its the same for the average population here (and we should know, we're the fastest growing market - one provider added 1m users in a month in November). Most - i hazard 60-70% - phones sold are the Rs. 5000 or less variety, that makes it GBP 60 or so. A large majority of those are the basic Nokia 1100, 1110 or 2300 which are monochrome. My phone for two years now has been the 2300, purchased primarily for its (sorry, Beags!) FM radio as I travel three hours a day by public transport. The other phones doing well are the 2600, 2610 and the Motoflip...

SMS is very popular here, though. Very cheap. And incoming calls are free here, unless you're roaming in another state or country.

I'd hazard that less than 0.1% of all phones in this country cost > Rs. 20,000 (GBP 250) and as for the smartphones, they are non-existent.

So Idon't really expect the iPhone to do well here, except among the top shots, and even at that level, I suspect, it will probably suffer due to Apple products having a 'geek' tag associated with them as opposed to the Blackberries and what-have-yous.

Bu-u-t.... It would make a nice birthday gift on my 25th Birthday, in 2008.

Now who on Proon is generous enough? :E

What gets me is that they want you to pay 600USD for it and still be locked into a 2 year contract with your telephone provider! Oh and no 3G either so it just seems like an overpriced ipod that can make calls. Funniest bit was how Apple was trumpeting the touch screen ditty interface as being some new revolution that they invented. No doubt though there will be loads of idiots that will go and buy one and it will become the latest trend.

Not me, that's for sure!

I dismantled my old 6310i to fit a new facia from eBay, but thought I'd knackered it totally when I'd had to saw through one of the screws which had pulled its retainer out of the housing and wouldn't release. After fitting the new facia, the phone worked OK except in the car kit when it merely whimpered rather pathetically and wouldn't recognise the car kit...

Anyway, with nothing to lose, I've just taken it to bits again and given it a thorough clean, including a blast of dry air to the base connector. Put it back together again carefully; lo and behold I now have a fully serviceable spare phone which works in the car kit as well! I can only guess that there must have been some swarf from the sawn through screw shorting out a pin or two in the base connector.

2 x Nokia 6310i will keep me going for a while - and I've also got my old Motorola Timeport T260 as a last resort.

The replacement facia from eBay wasn't quite up to Nokia quality - neither was it very easy to fit. But it's great to have a good spare phone all the same. There seems to be quite an industry of 6310i refurbishment out there on the Internet.

You can keep the kiddiephones with all their gaudy gimmicks!

I've spent all of my professional life working on Macs. Long before Windows 98 came on the scene I always felt a certain amount of smugness when looking upon the pre-98 op. system. Then 98 and it's successors came along, and while it was certainly an improvement I've always believed that the Mac interface was always more user-friendly (this is just MY opinion).
Over the past few years, with mobiles becoming more and more complicated, I often find myself frustrated by the feckin' things and have always longed for Apple to come along and create one, since I knew that (if nothing else) the user interface would be a lot more intuitive.
It's come along now, and regardless of what issues anyone on here might have, I for one am delighted ... and will be getting one.
No, I'm not some apple-disciple. In my business the Macs are industry-standard and I've always felt that the Mac just seems to think the way that I do, making it easier for me to get my work done.
To the person that said Apple products were geeky :8 Hello! I was always under the impression that it was the MS suite that was supposed to be the geeky one, and that Apple stuff was supposed to be reasonably hip (again, not the reasons why I'm an advocate)
Anyway, debate on about the merits of yer Nokias and the like, but I can assure you that should you get your hands on one of these things when they land on our shores at the end of this year you may well ask yourself why hasn't it been done like this all along?
(ps - no 3G? Yup, but I think you'll find that they've leap-frogged 3G with something entirely new)

Here is a hands on demo video. I can't watch it myself as youtube is firewalled where I work (like what am I supposed to do all day?) but I understand that it is quite impressive.

6310 series definitely the best phone for reliability and durability. Have never had a flat battery (it just needs about 30 minutes in the car kit and endurance > 7 days. I dropped mine off a boat in Loch Lomond a few years ago (luckily in shallow water). I found it 36 hours later. I drained the water out and dried it out with a hairdrier, the phone has worked perfectly ever since.

Very Jet Blast-ish but I couldn't resist posting this:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01...p_iphone_tips/

It's just another PDA device....yawn....

Out of interest, here is the quoted battery life for a forthcoming Nokia yoof-fone with all its gadgets and gimmicks:

2.5-3.5 hours talk / 9 days standby

That's useless for a business phone! The similar figures for the 6310i were:

GSM 900/1800: 3.25 - 6 hours talk
GSM 1900: 4 - 7.5 hours talk
up to 17 days standby!

I'm don't see what makes a phone such a superior business device because it has 17 days of standby time if you can still flatten the battery well inside 4 hours of talking time.

The talk time is about the same as a modern phone and, hopefully, if business is good, you'll be doing a reasonable amount of talking, not waiting 17 days for the phone to ring.

By the stated figures, if you actually use the phone, one will need charging about as frequently as the other.

Sure, if I hammer the wi-fi, applications and so on I can cause my phone to need a recharge within two days, but then I can handle documents, access the internet properly and use it to store files of up to a couple of gigs. All of which saves me lugging a laptop, which wouldn't make it beyond a couple of hours of use before running out of steam, around with me as I'd have to otherwise.

All in all, if I talk for more than a few hours a day, either a 6310 or my smartphone will need a charge every day or two. The smartphone just gives me a lot more functionality in my pocket whilst plugging in overnight or whilst in the car is no more trouble on one than the other.

It's horses for courses really but, for a certainty, if 17 days of standby came into the picture, it'd mean I were either on holiday or out of business altogether.

As for the iPhone, if they're able to use the name in the long run, I don't see what's actually new. Apart from the natty motion sensor rotating the screen format, it doesn't appear to do much, if anything, that any current smart phone won't, except possibly suffering from crippling Apple DRM issues.

Err - one lasts twice as long as the other, so presumably would require half as many charges for the same talk time.

SD

Standby time is a bit like those video recorders that can be set to record a programme 1 year in advance. It might look great in the glossy brochures, but in real life it is of little relevance.

Notice how quoted standby time is always preceded by 'up to'. More often than not, standby time is tested without the sim card installed. But they never tell you that. Anyway, most people - who actually use their phone - will charge it every 2 or 3 days anyway. The point of a 2 or 3 week standby time is then fairly irrelevant. Unless the point is that "it was much better in the old days".

I would be loathe to use the words Apple, ipod (sorry iphone) and battery in the same sentence given past form.

Sorry, I'll clarify. If you have a business which people contact with any regularity, you're going to charge your phone daily, based on the fact you'll be approaching the talk time limits on either phone within that day... 17 day standby time or not.

This is pretty heady stuff.