Misplaced brand loyalty

I needed a new batphone. The battery on my old one has finally given up the ghost, so I went to my local and very helpful Vodafone store, extended my contract and came away with another in a long series of Nokias.

I hate mobile phone menus, and I know my way around the Nokia. I want a phone to make phone calls with and send a very occasional text. I use a hands free fully installed car kit and I need voice activated dialling.

The Nokia is fine for that. It says so on the label.

So I tried it out. I paired it with the car kit, and tested it by speaking my son's name. And it dialled a friend in Hull. His name is nothing like my son's. My son is not in Hull. We are friends, though.

Nokia use "intelligent voice recognition" based on the names typed into the phone book.

I called the Nokia hotline.

"Ah," said the very professional gentleman. "Yes," he added. "I have bad news for you," he went on. "All Nokia phones have gone to the intelligent voice recognition system. It is, unfortunately, sub-optimal." It is also non optional, and is, apparently, "progress"

We went on to discuss the virtues of my old 6310i, in which I recorded my own voice tags, and which worked perfectly. He told me that my call was not unusual, and that much feedback had been given to product development. Nokia was, apparently, "working on it."

Vodafone were very sweet, when I went back to the store. I am no longer a Nokia customer. I have a Sony Ericsson now. I confess that it has taken me several hours to understand the menus, but it does what I need. It rings when I get a call, lets me make calls, and lets me send an occasional text message. It has some form of camera which I imagine will be of use after a car crash, and it's small and neat.

It lets me record my own voice tags.

I could have programmed my car kit. But I also drive my wife's car and connect to her car kit. And she drives mine. We need our phones to do the job.

Nokia is, surely, missing the business market with this new system. Those of us who must be in contact while driving must dial hands free. Nice as my friend in Hull is, when I want to speak to him I will dial his number. Nokia seems to think he is my son. I wonder what they know that I don't?