This is the age of digital convergence where a single device is expected to serve various purposes or perform multiple functions. Apart from the traditional making and receiving calls, mobile phones can perform myriads of functions nowadays like being a digital camera, MP3 player or a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA). If you are a data-conscious individual, by careful selection, you can make use of your mobile phone to guarantee your data availability always.

It beats my imagination when sometimes I see some rich guys invest so much money on powerful phones like Imate Pocket PC or Nokia smartphones, but hardly make use of it for any data function. Apart from the making and receiving of calls, the best they do with such phones is to store addresses and contacts. I will ask myself, “what’s the purpose of getting such an expensive phone?”. It doesn’t take me long to figure out that this people are not Hi-tech but Hi -spends.

Smartphones or PDAs like Pocket PC or Nokia Communicator are designed for data as well as voice communication. With such phone, you can create or edit Microsoft Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, Powerpoint presentations and read PDF documents. You can also install third-party applications to extend the functionalities of your phone. I will like you to know that this post that you are reading is being typed on my Nokia 9300 Communicator, and I started this inside a Taxi.

Qtek 9000, a Computer In Your Pocket

Email & Internet On The Go
You can also configure your smartphone to read and download your emails from your corporate email server, thereby keeping you in-touch with your emails whereever you are. Nowadays that GSM operators are offering GPRS, email and Internet connectivity keeps you connected all the time, whether you are on the road, in the restaurant or in the comfort of your home.

Information is power. Therefore having an Internet-enabled mobile phone is a great asset. As a data-centric person, there is nothing that gives me much confidence than being able to browse the Internet on my Communicator whereever I am. It was a pleasure for me a few days ago when I met a friend at a restaurant and he requested for technical details about a certain product in which he needs to take an immediate decision. I told him to give me 5 minutes. It took less than 3 minutes for me to get the relevant information using my Communicator to access the Google search engine. So, it was a pure joy for me to give him with the details he needed in addition to some reviews from some current users of the same product within reasonable time.

Mobile Reading
Why carry a printed book when you can read an ebook (electronic book)? Different ebook readers for mobile phones are available for free on the Internet. I read my bible on my phone nowadays since I have a Mobipocket King James version of the bible. Besides, I can read both MS Word and PDF documents on my phone. Most documents and web pages I downloaded always end up on my phone to be read at my convenience. This means that I can read and study anytime anywhere. I will also like to repeat again that I typed the whole of this post using MS Word on my Nokia 9300. This is exactly what is being meant to live a data-centric mobile lifestyle.

The conclusion of this post is to highlight the fact that you can make life easier for yourself by having and properly using your smartphone or PDA. There is no use or point carrying a high-tech or powerful PDA phone only to use it to make and receive calls only. You need to learn how to maximise the potentials of your mobile devices. The learning curve is small, but the long-time benefits are enormous. I welcome you to the smart lifestyle of the mobile and data-driven individual who is smart enough to maximise the functionalities of his or her smartphone.

Nokia 9300 Communicator, Internet and Documents On The Go

I will like to give a big thumb-up to Celtel Nigeria (formerly VMobile Nigeria) for improving on their GPRS Internet browsing. Previously, it was nothing to write home about. It was either not working at all or when working it will fail to browse most sites.

New Wine, New Bottle
However, since Celtel took over VMobile, I have noticed a great difference especially in the Celtel GPRS service. Nowadays, it is better, faster and like always available. Above all, it is still free. In fact, the service has been excellent since the morning of this Saturday, 2nd September 2006. I have been browsing the web through Celtel GPRS on my Nokia 9300 Communicator.

Using Google to search is pretty fast

Bigger Downloads
I noticed also that I could download bigger files from the Internet. Before, I discovered that I could not download a file of more than 200kb. However, earlier in the morning, I downloaded a file of more than 400kb, which came as a surprise to me. As of the time of this write-up, I downloaded a file of 1.9MB, which took about 15 minutes to do. It was a Microsoft Word document file, and it opened without any problem on my Nokia 9300 Communicator.

Before, I can only browse in one window of my browser because trying to browse in the second window generated errors on opening the web page. Now, browsing in two or three windows presents no problem on my Communicator as it opens with ease. This makes a lot of difference.

This was unlike Globacom GPRS that restricts you to a maximum of 100kb download. In fact, when I discovered that I could not connect again to the Glo’s GPRS, and failed several times to get through their Customer’s Service, I made a switch to VMobile for GPRS Internet browsing.

If you notice that you cannot browse again on Celtel, you need to delete the old Vactive!WAP settings on your phone and send ‘WapGPRS’ followed with your phone name and model to 184 to get the new settings. For example send “wapgprs nokia 9300″ to 184, omitting the quotation marks, if you are using Nokia 9300 Communicator.

Room for Improvement
Of course, the VMobile GPRS is far from being perfect. It still needs some improvements. I discovered that I could not check my emails on Yahoo! either browsing through full HTML which my phone supports, or through Yahoo! WAP services. I used to get the “System: Connection timed Out” error message. However, I can check my office email online through the web interface, but I still cannot enter Yahoo Mails.

Nevertheless, I say a big bravo to Celtel Nigeria for making my days in the evenings and at weekends when I do not go to work and still needs to browse. I hope they keep up the good work.

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