I was getting a little jaded with the mobile device scene this week. Nothing new, nothing original, nothing revolutionary. (It says something about the industry when you expect a revolution every week.) Nokia sent along the new 6070 handset, and though I haven’t given it thorough investigation — that’ll have to wait for next week — it just seems like a well-spec’d tri-band handset.
Yawn. We’ve come to expect new features every iteration of the mobi, and after messaging, integrating video cams, calendaring, Web browsing, e-mail, well, what’s left to jam into your cell phone?
Then, devoted technophile Kathleen Sibley brought my attention to this: The Stunster.
It’s got a decidedly old-school form factor, one-colour LCD, no e-mail, no browsing, no texting. But it has a feature I’ve never seen before in a handset.
Here’s the scenario: You’re walking home. Alone. At night. You hear footfalls behind you. You begin to tremble and sweat. You turn to face a sneering assailant bent on what you don’t know. Would you rather a) pull out your cell phone and dial 911, hoping that the cavalry will arrive in time to save your skin, or 2) pull out your cell phone and run 800,000 volts through the miscreant?
If you own the Stunster, your only option is 2. It doesn’t actually make phone calls. You can’t have everything for $49.95 US.
If the Stunster is pulled away from its wrist strap, a 100 dB alarm goes off and the device goes into safety mode. And it comes with a free leather holster ($10 value!). Just be careful you don’t lose track of which handset is which and render yourself a drooling, twitching mass of Jello when Mom calls on your other line.
Right, we’ve done justice to the yobbo on the street. I’ll do justice to the Nokia 6070 next week.
