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MOBILE EXTRAS
INTRO
Those weird, wacky and sometimes wonderful cellphone
accessories just keep on coming. Rick Maybury whips out his trusty mobiles to sort
the wheat from the chaff...
COPY
TWINCHOICE REPLACEMENT PHONE COVERS £35-£45
To be brutally honest mobile phones are not
the prettiest of things, in fact a lot of them are rather boring little black
boxes. Occasionally a manufacturer
tries to liven up their model ranges with a splash of colour -- usually at a
price -- but what happens if you go off the idea, or fancy a change? Then there’s
all those sad-old phones out there, that have led active lives but are now looking
a little the worse for wear. Here’s a way to ring the changes without going to
the trouble and expense of buying a new phone. It’s a replacement outer casing,
that will rejuvenate your faithful old mobile, making it look like new again, or bring it up to date with a
snazzy new image.
These replacement phone cases come from
Twinchoice, they’ve got styles and shapes to fit most popular makes and models,
including stalwarts like Motorola Flips and TACs, Ericsson 237/337 and the
ever-popular Nokias. Styles range from an outrageous walnut wood finish, to
transparent see-throughs, and our favourite, the Aloha Palmtree!
But first a few words of warning. These are
not removable stick-on cover-ups or slip-ons, they completely replace all or
part of the handset’s original outer casing and as such entail disassembly of
the phone. There’s no quicker way to void your guarantee, and it’s really not a
job you should tackle yourself, even though on some model’s it’s quite easy. On
others you’ll need special tools. Even if you do manage somehow to get your
phone apart, without bending or breaking the little clips and lugs, you could
do untold damage to the fragile microchips and displays inside, so our advice
is not to try it yourself, unless you know what you’re doing, and are prepared
to accept the consequences. Of course getting your local phone merchant to do
it for you is no guarantee either, so bear all that in mind if you’re
considering this kind of rather drastic cosmetic surgery! By the way, make sure
you hang onto the original case, you might want to change it back one day.
That said, the kits we’ve looked at are well made,
and come complete with all the necessary gubbins, including new display
windows, keypads and the necessary trims. The plastic mouldings and components feel
as though they’re made to the same standard as the original, and the fit is generally
very good.
That ‘wooden’ finish is a real eye-catcher,
it’s just a shame they haven’t come up with a matching battery yet. ‘Blue
Emerald’ has a translucence, that changes
colour as the light hits it from different angles. Transparent cases are a lot
of fun, allowing you to see all the widgets inside, but the Aloha Palmtree kit is
the one that’s going to get you and your phone noticed, it’s just a shame this
one only fits little Ericssons.
THE FACTS
Typical Price £35-45,
depending on phone and style
Features replacement
phone covers in wood, transparent and coloured finishes
To fit most
popular models
Contact Twinchoice
Ltd., telephone 0181-503 2613
WHAT CELLPHONE VERDICT 90%
HAMA SAMSONITE CASES, £40
Arguably they’re the most famous name in the
luggage business; the Samsonite logo has been cropping up on a number of other places
lately, including camera and camcorder gadget bags, and now carry-cases for
mobile phones. Samsonite brand cases
are manufactured and distributed by German accessory company Hama, they’ve
produced a range to fit a good assortment of popular phones, the one we’ve been
looking at here is designed for the Nokia 2110, it’s Orange equivalent and the
Philips PR747 clone. All the cases in the range have a recommended selling
price of around £40.
They’re made entirely from leather, but not
the normal soft floppy stuff, this feels like a tougher grade altogether,
though it’s just as thin. It doesn’t have that slightly artificial
essence-of-leather pong either, this smells more like a good quality attaché
case and less like a cheap leather jacket. The finish is excellent, the front
and back are made from green coloured leather, with maroon side panels.
Unfortunately these are not elasticated so it will only take a phone with a
standard battery pack. The phone is kept in place with a top strap that fastens
on to a press-stud on the back.
The neatness of the contrasting blue
stitching is most impressive, this is carried over onto the covered
spring-steel belt clip and detachable wrist strap. The buckle is a quality
item, the only trouble is, it takes a
degree of dexterity and a lot of patience to get it on or off it’s mounting
loop. Something to while away a dull meeting or train journey, perhaps.
All of the holes and panels line up
accurately with the phone. The interior finish is good, with no protrusions or
metal surfaces to scratch your pride and joy. All in all one very respectable
case, however good though it is, we have to say £40 is a lot for a carry case,
even one bearing the Samsonite name!
THE FACTS
Typical Price £39.99
Features two-tone
leather carry case with spring-steel belt clip and detachable wrist strap
To fit most
popular phones
Contact Hama
UK Ltd., telephone (01256) 708110
WHAT CELLPHONE VERDICT 75%
UNIVERSAL VENT MOUNT
We have to admit a certain amount of scepticism
when we first saw this product, though
the thinking behind the GRM Universal Vent Mount is easy to understand. It’s
aimed at anyone who wants to safely install a mobile phone inside their
vehicle, but not drill holes in the dash, or rely on strips of sticky tape to
hold the phone-mount in place. The Vent-mount is designed to attach itself to one
of the car’s air or heater/conditioner vents. On the face of it this sounds
like a really bad idea. After all hot air coming out of a heater vent will cook
the phone, won’t it? Actually no, on many cars it can be positioned out of the
way of the airflow, on others the mount may well get warm, but it’s made from a
fairly heavy grade of ABS plastic and looks as though it can take care of
itself. Since the phone is held in a holder -- a Gripmatic or dedicated cup --
the heat shouldn’t ever reach the phone. In any event it’s usually possible to shut
the vent off, deflect the airflow or block it with a piece of card.
It looks a bit Heath Robinson but the design
has been quite well thought out. The outfit includes the mounting plate, a pair
of stabilising pillars and two clips, that attach themselves to the vanes in
the ventilator grille. The pillars and clips slide into slots moulded in the
mounting plate, they’re a tight fit, presumably to take account of any heating
or cooling effects. Once in place the mounting plate feels quite secure, it’s
certainly not going to fall off of it’s own accord and it takes quite a bit of
effort to remove it again. On the front of the plate there’s a small hook, this
is designed to fit into a slot on the back of the Gripmatic (we wondered what
it was for...), and all of GRM’s other dedicated phone mounts and hang-up cups.
The fit is quite good but on our sample the Gripmatic was slightly loose. It
felt as though it might come off if the car hit a bump at speed. If this mount
was going to be a permanent fitting we’d probably glue or screw the two items
together.
It might not look very pretty, and you might loose
or reduce the output from one of your air vents but provided you have a
suitable place to put it -- bearing in mind the usual advice about positioning
a mobile phone in a car -- it’s a practical alternative to drilling holes in your
dashboard, and a lot more secure than double-sided tape.
THE FACTS
Typical Price £10.00
Features ‘no-holes’
phone mounting bracket
To fit most cars, vans etc.
Contact GRM
Ltd., telephone (01253) 773177
WHAT CELLPHONE VERDICT 95%
DEXTRA IN-CAR CHARGER
One of the most stringent tests we’ve yet
devised for in-car charger leads is the cigar-lighter socket in an F-reg Fiat Uno.
Fiat, for reasons best known to themselves, have designed a socket that spits
out a good proportion of charger plugs, on those that stay in the contact is
often intermittent, which plays havoc with the phone. It can usually be remedied by bending the
spring clips, or inserting a matchstick, to keep it in place, but we’re happy
to report that the Dextra lead passed the Uno test with flying colours.
It did pretty well with the other tests too,
though on the Motorola-fit lead we’ve been trying, it lost a couple of points
by not having an identifying mark or moulding on the accessory plug, so you can
easily see which way round it goes. Full marks for the instructions though,
printed on the insert card inside the plastic carton. This has a clear warning
about not plugging the phone in until after the engine has started (voltage
spikes produced by the starter motor can destroy phones), and there’s no
ambiguity about what the red LED indicator means. It’s also one of the few
chargers we’ve seen that comes with a proper manufacturers guarantee, in fact
Dextra tell us they’re so confident they’re about their chargers, they’re
thinking of giving them lifetime warranties.
The electronics inside the module operates on
a 12 to 24 volt DC supply and delivers a variable charge current, it managed to
take a standard Motorola pack from flat to full in just under an hour. When the
battery is fully charged it reverts to trickle mode. There’s no fuse, instead
it has an electronic safety cut out. Our sample survived a direct short circuit
for five minutes without any ill effects or overheating. Definitely one for
frustrated Fiat Uno owners, and just about anyone else, looking for a fast,
effective and sensibly priced charger lead.
THE FACTS
Typical Price £20.00
Features 12/24
volt operation, built-in electronic fuse, lifetime guarantee
To fit most
makes and models
Contact Dextra,
telephone (01782) 600720
WHAT CELLPHONE VERDICT 93%
TWINCHOICE EV237 ERICSSON VIBRATOR £49
Heard the buzz? Here’s another one of those neat
little gadgets that get you all a-tremble when your mobile phone rings, without
rattling those close to you... This one comes from Twinchoice, it’s the EV237,
a clip-on attachment for Ericsson 237 and 337 handsets. It fits snugly onto the
base of the phone, mating with the feature connector via a set of spring-loaded
contacts. It’s held in place with a couple of retractable hooks; for added
security there’s also a pad of double-sided sticky tape. Inside the little box
there’s a control chip, a few components and one of the tiniest electric motors
you’ve ever seen. On the end of the motor shaft there’s a small unbalanced
weight, when it spins it vibrates, it’s as simple as that. The motor is
activated by an incoming call -- don’t forget to turn off the phone’s ringer --
the vibrations are quite strong and you should be able to feel them through
clothing, alternatively leave it on a hard table top and watch the phone start
to move around.
The upside is that it works well, it’s easy
to fit and simple to use. Minus points include the price -- it’s not especially
cheap -- and it adds an extra 1.5 centimetres to the length of the phone,
making it difficult to get it into a carry case. It also covers up the phone’s accessory
connector, bear in mind also that if you use the sticky tape fixing it’ll be
even harder to remove, if you need to get at those contacts.
THE FACTS
Typical Price £49.00
Features ‘silent
call’ vibrating module
To fit Ericsson
237/337
Contact Twinchoice
Ltd., telephone 0181-503 2613
WHAT CELLPHONE VERDICT 80%
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Ó R. Maybury 1996 2103
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