phones for me

MAKE magazine have a saying "If you can't open it, you don't own it". I like this idea. And I own this biscuit tin. I can open it whenever I want. Most technology terrifies me though, I'd be horribly worried about cracking open most of the things I own. Which is one reason I'm excited by the toy-hacking workshop tomorrow.

But I recently took a step in the right direction, following the death of my favourite ever phone - the  K800i. I had vowed to keep this for as long as I could. Sailed through the upgrade opportunity. Turned my nose up at the N-95 and the iPhone. Didn't need those. Happy with what I had. I'll have this forever. Good old sustainable Russ. But then it died. Thoroughly. I wandered from repair shop to repair shop and they pronounced it un-revivable. So following brief dalliances with various devices generously loaned to me, I went to get another from Orange. Except they wouldn't give me one. They pressed the new one on me. The K850i. How different can it be, I thought, so I said yes. And with remarkable speed it turned up at my door.

And, it has to be said, it's not an attractive phone. Good camera. (Though I preferred the old  shutter-camera door to the little button thing.) But otherwise not good.  Silly wannabetouch buttons on the bottom and it looks fat and glossy, like a 300ZX with a neon under-body kit.

And the back's not much better. I stuck some playmobil stickers on it, but it didn't make it any better. So, I thought, I can't wait to get rid of this. As soon as the year's up, I'll be done with it. But I realised that was bad thinking, so I wondered if I could get to like it any more by personalising it somehow.

Me and Arthur had been playing a lot of Warhammer, and been painting figures, and we had all this paint and spray around so I wondered if I could paint it. Maybe paint it like a Warhammer phone.

So I taped it up and gave it a good spraying with 'chaos black'. (And it looks good with the tape on. Like some kind of fetish object. That'd be a good aesthetic for a phone.)

And, although, I've not got the patience to do this tidily, it looked a lot better already. So, then I tried to work out how to embellish it.

I was going to just use Warhammer Ultramarine decals, but they look a bit too right-wing and militaristic out of context. Fine if you're playing a wargame, not so good to just pull out of your pocket. I've not solved this yet. Keep looking for the right stickers. I then had a bit of a scare, we had a really cold day and I got condensation in the camera lens, everything was all blurry for a while. And it occurred to me that I was going to struggle to get Orange or SE to fix it if it was all nasty and black. That seems to have fixed itself though, so I don't have to face that yet.

What I've discovered now though is I seem to have created accelerated graceful aging. The worn paint makes it look a lot older that it really is, but in quite a cool way. So I think I don't need to find stickers or anything, I just need to respray it every now and then, in different colours, and before long it'll get that knackered, lived-in, paint-layered, Millenium Falcon look Will Wright so admires.  Next I want to work on making my own sounds for it, then I'm going to try and screw up the courage/know-how to do some of this.

Comments

[smithylad]

Hi Russell

Slight error on the Make: quote, it should be 'If you can't open it, you don't own it'.

Cheers

Craig Smith
O'Reilly
ps Please feel free ditch this comment once the correction is made.

[Ben]

You could have bought a K800i on eBay.

[Russell]

ebay is your answer to everything. But that's true.

[Ben]

But the painted 850 does look great.

[Eamon]

Hi

A bit off topic (and the following comment is a bit ranty) but here is a brilliant website / viral you might want to look at.

http://producten.hema.nl/

They have made a brilliant website / viral out of UTILITY / office products.

Another kick in the teeth for those arguing for more 'brand utility' and less creative advertising.

(
- Cadbury's Gorilla: the opposite to 'utilitarian branding'.
- Nick Park's Creature Comfort ads for Heat Electric (UTILITY product)
- The Unison Bear ad (brilliant creative advertising for a trade union)
- modern car ads mostly anti-utilitarian in approach (Skoda making a cake to Julie Andrews singing a song from Sound of Music)
- Guinness (Surfer and other many other Guinness ads) 'opposite to 'brand utility'.

There are some products where 'brand utility' will always kind of never work such as: Guinness, fashion and so on. And yet there are UTILITY / highly technological products (and a trade union) that work brilliantly with creative advertising. And creative advertising is alive and kicking on the internet (Gorilla). And so on.

* Yes to 'brand utility'
* But no to 'more brand utility at the cost of creative advertising.
*And, yes to marrying, more, 'brand utility' with creative advertising.

[matt]

I recently received a K850i as an upgrade on Orange from my aging but classic K600i. However, the awful buttons, bizarre replacement for a joystick and sluggish software meant I didn't really want to keep the phone. My options were: send it back, or use it for my own personal gain.

So, I swapped it at a phone shop in Wood Green for two brand new phones - a slimline K770i (for me) and a K800i (for my girlfriend).

Also, it's worth noting that you can load standard Sony Ericsson firmware onto any of their phones and get rid of the brand-bloat (and bugs) that operators add in their customised firmware. Google for "debrand sony ericsson" - this is not the same as unlocking a phone but is often done at the same time.

[Phil Wilson]

Perhaps some Gorkamorka vehicle decals? Ork logos are always good for modding.

Just don't use any Crimson Fist :)