Years ago the term Road Warrior was coined to describe a high tech, always on the road – always connected – business person.
These days that term could probably be used to describe almost any small business owner who uses a smartphone or other device to keep a finger on the pulse of their business, no matter where he or she happens to be.
The big difference between then and now of course is the the cost of staying in touch – fierce competition has driven mobile phone, mobile broadband and mobile data rates downwards – and a plethora of newer, more affordable devices now occupy the market place which was once the sole province of high end PDA’s and palmtop computers.
Among those cheap devices, none comes cheaper than the ZTE F102 a tiny mobile phone offering from the THREE network – now priced at a staggering £19.99 and available from SAVERS chemist stores all over the country!
Yes you did read that last sentence correctly, a sub £20 smartphone available from your local chemist! Talk about something for the weekend!
Having seen a poster for this phone in my local chemist window, it was clear that I needed one! [for need, read want] A ten pound credit voucher tops the phone up for three months on the three network – so having parted with the princely sum of thirty quid I took it home and tried to break it!
I figured that right out of the box you wouldn’t get much for the money, after all £30 hardly buys a decent lunch these days! But I must say the performance of this little black Mars bar has impressed me.
I’m a great advocate of two communication tools Gmail and Skype and this little baby handles both applications in its stride.
Loading up the gmail application produced the familiar mobile email interface, together with all my contacts – all my emails available in my hand in a device that weighs in at an anorexic 80 grams!
And here’s a bonus, by scrolling to the contacts window I could not only view contacts but could click their phone numbers and call them direct from the phone – effectively giving the user a single address book, usable from any location – the road warriors dream!
Calling via the phone of course meant eating into that £10 credit, so Skype was the next application to go on!
Skype works really well on this device, calling Skype to Skype was as clear as a bell and an international call made to a mobile phone in America was crystal clear too.
Skype to Skype calls are of course FREE, and the international call cost just 1.4p per minute using my Skype credit.
My only reservation with the device would be its small size, the screen is pretty clear – but the small keys produced a bit of fumbling about for my sausage sized fingers – that apart, this device is a great low cost way to use Gmail on the move with the added bonus of Skype for long distance calling.
Oh and did I mention you can even view Word Documents sent as attachments in the email interface?
Oh I forgot to mention, you can also use the f102 as a broadband modem, it connects to your laptop via the usb cable – perfect for every emergency!
This little device offers a ton of functionality for a few pounds of cost!
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