Ugh, my not-quite-one-year-old Audiovox SMT 5600 is pretty much broken now. The microphone on the thing doesn’t seem to work reliably now. People can’t hear me talk or I am very, very faint. Too bad, because the phone was pretty nice.

However, one HUGE complaint is that Microsoft’s “synchronization” software only works with Outlook (big surprise there), and the synch software doesn’t store a copy of how you have set up the phone. Before my phone totally broke, I did a hard reset (which erases everything) figuring that I’d at least be able to get my phone set up back once I synched it. No way. My phone was back to its OEM state. Realistically, I would have taken me several hours to re-set up my phone (ring tones, menu look and feel, etc.). Ridiculous! This is just another sad example of the pathetic state of the mobile industry.

So what am I gonna get for a replacement? I’m going on Ebay and am buying an old-school, used Nokia. One without a lot of fancy features, and one that is SMALL. My previous Nokias have been bomber… never giving up the ghost.

Here’s one I’m hoping to get. It’s a “Nokia 8390″:1.

*_Update: 2006-01-05_*
Classic! I forgot I had an AT&T Wireless SIM card in my phone. That’s not gonna work with a locked Cingular phone.

So today I went down to the Cingular store to see if I could get my SIM card changed to a Cingular one. Yeah they could, but only if I started a new account with Cingular and pick a current rate plan. Well, at least I can get a rebate on a new phone. The Ebayed 8390 will be a good back-up phone anyway.

Also turns out that they would have warrantied my SMT 5600 (since it wasn’t yet a year old) if I had not of broken the LCD. That happened the last time the microphone stopped working. Disgusted, I threw it into a plastic storage bin (not even that hard… really…not really a “throw”… more like a shovel pass) full of paper and somehow the phone hit something metal.

However, actually breaking the phone was a good thing because I now have a fully-working phone. If I had not of broken the Audiovox, I would have just kept fiddling with it — barely getting it to work — for a few more months instead of just getting it fixed or replace.

[1(Nokias homepage for the 8390)]http://www.nokiausa.com/phones/8390