Death of the Clamshell

EdgarAllenPoo

Is it my imaginatiion or are there little or no clamshell style phones on the Irish market anymore.

The only ones I've found are the Blackberry Pearl and the Sony Ericsson W980. Is there a particular reason for this trend? Can't see why if in this day and age any phone can come with any kind of spec that the manufacturer wants to include why this style of phone is falling out of favour.

towel401

Clamshells are what the little girlies and metrosexuals used to like before the touchscreen slab was made popular by Apple. They were cute and snazzy and the screen didn't get destroyed in your handbag so the girls loved em.

Now you need to have some touchscreen thing without buttons and a huge screen so you can show your friends some overexposed Facebook pictures of when you were completely langers. The handbag problem has also gone away because they just hold it in their hand the whole time and make sure to show it off to everyone who passes. They don't worry about it being robbed either since IMEI blocking was brought in they got a false sense of security because they have no idea how much those things are worth even for scrap.

EdgarAllenPoo

towel401 wrote: »

Clamshells are what the little girlies and metrosexuals used to like before the touchscreen slab was made popular by Apple. They were cute and snazzy and the screen didn't get destroyed in your handbag so the girls loved em.

Now you need to have some touchscreen thing without buttons and a huge screen so you can show your friends some overexposed Facebook pictures of when you were completely langers. The handbag problem has also gone away because they just hold it in their hand the whole time and make sure to show it off to everyone who passes. They don't worry about it being robbed either since IMEI blocking was brought in they got a false sense of security because they have no idea how much those things are worth even for scrap.

I take it from the tone of your post you miss the old Nokia brick kind of phone;)

bronte

I was just thinking this the other day..will want a new phone soon and was looking for a clamshell. I realized I couldn't think of a single one I'd seen advertised!

towel401

GDM wrote: »

I take it from the tone of your post you miss the old Nokia brick kind of phone;)

yea those are the best, they were actually made to last unlike most of the crap from the past 6 years or so. although the blackberry shape with full keyboard isn't half bad either. don't like PDA-style touch screen phones

AlmightyCushion

I had a clamshell before and I found the clamshell design annoyed me. Answering calls was a bit of a pain as it wasn't always easy opening the phone with one hand. Luckily it was a motorola so it wasn't long before it fell apart and I had to buy a new one. I wouldn't buy another clamshell. I'm not a fan of phones that just have a touchscreen and no number pad. Normal style phones or sliders for me (like my new c905 ) from now on.

EdgarAllenPoo

bronte wrote: »

I was just thinking this the other day..will want a new phone soon and was looking for a clamshell. I realized I couldn't think of a single one I'd seen advertised!

Sony Ericsson are bringing out a budget version of the W980 it's the W508 but it's not released yet and I don't know if it'll be available here. There's also the Sony Ericsson T707 (which sounds like what towel401 was talking about) but again I don't know if/when that will be available here. Got a decent review on GSMArena.

AlmightyCushion

GDM wrote: »

Sony Ericsson are bringing out a budget version of the W980 it's the W508 but it's not released yet and I don't know if it'll be available here. There's also the Sony Ericsson T707 (which sounds like what towel401 was talking about) but again I don't know if/when that will be available here. Got a decent review on GSMArena.

If they don't get released here you could always get an unlocked one off ebay.

wandatowell

GDM wrote: »

I take it from the tone of your post you miss the old Nokia brick kind of phone;)

The Blockia 3200 was the best

towel401

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

If they don't get released here you could always get an unlocked one off ebay.

yer probably better off doing that even if some phone company does decide to bring out some crippled version of it

towel401

wandatowell wrote: »

The Blockia 3200 was the best

didn't those break easily or something? i remember one year when everyone had one. and the amount of broken ones was unreal

try the 6810/6800. now that was a daycent phone

AlmightyCushion

towel401 wrote: »

yer probably better off doing that even if some phone company does decide to bring out some crippled version of it

Even some of the phones on ebay are crippled. My c905 had all the vodafone crap on it, a quick debranding sorted that out though.

towel401

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

Even some of the phones on ebay are crippled. My c905 had all the vodafone crap on it, a quick debranding sorted that out though.

nice is it easy to unlock?

AlmightyCushion

towel401 wrote: »

nice is it easy to unlock?

No idea, it was unlocked when I bought it, it just had all the vodafone live crap on it. That was easy to get rid of though.

Owen

I miss clamshells too, herself has the Nokia 6650 Fold, which is a really cool clam, but I'd to import it. My last clam before the iPhone was the n93, and that rocked too.

Walkman

3 is due to launch the Sony Ericsson T707 end of may/early june.

EdgarAllenPoo

Bought the SE W980i today, some may disagree with me here but I have the Nokia 5800 and the 980i is much better.