Mobile Phone Shops Update, Southside Philippines

Some good news for mobile enthusiast along the Zamboanga Peninsula, Nokia N97, the most anticipated phone of the year, can now be bought fare and square with several units available in two of the biggest shops in Zamboanga City, Expressions Mobile and EMC Mobile Center along Shoppers Center Mall, The Gateway. I finally had a grasp on it out of pure luck, it just so happen that when I was in Expressions Mobile, a group of Chinese were on their way to buying a unit and the Sales Representative of the store took out two units, the black and white versions for them to tinker and try. They got the black N97 while I jump in to grab the white one and play with it for awhile with no holds barred even against the amusement of the people around, what matters is the chance to be able to hold it for real. c",

Well, I thought it was very light in the hand, very solid and well built. It looks very classy with its glass like front cover and metal side railing. I even tried to snap the slider several times just to gauge its complexity and indeed it has a sturdy snap as brag by Nokia. The QWERTY buttons were rather great to look at and nice to press though I couldn't feel the tactile feedback of it much compared to my N82, maybe it was because of the height of the buttons but it really doesn't matter much on my part. The user interface is responsive and fast compared to my brothers 5800 Xpressmusic and the widgets on the front screen looks glorious. It has a Clickthecity.com widget pre-installed while the rest was left blank for the users to choose there own. The camera lens cover at the back is a bit off to me because of the possibility for it to loosen up in the future as compared to the mechanism used in N82 but then its a minor issue rather. The menu icons were just similar to the 5800 XpressMusic except for the add on features like N-Gage among others. I knew I like it the very moment it was announced months ago and I like it even more after the hands on. Buying one wouldn't be possible though because of my 5530 XpressMusic unit coming and I'm already set buying N86 8MP. N97 cost at about Php30,995 in Expressions while it cost a hefty 33,400 at EMC via credit card purchase.

Speaking about N86 8MP, it is also very much available in most of the mobile shops in the City. Expressions mobile have dummy phones on display for users to flipped and rugged but I wasn't satisfied with the dummy alone, I head over to EMC to try a real one by tricking the sales rep that I'm interested in buying the phone right there and handed me the black version. The phone was a bit heavy in the hand, also very solid and sturdy. It fells great to hold, has a thinner dimension yet wider than my N82. The slider was smooth and locks in tightly, the screen was very vibrant with its glorious AMOLED, never saw such a clear and crisp screen before, and the glassy like front cover which covers the entire upper slide surface extending to the buttons where alluring and classy to gaze. Makes me want to buy the phone right there and then if only I have enough money to dish out. Unfortunately, I have to wait a few more weeks to finished the cash2go account I incurred with my Mastercard before barging in for another installment. c", Price tag of this phone on Expressions Php24,495.

Other new phones on the shelve, the Nokia 6700 Classic with a Php14,995 price tag at Expressions. This is the most talk about upgrade of the very successful 6300 tagging along a more attractive design, more specs and features feted for royalty. A you can see in the image on the left, the phone was laid in to a throne stand beaming a simple yet classy and elegant design. Added feature includes a 5MP camera with LED flash, accelerometer, FM radio with RDS, Nokia Maps with A-GPS among others.

The astounding 5730 XpressMusic QWERTY phone's dummy starts to prop up rather on Expressions. I love its unique and ambiguous design, and the size of the phone is very much ideal to the hand. When it comes to build quality and slide capability, the dummy phone of course cannot stand up to its original so my description of the phone stops here. According to the Rep, the phone will start selling within the 3rd week of the month with no price point known yet.

I thought this is worth featuring rather, the 5800 XpressMusic booth set up at Expressions Mobile. It was well suited and well budgeted. As you can see in the image left, the booth have two flatscreen TV installed to magnify the phones screen and two working phones laid set for customers to tinker with but enclosed to a wooded casket with only the screen left uncovered and chained down to the wall. Imagine that for a security, I supposed they have a bad experiences in the past of sample phones lost to wilderness, nonetheless the units were still playable yet bulky to carry.

On the other part of Mindanao island, I couldn't see any shadow of N97, N86 8MP and 6700 Classic yet in Ozamis City, Dipolog nor Pagadian City so Zamboanga City is the only way to go mobile phone lovers if you want buy the following handsets within the Peninsula.

Posted in: .Nokia,.Nokia 5730 XpressMusic,.Nokia 6700 Classic,.Nokia N86 8MP,.Nokia N97,Share Mobile Phones