[rescue] LCD monitor diagnosis

[Bryan Gurney]

On Fri, 21 Apr 2006 09:00:22 -0400, Sandwich Maker wrote:

> then there's 'feature burnout', a new phenomenon i just heard of,
> apparently most prevalent among the college-age crowd.  lotsa dongles
> and blinkenlights sound really atractive in the store, but when you
> get the **** thing home you wish it would -just-play-music- or
> whatever its main purpose is.  want a mouse pad with clock,
> calculator, etc built in?  so complicated you need an owner's manual
> for a friggin' -mouse-pad-?!?  there is such a beast.
>
> a new yorker cartoon skewered this perfectly a few years ago.  it's of
> a woman asking a salesman 'do you have a phone that doesn't do very
> much?'

This is the 'triumph' of the cell phone marketplace.  Ask for a phone that has a speakerphone, and they give you one with a QVGA screen, a digital camera, and a blue LED ring that lights up when it's charging.  And then some of these phones have complete non-sequitur menus, or even software bugs where the phone will freeze for a little bit after you press a button.

I've found that Nokia's interface is pretty consistent and understandable; my 6015i is great.  Unfortunately Nokia makes too many phones with a "menu joystick" where you have to waste time changing the angle and position of your thumb to go through the menu.  Not to mention that pressing down on the "joystick" doubles as the "Menu / OK" function, so you can't just mash down the joystick and tilt it.  I wish they could've stayed with the D-pad or used five discrete buttons instead of that infernal joystick.