Life with Nokia 3110c

Its been a month and some days since I bought my first mobile phone. Its a Nokia 3110c purchased on a memorable date of Sep 11th, 2007. I refrained from blogging that for 2 reasons:

1. I've been an active mobile hater for a long time. I was one of those few without a mobile phone even in a P.G. course. I did not want to change that impression in such a short notice.
2. I had to be familiar with the settings and technicalities of the new handset. Agreed, that I'm familiar with the operation of a mobile phone. But never have I owned one in the past.

The reason I hated mobile phones are plenty − even to the fact that every 'technocretin' has one − even if he does not know all (or any) of its features. People shout through them in all the public places imaginable: buses, road-sides, waiting sheds, et cetera. As if we are interested in why they can't be home on time, or why the boy has to wait another 15 mins for the girl.

Another reason, more of a personal one, is that mobile phones offer limited programming capabilities. Little or no to be frank. Besides, the technical spec for the 3110c (PDF) tells that the handset should not be considered as an entertainment device.

The only video format supported is Nokia 3GPP format. Technically, its a container format for the H.263 video codec and AMR audio codec. I'll blog about my efforts with the tweaking this thingy later.

Here are some things that I learned on the way, during my life with a Nokia handset. You won't find it in the manuals, but they are no life-savers, if that's what you expect.

Some Nokia Control codes. Type in the control codes and you get wonderful results (works on all Nokia models):

NOTE: Not all the codes are written here. Only those I found to be of use and are interesting. The others can be searched for elsewhere. Also, don't expect all the codes to work on all the handsets. They may not.

• *#0000# Displays your phone software version. 1st line phone model, 2nd line software version, 3rd line: software release date, 4th line: Compression type (Don't ask me what. I still don't know what it means.
• *#06# Shows you the IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) number of the handset. Very useful, if the handset gets stolen. Go write it down in any safe place.
• *#7760# It provides the manufacturer's code for the particular handset.
• *#7780# Restore the factory settings for your mobile.
• *#92702689# (*#war0anty#) Displays: 1. Serial number; 2. Date made; 3. Purchase date (allows you to set it, if not set. But cannot change once set); 4. Date of last repair; 5. Life timer.

These are some of my favourites. May not necessarily work on all the models.