How to Buy a Mobile

Yesterday, I and a friend of mine were off to buy a mobile, for him. Since he had already made his choice and had even decided on the shop, things were rather smooth for us. No bustling around trying to compare this with that and finally fall prey to the shopkeeper’s theatrical skills.

We were informed that they don’t have any working piece to try our hands-on. So we decided to buy the phone and finally after we did we said we wanted to test the phone at leisure. Being the kind host the shopkeeper was he had no qualms about it and we started looking into this funky gadget one feature after another.

So, the first thing was display. It was cool, good enough and had adequate clarity in it. So we decided to browse through the menus and have a look at the processing speed. It was not so bad after all, but yeah it did get a bit slow while operating the camera. Speaking of the cam, it offered real good resolution; but as expected in most mobiles video quality was so-so.

We took the first picture – one of those frames where all the gods so generously line up one after the other; Lakshmi, Ganesh, Saraswathi, Venkateswara all offered their blessings on the new purchase when they smiled for the camera! Ok that was fun.

But we weren’t through, were we? We decided it was time to listen to some good quality music, especially since this gizmo was specifically designed for that! Unfortunately for us, there were not too many ring tones available. Then I came across a brainwave – “Play the FM man!“. Wow, now that was some cool thinking.

Alas, since the shop was located in the basement, the signal was not that good. Hence we couldn’t enjoy the sound in its full quality/ clarity!

We decided to look up at the other small features and we also made sure we were not being cheated on any accessories that were given to us. After clarifying every minute doubts we had ranging from what this button does, what this feature does, have you provided us a memory card as indicated in the shipment details etc… we were good to go.

That was quick. You know, not one of those saree shopping business that could take all eternity, before the accompanying guy goes mad! We came out of the shop and started walking our way home. We had looked up into everything about the phone, “man that was a great buy! Congrats!”

Now wait a minute was that all? Did we miss something? Cam – check; display – check; surround/ music – check; FM – check; accessories – check; warranty and billing – check. Oh no!

“Hey, check if you are able to make a call da!!“