Last Wednesday, after careful, clear and balanced thought, i just said to myself, "aww fuck it... " I went into the Cingular store i signed up for the 8525 phone that i outlined in my previous post. This phone could do quite a bit, but whether or not it had Japanese Language Support and ability to work in Japan were questionable.

Well on this day, the guy i had been talking with for the past two weeks had those answers. According to Cingular technical support, the phone does indeed work in Japan. However, Microsoft does not provide any Japanese Language Support for the phone. Though, he didn't stamp out the possibility altogether. His technical guy also explained that with 3rd party software, Japanese Language Support is attainable.

At this point, the phone was pretty much complete and i really didn't want to wait another 2 or 3 weeks of careful, clear and balanced thought before i decide to come back here and probably get it anyways. So i bought it.. huzzah.

But now i have this phone which is basically a laptop. It has Microsoft Office on it for god sakes. As i held it in my hands i thought to myself.. "ok.. this is just a little bit too much. I don't need all of this.. why in the hell WOULD anyone need this amount of stuff on their phone unless they didn't have a laptop."

Buying something so grossly over-kill felt dirty.. i mean, if the thing wasn't a phone, it would be useless to me. i was going against my cheap ass nature, into a realm of wasting money. It feels like their had to be a cheaper sleeker alternative. or something of that nature. latching on unpolished technology is always a waste of money. But whatever.. i can afford it, so where's the harm really. I want a phone that can utilize Japanese and this is what is available to me. :shrugs: Later on in the evening, i started playing around with the phone. Adding in contacts, setting up features.. It really wasn't all that bad... I could get used to using it.

The next day, i decided to take it for a test run.. ya know, Carry it around with me and see how it feels. Hell, if it obstructs my daily comfort level, the thing has got to go. Honestly, it's pretty comfortable. I don't know how big you think it looks from the picture on their site, but it's just as big as my little wallet. The phone i was borrowing from my mom is bigger in 2 out of 3 dimensions.. Of course, this thing is far more fragile than my mom's beast of a phone.

The 8525 had passed my comfort level test, so i guess it'll stay. Now i bring down the whole gadgety feel of the phone to a personalized level and it'll work out just great.

I began looking for some phone software on the Internets of all places.. After typing in "Windows Mobile 5.0 Japanese", the first hit was what i was looking for: http://www.mobem.com/products/cestarwm5.php Mobem Technologies had created Chinese and Japanese support for my operating system. Huzzah... I haven't gotten around to ordering it yet though :/ The next thing i need to find it some weather application to tell me how fricken cold it is outside.

Another feature of the 8525 is that it connects to WiFi connections. In fact, it'll search automatically for them, which is pretty funny. It usually makes a sound when it finds one, but when it's on silent, it'll vibrate. So when i'm driving down the street in my neighborhood, it'll vibrate a couple times because of all the secure connections. How helpful.. ^_^ It's a war-driver's most convenient device. The war-driving vibration is a little difficult than the phone call vibration, so i don't need to go digging in my pockets while i'm driving every time the thing goes off. I haven't gotten any mail on my phone yet, so i'm not quite sure if it'll vibrate for that. I hope it does, though.. I suppose i could test that though...

Anyways, i guess i'm happy with it, even though when my roommates first saw it they said, "that's a phone?! guhhh?" I figure that's going to be a lot of people's reactions ... :/ It needs a more phone-y look.