Cell Phone Fantasy

Till very recently, I'd been a great fan of Nokia 3310 – a groundbreaking product from Nokia. I still swear by it while others swear at it – simply because it is the sturdiest phone I have ever seen. I have dropped it from a moving bus, a zooming auto and stepped on it three hundred and seventy two times. The phone simply doesn't budge.

It serves the basic purpose of a cell phone very efficiently – to make and receive calls.

However, a gift from a UK cousin made me change my handset to Sony Ericsson w800i – (In his own words – "We are exposed to the western world while you guys are toiling in India. Please accept this gift as a token of appreciation.")

While I disagreed with him about the "toiling in India" part – I couldn't refuse a gift. However I found it very complicated. (Coming from a 3310 loyalist – that shouldn't surprise you.) There are about four hundred functions in the phone which I seldom use.

After listening to my cribs – my cousin from UK asked me a question – "Say tell me Venu, what is the one feature you miss badly in your 3310?"

That set me thinking. What was that one feature I would practically die for?

Here's my answer. For a while I had maintained two cell phones – One for official purposes and one for personal. It was a pain to handle two cell phones. It would have great simplified my life had there been a handset that allowed one to use more than one SIM card!

Here's the explanation before you think I am crazy.

Let us assume there are two SIM cards – Official (SIM-O) and Personal (SIM-P). Let us assume there is a phone WTF1000j that can accommodate these two SIM cards.

When someone calls you on SIM-O:

The phone rings as usual and you talk. If another person calls you on SIM-P during your SIM-O call – he/she will get a busy tone. (I know that this decision is network dependent and not phone dependent. However I am talking purely from a user perspective.)

When you call someone:

The phone asks you which SIM to use. You select the SIM and the call is routed through that SIM.

Even if WTF1000j is nothing a dual SIM capability added on the top of the plain vanilla 3310, I am willing to trade off my W800i as, in my personal opinion, this is the most useful feature for any executive who has to maintain more than one phone.

My rant is over. In case WTF1000j or its variant is already in the market, please let me know the model number in the comments section.