My Keitai

Everybody knows Japan has the best cell phones. What you're talking on in America is already like 10 years old here. Even little kids have better phones than you. So it is with great shame that I reveal to you my cell phone, or keitai as they say here.

I knew I couldn't afford one of the really cool phones, like the ones with TVs. (You think that antenna looks oddly old-fashioned for a cell phone until you realize it's to pick up TV reception, not phone reception.) But I had no idea that even the cool-looking, feature-bereft phones were still way out of my price range. And given that I'll be leaving after 10 months and will have to break a contract, I had to go with something that wouldn't cause me too many financial headaches come next year.

So this is what I got: a DoCoMo Foma L7041. It was free. It slides open. It has a camera and web access. And it's a bitch and a half to use. Even the girl setting it up for me complained how difficult it was to use. Features are buried in sub-menus and the keys are too small to effectively text.

But hey, free right?

Yeah, but now it's starting to die on me. At least once a week I have to pry open the back and pop out the battery to get it re-started. I see an awkward visit to the DoCoMo store in my near future.

You get what you pay for, I guess.

Comments

[rupan777]

Wow, I've never seen that model before but it indeed does look kind of cheap. It's a full on keitai, right? Not PHS?

[アリッサ]

I don't really understand Japanese phones and the advanced technology they are using. I guess it is because I've never seen one. My mother wants me to have a phone for the month I am there, does that means I'll get one of those cool ones? I don't know. It would be fun experimenting with it.

By the way, what are your key chains?

[Adam]

I'm not sure what you should do about a phone. Maybe rent one? There are no plans for less than a year that I know of, and they stopped selling the pre-pay ones because apparently people were using them to facilitate crime.

The flare on my phone: a Golgo-13 moneky from the monkey park, Ultraman taking a bath in Beppu, and some thing from a capsule I bought in front of a store. Unfortunately Ultraman and the purple thing fell off sometime during a long, drunken barbecue so now I've added two bears to the mix.

[rupan777]

To Alissa,

You won't be able to get a full keitai unless you have a permanent address and bank account over there.

Just get a pay-to-use phone (aka PHS), you can buy one as well as the 'recharger' cards at a convenience store there. It's either that or ask your current provider to put you on a temporary long distance plan. The final option is to get a rental phone at the airport when you arrive.

[Adam]

I've heard that they don't do the pay-to-use phones anymore, at least I haven't seen them anywhere. A fried said they discontinued them to prevent crime.

[アリッサ]

Hm, I'm not sure of the kind of phone I will get but the program I am going through gives a flyer with a company for international cellphones...

I don't know much detail though. Not yet at least.

Thanks for the advice though.

[rupan777]

About the pay-to-use phones, I can imagine that they may have outlawed them. I remember at least a few yakuza/triad incidents involving their use. Maybe they're referring to something else though.