Questions from Natasha

This morning I threw open the door to questions and there was just one person standing there in the bright sunlight: Natasha, NY property magnate and infamous mobile phone dinosaur.  I can remember being horrified one day to find out that Natasha had actually been given a Blackberry by her sensible brother but had kept it in its box, unopened, under her desk for almost a year.

However when she finally did start using the Blackberry after repeated petitions, she’s never looked back and frequently uses it across all continents.  So, thank you Natasha for the questions and here we go with the answers:

1. What does your new Blackberry do that your old one doesn’t?
   Well, the key issue is that I can use GoogleTalk on it.  Although it might have been possible to do this on the old one. 

   Another key issue is that I feel less of a dinosaur now that I’ve upgraded to the latest one.  It’s a male mobile phone ego thing.   The battery is ridiculously crap though.  That’s one thing I’ve noticed and I’ve only had the new one two days.  I wasn’t that impressed with the keyboard either, but I’m getting to grips with it now.  The screen is very, very good. 

   Also, I changed my service plan with it so instead of 150 minutes at £35ish/month, I now get 1,000 off-peak minutes at £18/month. 

2. How many current mobiles have you got, and list them please.
   – Nokia N90 on T-Mobile
   – T-Mobile ‘MDA Pro’ Windows Mobile phone on T-Mobile
   – Sony Ericsson K608i on Three
   – LG 8120 on Three
   – SLVR on Fresh (though I can’t make calls on it as I can’t get credit on to it)
   – Orange C500 on Vodafone
3. What was your first mobile phone and when did you acquire it?
   I think it was an NEC. It was actually quite good looking — everyone else was walking about with those brick ‘flip’ phones, and my NEC, I felt, looked quite modern and wicked.  That was the first one I *owned*.  Prior to that I’d used a Philips one that I borrowed from dad as he rarely used that one.  I got the NEC in about 1997 and I got it from a totally seedy Carphone Warehouse store — one of those little cubby-hole ones on Oxford Street nearby the Virgin Megastore.
4. How many contacts do you have in your address book?
   My Apple Address Book has 855 ‘cards’ — most contacts have at least 2 numbers, so maybe 1,600 numbers across about 855 people.