The Lurker

I signed up for an ebay account about a year ago when I was nostalgic for the Acorn Archimedes computers I used at high school. I was seriously considering buying one if I found one under $100, but I got distracted and forgot about the idea.

I've still got the ebay account, obviously, and they occasionally send out a list of categories with links they presumably use to track which products catch each recipient's attention. I would normally ignore it but seeing "Nokia phones" in there reminded me yet again that my battered old phone (which I got second hand, and I've had it for five years now) needs replacing.

I don't get the Nokia 8810 and 8850 phones — what is the point of a flimsy slide that doesn't cover up all the buttons? The 8110's slide is the main reason I've put off replacing it: it's very solid, and it's just so satisfying to hang up the phone by rapidly pushing the end of it into my other hand that I can't imagine using a phone where I'd have to tap a. It's a silly feature, but to me it's more important than customisable ring tones or higher display resolution or an alarm (or a clock, for that matter), features this ancient phone lacks.

The 8910 actually looks pretty good. I'd have to check it out in the store, but I'm hoping the slide works the same was as the 8110. But it costs over $1000, putting it more than a bit beyond what I can justify spending.

(The picture, by the way, comes from my scanner. It doesn't quite work right — the scanner reads in red and blue, but the green gets lost somewhere along the way, so the image has been fudged a little to make it not so purple — but fortunately unless you look right at the button which is supposed to be distinctively green it's not very noticeable. Hopefully I'll hear back from the Linux driver developer on the mailing list and )