Sony Ericsson Z520i

This morning, the screen of the Nokia 8210 that I've been using for the past five years suddenly went dim. So I had no choice but to look for a new handphone. Problem was, my impression of the latest handphones was that they just wouldn't good enough. Yes, they have colour screens and so on whereas the venerable 8210 has a monochrome screen, but the newer phones that I'd seen just felt confusing.

My benchmark for these sorts of thing is the 'inbox test'. How many buttons does one need to press to read the latest SMS? (And without using 'shortcuts'!) It took 4 quick presses on the same button on the 8210. I think the newer models need more presses.

The other thing was infra-red. I didn't need Bluetooth, but I need infra-red because I dislike typing SMS messages with the keypad; I never do it unless absolutely necessary. Instead, I write on my Palm and send it to the phone through IR. The newer Nokias and other manufacturers seemed to have phased out IR in favour of Bluetooth.

So I was resigned to the fact that this new purchase would really be a 'downgrade' from the 8210. Not only would I need to endure a worse user-interface, I couldn't use my Palm to do SMS too. Luckily this week, M1 had a few models to give away (they put out newspaper advertisements every Saturday), and there were two 'cheaper' models. One was the Nokia 6020 ($0), and the other was the Ericsson Z520i ($38). The Nokia doesn't have IR, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Ericsson has both IR and Bluetooth! That was all I needed to know, and I promptly bought it. The build quality is really good, the buttons are nice and the user-interface is quite straightforward. Hopefully, this phone will last four more years...