How many technology editors does it take to buy a new phone?

It turns out that “Make more people aware of our newsletter competition” was more of an order than a piece of guidance and advice from our bosses. So, here we go, the only way we know how this close to Christmas, when really we could be bothered : By writing random crap.

This is a very strange office sometimes. You have to understand some of the dynamics. Well, one of the dynamics, between the managing editor and the news editor, Aaron and Jane. They get on like a house on fire. Quite often in that exact motion.

It was not, therefore, unusual for this morning to begin with Jane wandering in, new phone in hand, commenting on how her night out had been a disaster (hence the new phone.) Aaron began lambasting her, in his way, for being silly, and a screaming match developed ; which ended in the new phone being fired across a desk, Aaron running away with it and (currently, as we speak) reviewing it in rather phallic terms for the benefit of all who will watch, and now you, our dear readers. Sign up for the newsletter now and you might be able to avoid this circus, as well as being in with a chance to win one of two graphics cards.

The Samsung F-200 is a slim flip phone that was purchased, well, because it was pink. Pink and white, really. And very slim. In fact, now that I think about it, the only reason it was purchased by our intrepid news editor, technology journalist extraordinaire in a world where most sane people spend hours if not days mulling the decision to buy a new phone, the woman who, in fact, wrote a mobile phones buyers guide not so long ago, was because it was thin and pink looking.

Five minutes after arriving in the office, producing it from her pocket and playing with it, she began to complain – and I s*** you not dear reader – that its screen was too small. It’s a tiny flip phone, designed for talking. Jane spends 95 – 99 percent of her mobile telephony life on… Wait for it… Texting. An activity which, generally, requires – or is at least best performed on – a large keypad, with plenty of width, and a screen larger, one hopes, than six matchsticks lined up side-by-side.

Ten minutes after arriving and it fell to me to ring her new phone so as she could figure out how to answer it. The phone flips around in a swivelling motion, not upwards as with clamshells. This has two ramifications it took my colleague a little while to discover : One, the screen will, when the phone flips open, be upside down if she continues to hold it as normal (IE when it’s the right way up closed, it’s going to be the wrong way up if she continues to hold it that way when it opens.) Cue answering a phonecall or two with the mouthpiece at her ear.

The second thing she discovered was that the flip motion is actually quite powerful. If you don’t hang onto the right bit of the phone quite tightly then it will fly out of your hand, into a gutter or similar. Or, in the case of an office, a rather tight, inconveniently located crawl space, made all the worse if you’re the 6ft6’ managing editor called upon, like daddy, to go retrieve it. Twice.

So, in summary, I’m sure it’s a wonderful phone. You can, after all, make all sorts of crude jokes, gestures and insinuations about it. And really, what more do you want from a phone that’s otherwise about as good as a chocolate fireguard to its owner ? But I think I would be neither a good friend nor boss were I not to put some cardinal rules into digital print for Janeymac :

• Don’t buy a phone hungover
• Particularly not if you lost your other phone the previous night whilst acquiring the hangover
• Maybe check and see if somebody found your phone first ? (Not saying anything, but half an hour later, somebody found her phone…)
• Buying a phone because “It’s pretty”, “It looked pretty cool in the shop”, “the nice man told me it was good” or similar is not a good way to buy a phone. Particularly when you’re hungover. And a technology editor who should know better.
• I mean, seriously, look at the size of that thing ?! Jane ?!?!?!?!
• I’m running out of things to say. Please sign up to our newsletter and let me go for my lunch ? If I don’t eat out I think she’ll poison me today.