THE NOKIA DOHO – A Magaribina REVIEW

This post is inspired by boredom. Hopefully, by spreading it to you, I will get rid of mine.

A few weeks ago, I bought a new phone. It was a really really cute phone, my very first Nokia. For the first time I could chat on my phone and read  my mail away from my computer.  Talk about cutting edge technology! Then, barely two months after I got it, I travelled to the big bad city where the street jamaas  must have figured out that I had not been distributing my non-existent wealth for some time now . My phone was promptly appropriated (I still can’t quite figure out how) and I was back to being a one-phone Kenyan.

My readers in Kenya have probably seen that CCK advert where the thugs with about 1000 sim cards extort money from people. Well, apart from the menacing voice, the phone calls, the toothpick (or is that grass?) and the sidekick, that could be me. At last count I had 3 Zain,  3 Safaricom, 2 Yu and 1 Orange sim cards. My friends think I am weird because I have one dedicated line each for Mpesa and Zap, but I figure that way people won’t be sending me 100 bob on Mpesa just to find out what my name is (and no I am not a husband snatcher or anything).

So anyway, it did not take me long to realize that I still needed a second – and probably a third- phone just to get by. Problem is that I wanted a phone that was both pretty and not worth crying about if  my brothers on the street ever claimed it back. And of course this time  it had to be a dual sim phone so I didn’t have to  carry so many of those darn things around.

Well, I am now the proud owner of a phone I have nicknamed DOHO ( doho means polygamy in my mother tongue , and in my opinion if there ever was a group of people that needed a dual  sim phone it is these guys- you marketing-type people taking note?) Since there seems to be a lot of phone reviews being done on tech blogs  lately I think I will be doing everyone a big service if I did a review of my phone too. (What? You didn’t think I abandoned my techie-wannabe ambitions that easily, did you?)  So, without further ado, here it is:

THE NOKIA DOHO – A Magaribina REVIEW

Look :

Th box says it is a Nokia E 52. According to the Internets, DOHO should look like this : Pretty cool phone. Also very expensive.

In  actual fact it looks like this :

This is what the box says it looks like

Still pretty cool looking in my opinion. Plus its all metallic and stuff.  Shiiiny. Notice  how on the face thingy of my phone there is no indication as to which Nokia it is?  That is actually an advantage because you can tell people anything you want – at the moment I have someone convinced that I have a  Nokia XP.

Verdict: – Shiiny  (*.*)

Feel

It weighs slightly less than a tonne of bricks. Not by much though.

Verdict :– It definitely enhances the potential of your handbag  (or murse) as a deadly weapon.

Sound :

This is what a typical phone call on DOHO  sounds like

ME: Hello

Other Person : *static*

ME Hello??

OP: *static*…turn…….music….…..loud *static*

ME Hello?????

OP :  *static* …….wrong…….kittens…….sleep….caress *static*

Later it turns out to be my boss who was trying to get me to attend to a mteja urgently (of course) but who tells me he  could not hear me because of the loud music in whatever disco I had been at the time. Note: I was actually in my house with all electronic implements turned off and not even a ticking clock to break the silence. Try convincing the boss of that though.

Verdict :- This phone is not recommended if you actually want to make or receive phone calls.

Camera:

The phone boasts a camera, Great. So I decided I was going to take a photo of myself and put it up on my blog to finally get rid of this anonymity maneno once and for all. And here it is :

Verdict :– it’s a good camera to use  for illustrating a ghost story. In the meantime, I remain anonymous (to some at least) for a little while longer.

Other distinctive features :

• Its price – I was offered DOHO at 4,500/=  but bought it at 2,700/. Not bad for a phone that is supposed to retail at USD 250.
• A memory chip, without which the camera, the internet and the radio does not work- go figure.
• Bmi calculator (although why they want to torture me like that I don’t know really)
• An E book reader. Don’t know how it works , but doesnt it just sound so advanced to say ‘ My phone has an ebook reader’ ? Don’t answer that.
• A Nokia battery is available – its says so right there on the box !

Some drawbacks:

• The tune that plays when it goes on or off. It may be a little difficult to explain if I were , for instance, trying to switch  it off in church. Unfortunately, it seems I can neither delete it nor reduce its volume. I am reduced to putting it on silentmode every timeI want to switch it off – a fact of course which I only remember AFTER  I have deafened my immediate neighbours.
• The ring tones. You know it is bad when my current ring tone is Michael Jacksons’s Thriller.  Fortunately (or unfortunately- I keep forgetting which) the ring tone volume is such that only it is only audible to people who are at most a quarter of a metre away from it. I think they saved all the sound for the above mentioned on-off tune.
• My Internet connection. Which remains non- existant. Because no way am I going to have to explain to the snobs at the customer care offices which phone exactlyit is that I possess.
• The funny English. Like ‘Entry camera’ (the opposite of ‘exit camera’ )
• The games. They are boring. All those shooting games and no snake. What kind of Nokia is that?

General overview.

This is a phone you will definitely enjoy having if you are a tone deaf, reclusive ghost buster with a serious addiction to shiny things. The rest of you may not appreciate its singular qualities ( I would have called them peculiar, but MJ already used that line) .

Would I buy it again? Yes I would. Would I part with the one I currently have? Most definitely. In fact, if any body is willing to give me back half  the purchase price. I will be willing to to part with this one-of-a kind treasure.  Na bei ni ya kuongea … Any takers?

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