JeanSnow.net

Thanks to help from Yuko’s mother, I was able to replace my lost phone with the Sony Ericsson W21S phone from AU, the “future white” model. This is one of the WIN phones, which is the high-bandwidth line from AU. What it means, is that I have a flat-fee unlimited 2.4Mbps connection to the internet. It’s also the first time in years that I have a bilingual phone, which means that I’ll actually be able to use all of the features on this baby. The megapixel count goes down to 1.3 (my previous phone had 2 megapixels), but it’s good enough for my needs (posting pics on my site), and I really wanted the high bandwidth of the WIN phones. There are plenty of things that I’m learning to do with it now, like read QR barcodes (I can now vouch that the one on my site works fine), and some silly things like use it as a TV remote (it actually works). Paul has the same phone, and it’s after seeing his in action and hearing him talk about it that I decided to get the same one.

Category: Technology

This is awful. Your phone has more bandwidth than any of the UK ISPs are currently offering for home users. You can get 2Mbit for about $120~ a month, and here’s you with 2.4Mbit on your phone. Damn you :)

Good luck with the new phone, and you have a very generous mother-in-law :P

04.09.05 1:56

Posted by Damien Dixon

cool phone.. i wish my phone would break or get lost. otherwise i can’t justify getting a new one. but mine is lame.. black and green screen! weak.

04.09.05 4:42

Posted by trev-or

Yeah, I guess it ended up being a good excuse for getting a new one. I mean, I do love this new phone I now have.

04.09.05 12:34

Posted by Jean

They don’t offer that in an “olden days murk,” do they? :)

Do the talking toilets over there also come in “future white”? If I remember, they also seemed to come in “castration pink” and “chemotherapy chartreuse”.

04.09.06 6:48

Posted by ron

That would be awesome if the future white talking toilets had voice recognition and flat-fee unlimited 2.4Mbps connection to the internet.

04.09.06 6:49

Huh, Ron, have you gone insane?

04.09.06 9:56

Apologies–my little break there may have been brought on from the stress, angst, fear and loathing created by the Republican National Convention they held here in NYC the past week. I’ll be okay, once Kerry’s poll numbers recover, I think.

04.09.07 0:35

Heya, would anyone reading this know what kind of network the japanese phones use? wanna know if can bring one back to the aussie GSM network. just hopin u might know due to recent mobile phone purchase. Awesome site too :P

04.09.08 16:33

Posted by Timbo

CDMA 1X

Japan is notorious for not sharing the same network as the rest of the world.

04.09.08 19:10

That’s sick. A fone w/ 2.4Mbps. Are you reading RSS feeds w/ WINKsite? What’s the speed like if you are?

I remember checking out the FLASH UI on Paul’s mobile. So kewl. Now I gotta figure out a way to get rid of my keitai ;)

04.09.12 5:24

Posted by chriskk

Yes, I’m been checking out some RSS feeds with WINKsite, but I’m so disapointed to have found out that the vast majority of sites I read only offer excerpt feeds. On the other hand, I’ve found quite a few sites made for mobile devices. A good place to start is here.

As for speeds, well, I suppose it’s 2.4 Mbps. I mean, there’s not much of a wait when you load up pages.

04.09.12 12:11

In my opinion, full text feeds are just useless bandwidth hogs. That you make it available is probably one of the reasons why you’ve run out of bandwidth before… imagine all your subscribed readers refreshing your top page every 15 minutes…

Sure it may be useful to read all the text in your feed reader, but even with an excerpt, the whole entry is just one [double-]click away and probably better enjoyed in the site’s original designed.

That’s the way I see it anyway. :)

04.09.12 21:24

Posted by Patrick

Oops ok I was talking about a desktop feed reader. I do see your point since you’re wanting reading on your keitai. :)

I’m not quite yet there myself because DoCoMo’s bandwidth isn’t that cheap. :)

04.09.12 21:30

Yeah, my point is that feeds are in format that you can read on a mobile.

But as for excerpt feeds, I find it easier to open a site on its front page where you can quickly read all the recent posts, instead of clicking for every individual post through a reader. Sure, I guess it’s fine for sites that don’t update a lot, but for sites that usually update daily, I find it easier to just open every site I read at once in tabs in my browser.

But I understand what you’re saying about the bandwidth issue.

04.09.12 23:13

Another thing that would be useful for RSS feeds that you read using your mobile is comments. Some feeds include the comments for the feed, and since you’re downloading RSS onto your mobile faster than I do with my desktop it won’t be an issue.

I see many blogs with multiple versions of their RSS. Short feed, Full feed, and Full feed with comments. Good thing about WINKsite is that it breaks the feeds into multiple pages automatically for you, especially for blog posts with alot of comments like this one :)

Another issue that irks me while reading RSS on the trains are posts that just say see here [link] for more info…

04.09.14 11:26

I’ll have to link into offering a feed that includes comments. If I remember correctly, there’s already feed for comments (it was Patrick who pointed it out to me). Having it all together would be nice.

04.09.14 11:42

I am also in the market for a new mobile phone since the screen on my 2 year old Tuka finally gave out. The phone still works but I can’t see who’s calling! It’s been difficult finding decent reviews of these phones online by foreigners who have actually purchased and used them. Thanks for the info on this one.

One question, don’t you find the new 3G phones to be a little too big? I imagine they’ll start engineering for size now that these things are out and working.

04.09.19 13:14

Posted by Kevin LaCoste

Honestly, I don’t find them to be that much bigger.

04.09.19 14:14

isn’t any plan 4 GSM network?????It’s wonderful!!

05.03.07 21:08

Posted by juanito

please i need english manual of Tu-ka Ts 31 phone or how to change to english usage.

tks
mike

06.05.23 21:20

Posted by mike obijiaku

I don’t know anything about your phone, but keep in mind that there’s a very good chance that you can’t use it in English at all. Only a few rare phones offer English menus in Japan.

06.05.23 21:28

Posted by Jean Snow

I don’t think that’s right. All phones I’ve used so far have an option for English menus. An English manual may be another story though.

Mike, simply go to a KDDI/Tu-ka/au shop and staff can help you switch to English if your phone offers it.

06.05.24 9:45

Well, for AU phones, there aren’t many. If you take the AU catalogue and look at the features tables in the back, only a very few phones offer a bilingual option.

06.05.24 10:47

When it comes to AU you’re the man. :) All I know is that the few AU models I’ve used at work did support English.

06.05.24 11:56

Well, it’s quite possible that things have changed. I mostly remember that from 2 years ago when I got the model that is mention in this post, and was specifically looking for a model that did English.

06.05.24 11:59

ola alguem sabe como faÃ§o para mudar o idioma do tu-ka ts 11 para ingles

06.06.24 1:23

Posted by valdecir / brazil

can you give me new software for w21s

06.10.09 17:45

Posted by amr ahmed

I don’t know what you mean, but I don’t use that phone anymore (it broke down).

06.10.09 19:27