My ideal handset strategy with Vodafone
I am having a real problem using all my mobile phone accounts.
I’ve been giving a lot of thought, for example, to upgrading my 3 account with one of their funky E71s. Whilst Ben Smith didn’t rate it, James Whatley in today’s MIR Show was raving about it. I think it would be a useful tool.
Trouble is I’m on Vodafone, right?
I’ve got my Nokia E90, locked to Vodafone. That’s my primary device.
Well, no. That’s my primary number.
Then I’ve got to go and get a new iPhone 3G.
I turned on my Nokia N95 8GB from T-Mobile the other day and got a load of texts from friends STILL using that number, despite me giving them the new Vodafone one years ago.
Yesterday I got back to my place and found a missed call from my friend James who, inexplicably, has got my N82 Orange number in his phone book.
Call me on +44 7769 658 104 and chances are I’ll answer or be able to answer at some point. Call me on any other other numbers and… woosh. You’ll probably never hear from me.
So the last thing my friends need is to start getting text messages from me from multiple devices using multiple device numbers.
Even the MIR team don’t adapt that well to me texting them from my iPhone 3G (when, er, I had one).
It’s fine when I text them. But when they want to contact me, they’re understandably confused about what number to contact me on.
I can’t just take the iPhone out for the weekend. I need to take the E90. Er, and the Blackberry, in case someone’s got that number… and.. and…
It’s getting unmanageable.
Yet I do need to be able to sample services on every network — at least in the UK.
I want to be able to get out of bed in the morning and select from an array of tools to use that day:
– iPhone 3G
– Nokia E90
– Nokia E71
– Nokia E51
– Nokia N82
– Nokia N95 8GB
– Blackberry Bold
– Samsung ACE
– T-Mobile G1
I’d like to be able to pick one up and be able to start using it across the day. I want it to have my diary, contacts — everything — up to date, immediately.
The brilliance with any Nokia E or N-Series is that Nokia’s Mail For Exchange synchronises them all. You are, thus, never out of date. I specifically maintain an Exchange account for this purpose.
Equally, any Windows device has Exchange support built in. Brilliant. The iPhone 3G’s Exchange support is very, very good too.
The only red herrings are the Blackberry and T-Mobile’s G1. I’ll need to look at the G1. The Blackberry, at least, has a Google Sync option which syncs with my Google Apps account. Reasonably useful.
On the basis that all devices are unlocked, the real problem I’d have is that I really can’t be arsed sim-swapping.
That said, Vodafone offer something like this. I think I’ll need to defer to Terence from Vodafone for an explanation. Terence, how does the Vodafone sim divert feature work?
How usable is it for me on a daily basis?
