Freedom of an unlocked phone may not be worth it
How would you like a free cellphone? It will cost you only $600.
Granted, that is a loose definition of the word. “Free’’ usually means keeping our wallets folded. But for some, it means the freedom to use a cellphone with the carrier of their choice.
Most of us get deeply discounted phones in exchange for being locked into a two-year contract with Verizon, Sprint, or another carrier. But some people would rather pay full price for an unlocked handset - one that’s open to being used with different carriers - then hook up with whatever carrier offers the best service or price. When a different carrier offers a better deal, they can immediately switch. Ah, now that’s being free.
In the rest of the world, half of all cellphones are sold this way. But only about 5 percent of American wireless phones are sold unlocked. We Yanks love our two-year contracts and our discount phones, but Nokia Corp. of Finland, the world’s leading cellphone maker, is prodding us to change our ways. The company’s online store offers a variety of unlocked phones. You will pay full price, but there are no strings attached; you can pick your own cellular carrier.
But this isn’t as liberating as it sounds. Nokia’s unlocked phones depend on a cellular technology called GSM, which is the standard in about 90 percent of the world. Two of America’s four biggest cell companies, AT&T Inc. and T-Mobile USA, are GSM compatible. But the other two big carriers, Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corp., run an entirely incompatible system called CDMA. So your unlocked phone can access only two of the big four carriers; so much for choice.
Worse yet, America’s two GSM carriers are not fully compatible with each other when it comes to digital data services. An unlocked GSM phone can place and receive voice calls on the T-Mobile or AT&T networks. But the data networks of T-Mobile and AT&T broadcast on different frequencies. So if data access matters, an unlocked phone can still leave you locked in.
It’s hard to see much advantage in buying unlocked phones in the US market. But having had so much success with the concept everywhere else, Nokia is determined to give it a try. The company’s unlocked phones range from the dirt-cheap (about $35) to the eye-wateringly expensive.
At $700 list price, or $600 on Amazon.com, the Nokia N97 costs as much as a decent desktop computer. It’s almost as clunky, too, with a thick, beefy feel in the hands. The N97 weighs only about an ounce more than the iPhone or the Palm Pre, but feels heftier. For the extra weight, you get a big snap-out keyboard that’s far easier to use than the one on the Pre.
But you also get a colorful touchscreen that is something of a pain. To enable handwriting recognition, Nokia chose a different touchscreen technology than Apple uses in the iPhone. With a fingernail or a plastic stylus, you can input text by scribbling it onto the screen. Though the feature works pretty well for writing in English, it’s really intended for buyers who write in Chinese or Japanese. With their thousands of characters, these languages are not easy to write in using a keyboard.
But this stylus-ready screen often ignores the pressure of your fingertips. It’s more of a push screen than a touchscreen because you have to press fairly hard to get any action.
Other N97 features are much friendlier. Unlike the iPhone, it doubles as an external hard drive. Plug it into your personal computer, and you can drag files into the phone’s 32 gigabytes of memory. You can also easily transfer photos taken with the phone’s 5-megapixel still camera with built-in flash, or movies shot with the N97’s video camera.
Also unlike the iPhone, the N97 can run multiple software applications at once - Web browser, e-mail, custom interfaces for Facebook, AccuWeather, GPS navigation. Too bad the clumsy touchscreen makes it difficult to hop from one to another. The multitasking Palm Pre excels at this.
Nokia’s wretchedly named Ovi online store doesn’t have nearly the selection of apps you can get for the iPhone, but what’s there is rather nice. My favorite is Qik, a program that’s destined to be a hit with teenagers and journalists alike. Qik uses the N97’s camera to transmit live video directly to a website. Give the Web address to your friends, and they can watch your adventures as they happen. My test N97 was hooked up to AT&T, giving me full 3G access. The resulting live videos were hardly broadcast quality, but still quite decent.
Of course, Qik and other such goodies are available for cheaper phones, and that’s just as well. Few Americans will pony up $600 or more for a cellular handset, especially when a top-of-the-line iPhone sells for half that. Sure, the iPhone locks you into a two-year contract with AT&T, but I’ve found that saving $300 brings a wonderful feeling of liberation.
Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com. 