowledge of mobile phones started with walkie-talkie-style phones which closely resembled 'bricks' rather than 'portable phones'. I watched the mobile phone market grew. I learnt that the world for mobile phone consumers started off in the world where ignorance was bliss, which later turned into a red ocean market as competition intensified.

When I was 16, I was somewhat forced to own a mobile phone - partly because my sister found pin-pointing me at late hours to be exhausting detective work, and also because my mum happened to win a mobile phone from a lucky draw. It was Nokia 3210 - the only mobile phone designed well enough for the two ultimate purposes of all mobile phones: handle calls, and withstand endless mistreatments. The only cough-up I ever had, due to gross handling negligence, was a cracked screen. These utilitarian gadgets still exist; you can still find them being peddled on Jakarta's roadside mobile vendors. And yes, they're still network-compatible.

When I was 18, came in mobile #2. Polyphonic ringtones and colour screens were all the rage, so I thought (being weaned on a Nokia) that a 3510 would be a good idea - it had more humane-sounding ringtones. So, somebody went to buy it for me, and came back with a Nokia 3610 because "they cost the same." (it wasn't polyphonic!! it didn't have colour screens!! waah!!) ...never mind. I came to love its bluish-tinted, blindness-inducing light. I came to learn that mobile phones do have secondary, unintentional functions - light torch, anyone?

My third mobile phone came in at the age of 20 (what now, one every two years?) It was my sister's hand-me-down, a SonyEricsson T610i she had used for some time. Despite obvious signs of wear and tear, I had no problem making the jump to another maker's. This was mainly due to the fact I was always the co-pilot/co-driver in car, so she would relegate the duties of making calls and sending texts on her mobile phone to me. (I even adopted her texting idioms.) It was... okay and rather unimpressive. The mobile had a colour screen, but by this stage the novelty had wore off and moved on to the so-called 3G network services.

My fourth mobile phone was the one I anticipated the most - I decided that, for once, I shouldn't neglect my gadgetry possessions and get something 'better than my sister's swiveling phone.' Okay, sibling rivalry was a minor motivation, but I was excited to own a 2Mpx camera phone with responsive lens shutter which was marketed as the world's first Walkman phone. Later on I found out that its little sister (K750i) also handled music playback, but since W800i came with a 512MB external storage... the decision was sealed. I have knocked this phone around, used its handsfree accessories to death, and taken an obscene amount of pictures with it. The only time I cringed at the colour scheme was the time I got it out of its box. The only misbehaviour it gives me is its acquired inability to send files through Bluetooth.


And yet, as I promised myself last year (i.e. wait till BA course is about to start before signing onto a mobile contract), I went on a mobile contract shopping trip.
The most appealing deal turned out to belong to the network 3. Ouch.


I have a distate for indiscretely branded goods; 3-branded mobile phones are among them. And yet, because the SIM card must be used with a 3G phone, I reluctantly agreed to take the mobile phone. It had no camera lens shutter. It was a Nokia (shorthand for 'overpriced not-so-useful brand' in my mind.) The first thing I did when I got the phone out from its box was to scratch off its embossed 3 logo. And, to make the disappointment go the extra mile, the phone neither functions as a light-torch nor has outstanding compatibility with other audio equipments.
The phone is so not hard-wearing, so smooth and glossy, so... unfunctionally ladylike. Meh D:

It seems like I will be keeping two mobile handsets in active service for the next year. Once the contract has ended, I would happily ditch the Nokia handset and switch back to my good old SonyEricsson. If Samsung does a mobile phone that also works as a light torch and can be easily connected to a sound system, I wouldn't mind switching to it. That is, until something better comes up on the market...