N900 Shanzhai video tour

Quick update, I played with the phone some more, and in Call Settings, I found some funky voice-changer options and background noise you can set to play during a conversation. Those Shanzhai phones always surprise me. I can't wait to get my bro to test this bastard with the voice changer so I can sound like Darth Vader Video capture is good but not great, as for pics, well, they are VGA which means 640*480. No flash either. If you don;t have a digital cam and there's something you want to capture, the N900 does the job. The music player has an hysterically funny in it's ridiculousless guy dancing. What an oddity, seriously, Shanzhai phones are a whole different breed and one that has renewed my interest in cellphones like never before. Next review is my Nokia 8800. Possibly a fake, but I care not, the comments have all been positive about build quality and performance.

Alright... now I'm F'N pissed off. I knew I wasn't going to get my FIDO SIM back since the [insert a very long string of curse words making reference to the worthless dogs at Canada Post], so I activated the spare SIM I had, and that meant I could test the N9-00.

Pop in the fucking SIM, power up the phone. Everytime I see that "Hellow", I cringe. Searching... NO F'N SERVICE. This is supposed to be a TRIBAND and even a QUADBAND according to FP, and the N9-00's BOX. If I trust the box, this phone has 850/1900MHz. Really? Hell, even if it was 900/1800/1900MHz, I should be able to PICK UP THE F'N NETWORK!

So it would seem that FP LIED and sells this phone as TRIBAND, when it's OBVIOUSLY an European phone. A phone that operates only in 900/1800MHz is USELESS.

I also spent more time with the K66. After the N9-00 proved to be a European phone and therefore a letdown, I plonked my SIM in the K66 and made a couple of calls. I tested it at different places, and I reiterate how well-pleased I am with the K66's performance. And by the overall excellent RF, I can safely say that the K66 is a TRUE quadband phone.

Back to the N9-00. I do not usually part with my phones, but this phone is a paperweight to me. If anyone here happens to be looking for an European phone, I can part with the N9-00. It had a blemish on the screen, unfortunately, I carried the phone in my pockets, and forgot I had a flash drive in this pocket as well. Other than that, it's in very good condition, but because of the screen blemish, I'll chop the price a bit. Anyone interested, PM me.

Interesting. It seems that this is indeed a tri-band phone, and that the problem is not what I expected. Rogers bought Fido years ago, and while FIDO SIM cards still point to the now-defunct Microcell network, and this is part of the problem. Newer phones, with a FIDO SIM, will search for the defunct network, then roam on ROGERS. The N900 has BOTH Rogers AND AT&T in the Network Selection menu. In short, the N9-00 does not consider the ROGERS network to be the home network, and when I pop my valid FIDO SIM in, it keeps trying to connect to 302-370 (Network ID# of the old FIDO network) instead of just hopping on 302-720 (the ROGERS network). Bottom line: it's the same network, but some phones require firmware tweaks to work with the integrated networks. The N9-00 would need that tweak, but finding firmware for a Shanzhai phone? I'm not done scrounging the internet...