After many years of loyal service, my Ericsson T28sc finally bit the dust recently. It was a demise marked by confusion, as these things often are. When I received phone calls, apparently people had nothing to say. This led me to believe that the speaker had broken. In fact, it turned out that the microphone was the weakest link. It seems that people just lose all vocal confidence when they don’t feel the warm familiarity of that digitised and disembodied “hello?”

T28 ownership taught me a number of things.

• Flip phones are awesome. No keylock; no fumbling (as in clamshell type).
• I outgrew Tetris and Solitaire when I was 15.
• If you try to use voice dial in public, people laugh at you.
• Just because you have space for 225 contacts, doesn’t mean you should fill it. Honestly, there are people in here who I can’t even remember meeting.
• BEEP BEEP! is the most annoying sound in the world.
• Don’t try to text while you are drunk. You’ll end up saying things like “FUCKINGFOXSHIT! WATER R”. (This was at Dunc’s 21st. Good times. In the end I was not sober enough to send the text – which was possibly destined for Azrael – so it made for one of those wonderful “well I don’t remember that!” moments when I found it the next day.)
• By preference, people will call your cellphone while you are driving. (Possibly to tell you that you are parking them in at the moment. You know, I don’t think so.)

Its great legacy leaves a hole that can only be filled by material consumption of an even greater extent. Let’s go shopping:

I admit it is not especially photogenic.

Basically, I’m looking for a “slidephone,” if you will. My prime example is the Samsung D500. A slidephone is like so:

Breaking news: girl eats dog, beginning with the ear.

The D500 is pretty nice. You can read a few paragraphs about it, or if you prefer to think like a computer, here is a table of data. If you prefer not to think at all, here are some more pictures:

Now including Meldinger!

So why so sad?

I guess, with a slogan like this, how can I not buy it? There are a couple of reasons:

1. It costs about $600.
2. $600!

Nevertheless I am slowly talking myself into it (there is not a great deal of choice in the slidephone market). I mean, it has got really good reviews. (That first thing I linked has an average review of “outstanding”.) And, in a testament to the fact that on the internet, you can always find someone who has taken it all a bit too seriously, this guy could barely contain himself.

So, to PriceSpy! Other possibilities include trade-ins or picking it up second hand. So. What do you think? Would you prefer this? And what the hell does this have to do with dogs?