Mar 16

Get Your Nokia Phone Unlocked

If you own a Nokia phone then you probably get a lot of enjoyment out of it. This Finnish based company has produced a huge variety of types of cell phone over the last half century or so. Some of the very earliest types of mobile communication devices in the modern era came from this firm, and they continue to be one of the leading names in the industry.

credit: William Hook@flickr

However, if you have got one of the modern Nokia handsets it will be a far cry from the boxy ones which they brought out in the later decades of the 20th century and which now look pretty funny to us. Their current models include all of sleek lines, fancy technology, cameras, GPS and everything else you need to enjoy it while you are at home.

The one big drawback with your Nokia phone is that it is almost certainly locked. This probably doesn’t really affect you in day to day life in your country but once you travel abroad you will find that having an unlocked Nokia phone is much more rewarding for you to use.

Use Your Nokia Wherever You Go

This is because you can get a local SIM card and benefit from cheap calls wherever you go in the world. No matter what country you are in you will be able to use it as though you had bought it in that country. More and more people are now unlocking Nokia phones on a daily basis because of the advantages of not having it tied to one service provider.

The process to unlock Nokia phones is actually a lot simpler than you might think, and it is also 100% safe as well as being completely legal too. The other piece of good news is that it is completely free to do. If anyone tries to charge for this then you should choose to look elsewhere.

Unlocking Nokia phones for free also mean that they stay unlocked for the life of the device. You only need to do it once and it will stay that way no matter what software updates you apply to it. You will be able to find a list of the different models which you can unlock for free on the internet and from that list you need to chose the right one and then get your code.

The only other thing to really look out for is if you have already tied to unlock your Nokia phone using codes which didn’t work. You will be given three attempts to put in the right code and if you have already attempted to unlock it using inaccurate codes then you run the risk of now not being able to use the correct code even when you have it in your hand.

Apart from that, it is simply a case of getting the codes you need for your phone and then putting them into your phone. It really is as easy as it sounds.

Mar 15

Do You Remember Your First Phone?

Nowadays we can travel the world with unlocked cell phones and make cheap calls home while taking pictures with the camera, playing games and downloading useful apps. It wasn’t always like that though, was it?

credit:guy schmidt@flickr

When I first decided to travel abroad I took my chunky old phone to a specialist shop and asked if I could use it in South America, as I was planning to go there shortly. The guy in the store just kind of laughed at my device and said that I would need to buy one when I got over there. This is a far cry from the ease of today’s free cell phone unlocking process and the amazing amount of things we can do with them once we get to our destination.

To be fair, that old relic of a phone didn’t do much apart from the basics anyway. There was no camera, no music and only a couple of dodgy old ringtones on it. This got to me thinking about the difference between the first phones I ever owned and the current models I now have.

Big, Thick and Pretty Limited

The one I had wanted to travel with was actually my second ever phone, and the first one was even bigger, thicker and more limited. I am almost certain that it was a Nokia and I wish now that I had held onto it to compare with some current phones, as I reckon that it was about 10 times thicker than most of them. Maybe my memory is playing tricks on me but I seem to remember that the battery life was about 2 or 3 hours and I definitely recall having to recharge it every single night beside my bed. It seemed like a revolution a few years later when I first got a cell phone which could run for days without being recharged at all, and it took me a bit of getting used to this to be honest.

The Bosses Get Nice

I finally got a decent one when my bosses at work took a bit of funny turn and decided to waste perfectly good money on looking after their staff. It was a Motorola and I felt at the time that I had finally joined the modern age. I might even have taken to showing off with it a little, but it had some great ring tones so I can be forgiven for that.

Most of us now own a pretty decent level of phone and if you are planning to go abroad like I did all those years ago then looking at free cell phone unlocking is a great idea. I ended up spending an inordinate amount of time and money in phone cabins and call centres in South America trying – and usually failing – to get a decent line home. As it was my first time abroad I didn’t even know what country code I had to dial and my lack of Spanish skills meant that I couldn’t get anyone to help me either. You can get free cell phone unlock codes easily and completely legally online now to avoid this sort of problem.

Mar 15

Sort Out Your Phone before Travelling

If you are just about to go on a trip abroad then you must be looking forward to it. Seeing a foreign country is one of the most exciting things you can do and you are sure to have a great time and come back having learned something new.

When it comes to the practical issues of travelling a lot of people now wonder what they should do to get the most out of their phone while they are away. Unless you are going somewhere really remote then you will have plenty of chances to take advantage of it, so let’s look at free cell phone unlocking and a few other ideas to make sure that it is ready to use.

credit: watchsmart@flickr

Free Up Some Memory

You don’t want to find yourself standing on the Great Wall of China or outside the Vatican and then realise that you can’t take that once in a lifetime photo because your memory is full. One option is to download everything non urgent onto your PC. You can always put it back on when you get back home. Another idea is to buy a new memory card specifically for your trip. Either way of doing things is fine.

Check Your Numbers

How many incorrect phone numbers have you got on your phone? If you are anything like most of us then there are quite a few on there which aren’t right. This isn’t a big problem in normal life, as you can get in touch with friends and relatives in other ways. However, if you are going to be on the other side of the world then you really don’t want that to be the moment when you find out that you have an old phone number for someone you need to speak to. This is a great time to clean out old numbers and store any ones which you have been meaning to note for some time.

Get Some Apps

If you are lucky enough to have a smart phone then there are some great things you can do with this abroad. The apps you could download include language teachers, maps, travel guides and brilliant augmented reality ones. It is worth taking maybe an hour to look at the online market places and see which ones might be of interest to you. A lot of them are free and plenty of the others don’t cost much at all.

Get It Unlocked

Free cell phone unlocking is a wonderful idea which will let you call home cheaply. It is a simple and completely legal process which you can do quickly online. Even if you are planning to get away from things for a while and don’t intend to phone home you can still take advantage of the opportunity to travel with a phone which will let you call home in an emergency without costing you a fortune. If you don’t do this you will be at the mercy of expensive public phones which are also pretty scarce in some places nowadays as well. An unlocked cell phone will be a much better bet for you.

Mar 14

Travelling With an Unlocked Phone Is Easy

If you are planning to do a bit of travelling then you won’t be leaving your phone at home, will you? Modern phones are so cool and gadget packed that there are now a million reasons for packing yours in with your sandals and your t-shirts.

You will almost certainly want to take some pictures and listen to some music on your travels but what about making calls from abroad as well? These are notoriously expensive and you don’t want to blow your entire budget on international calls before you even try the local food and drinks, do you? How can you avoid big call charges when you are out of the country?

Call from a Phone Booth?

If you go somewhere touristy there will no doubt be phone booths or phone centres from where you can make a call back home. These tend to be pretty uncomfortable places to call from and aren’t exactly cheap either. They are a reasonable back up option but wouldn’t you rather call home from your own phone instead? Of course, by using your personal unlocked cell phone you can call in comfort from wherever you want to. So if you want to let your friends and family hear the waves lapping against the shore or some of the local music in a great bar then you can do this too.

Buy a Phone Card?

Another option when you are in a foreign country is often provided with the idea of phone cards which you can use with your own phone or with a phone booth to make relatively cheap calls home. You need to scratch off a panel with a code in it and then you usually need to dial a special phone number before dialling the number of the person you want to speak to. These are incredibly inflexible and aren’t recommended at all. A lot of tourists find that they get through a lot of these in no time and they even sometimes end up with a card which has credit on it by the time they need to go home again. The positive side of them is that they let you use your own phone but this is outweighed by the cost and the inflexibility of the process.

Unlock It

A smart way of avoiding incredibly high charges and awkward processes is by getting your cell phone unlocked for free before you set off on your trip, and now that you can do it completely free there is absolutely no reason not to do so. You can now do this remotely using the internet so it isn’t going to be a big hassle to do so and it is definitely worth it.

The big worry that a lot of phone users have about this process is that it might damage their phone or that is in some way illegal. Free cell phone unlocking and then travelling with an unlocked phone are completely legal moves, and it won’t ruin your device either. If you have been depriving yourself of the pleasure of your phone while you travel then it is time to change that for your next trip.

Mar 02

Understanding more about your mobile OS

With the proliferation of smartphone today, it is easy to assume that each of—regardless of the manufacturer—is pretty much the same. While some do have equivalent features as that of their competitors, the ways these features are implemented vary widely from manufacturer. With that regard, you get a completely different user experience depending on the Smartphone you buy and the OS that comes along with it.

Android

Android was first launched to the public with the release of the HTC Dream back in 2008. A vast amount of revisions, codenames and version numbers later, it emerged as one of the fastest growing Operating system for Smartphone today. It is so basic and handy that the fact it can be found on entry level smartphone such as Huawei IDEOS and on the top of the line flagship units such as the HTC Desire HD speaks volumes of its versatility and adaptability. Android is built using Linux and has enjoyed the success partly because o its open source nature. Android OS is virtually free to use and it is utilized by the wide range of manufacturers including Samsung, Motorola, LG and Sony Ericsson to name a few.

There are two main reasons for Android’s success which is its open source nature and a constant version updates. The Android OS has also enjoyed its multiple software updates since its release that they have added more functionality and features; it is so versatile that even manufacturers incorporate it to their Tablets like what Samsung did with the Galaxy Tab. Also, the fact that almost anybody could make an application for it and as a result, there are more than 100,000 applications available in the Android Marketplace.

iOS

Every smartphone OS is not complete without iOS. This versatile and powerful Operating System powers Apple’s iPhones, iPads and iPods and has access to a very rich library of applications that covers everything under the sun from productivity, entertainment and everything in between. Since it’s an Apple designed product, it has an elegant and very easy to use user interface allowing even the most novice of users to be a master of his own device in no time. Apple’s latest operating system is the iOS 5, which includes more than 200 new features from iCloud to airplay mirroring. Apple is a perfectionist about the quality of its product and the way it interfaces with its software, it’s also one most the most stable and secure mobile operating system in the market.

BlackBerry OS 6

BlackBerry OS 6 is the second to latest operating system for BlackBerry’s line of smartphone. The BlackBerry OS has a number of enhancements from the previous version of BlackBerry OS, including deeper integration of social networks. Like other mobile platforms, this one has its own app store, though the selection of apps isn’t as numerous as it competitors such as Android and Apple app store. BlackBerry OS 6 isn’t as flexible or as powerful as its contemporaries but the new version seems to be fare better than the previous versions in terms of optimization for touch screen models.

Window Phone 7

Up until the windows 6.5, every version of Microsoft’s mobile OS was built on mainly the same framework and—from the styling cues and interface—felt like bringing a miniaturized PC along with you. Realizing that the phone is not always anybody’s PC, Microsoft took a drastic step with Windows Phone 7. Phone 7 does not carry any of its predecessor’s genes, it’s a brand new OS built from the ground up to compete in today’s web connected world. The interface is highly stylish, and there is a big emphasis on negative space in the GUI’s design. It’s also built with social media in mind, as Facebook integration is done at the code level, not with application like in Android. Microsoft has also cleverly tied in Xbox Live into Phone 7, allowing you to access your Xbox Live achievements and awards. Additionally, games that are available on both the Phone 7 and Xbox 360 nets you additional achievements and unlock if you have the two versions.

Bada

Samsung has also made its foray into creating its own mobile OS in the form of Bada. Bada (which is a Korean work meaning “ocean”) made its debut on the first wave Smartphone, the S8500 roughly a year ago, and since then has expanded an entire line of smartphone. Bada’s ultimate goal is a Smartphone for everyone, and that it is not out in the market to compete with existing Smartphone platforms. Instead, the main aim is to convert regular phone users into Smartphone users by providing cost-effective, yet powerful smartphone powered by Bada. It is also like Android that has an open platform and has its own library of applications but limited and not much as its counterparts.

Symbian

Nokia is possibly the oldest OS out in the market today; used in countless products in Nokia’s mobile phones but Symbian future is uncertain to say the least. The Symbian platform is the successor to Nokia’s S60 OS that appears in the majority of its phones, and strives to integrate features like social networking into the core experience of the OS. Other features like 2D and 3D graphic architecture, User Interface improvements, and support for external displays through HDMI. Unfortunately and sad to say that the Symbian’s day under the sun might be up, as the latest version  of Symbian 3 currently exists only in one Smartphone, the N8. Couple that with Nokia’s unprecedented move to use Microsoft’s Phone 7 OS in its upcoming models; pundits and industry experts are predicting the slow death for Symbian.

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