Optus Australia Eliminating Bill Shock in New Plans

I was on Facebook when I noticed an ad for Optus which talked about their new rebranding under the old name "Yes". Optus has recently been extremely quiet in advertising and I can't really think of anyone who is with Optus. In fact, the word Optus hasn't crossed my vocabulary for a long time. They are hoping that changes to their plan structures will change that.

Under the new plans, if you exceed your data or call inclusions in your plan, you will be automatically charged at the next plan up from your current plan rather than an "excess charge" which could be up to the hundreds or even thousands of dollars. They will also allow existing customers to change over to these new plans as soon as they are released on 1 July 2013.

Another change is that SMS and MMS will now be free. Plans will be specified in terms of included call minutes and megabytes of download as opposed to an obscure dollar cap amount.

E63 is worth buying again

Slazmo in Australia left a pretty interesting comment today on MyE63 which shows that the true worth of a phone is what you do when you lose it.

Hailing from Australia - lost my e63 after a failed effort to get a fish off a rock wall - the e63 had survived 3 years and two other dunking's. I had to replace my phone however found a brand new e63 still in its original sealed box marked down from $140 down to $88 last weekend... So I got it and now have spare new fascia's and 2 spare batteries - for those weeks away in the bush. Love my trusty e63 and nothing compares on the market today? Whats the story Nokia?? 

How to Make E63 faster

There are some tips that a fellow reader Vicky just left on this blog which may be of some help to other E63 users out there. These tips will make your E63 run faster and let's face it, we will be glad with any help we can get with this!


1) dont use unwanted apps like ''nokia email'' which consumes more ram...
2) dont use antivirus..(most r useless)..consumes ram a lot..
3)keep phone memory rich.. Install apps only on memory card..
4) Note this is dangerous tip, you can over clock ur processor speed from 360 to 500 mhz.. By hacking and editing protected files... you can find out how to do this but googling it

E63 vs E72 on Word Correction and IMAP

One of our fellow E63 users left a comment that I thought was worth highlighting. It is regarding the word auto correction which exists in both the E63 and the E72 but operates "better" on the E63. This is what obakesan had to say -

A point re: auto correct and capitalisation of text. When writing on the E63 there are significant advantages and advanced features in comparison to the E72. I write this as an E63 user coming to the E72 and being agape at the oversight.

1) try writing annoyingly: on the E63 you enter a n n o then you press right navigation to accept the word annoying l y can now be added and you can press space. Should you do this on the E72 pressing right navigation accepts the word and then ly is added to your custom dictionary as a word.

Right

2) I is not capitalised in the sentence when it stands along. John and i went to the shops.

BWAA fail (on two counts). i should be I and now "shops." appears as a new word in your custom dictionary. The E72 just loves to add words into your custom dictionary (such as anything you write with a . or a , after it ... what a joke)

Why did they mung up predictive text on the E72 when a perfectly good system existed on the E63?

IMAP idle ... well written about just google it. The bloody thing disconnects every 5 minutes. Meaning that you can't leave your phone on to reliably be notified as you can on the E63. Pathetic. The equally pathetic responce from Nokia does not hold water. Their arguments revolve around:
1) power use
2) data use

Power use: I have personally verified that more power is NOT consumed (as Nokia claim) both in practice and with the support of some evidence (here http://cjeastwd.blogspot.com/2012/01/nokia-imap-power-use.html?m=1 )

Data use is NOT affected in this because 1) Nokia has a connection manager which keeps the connection open (unlike Android or iPhone). This means for those billed in MB or 100MB increments (as many phone providers do) you are not billed for a MB every 5 minutes (as you would with timed POP and reconnecting your IMAP by schedule) but are instead billed over how much data your phone uses DURING THE CONNECTION. My phone typically uses about 30K for leaving the phone connected to my 2 mail accounts on 3G (or even GPRS) on IMAP idle for about 3 hours.

So, now I have an E72 in perfect condition for sale (and an E63 that I keep using)