12.28.2010 My First Japanese cell phone

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I finally got a cell phone! It’s a Sony Ericson called Urbano Barone that is from the cell phone company au by KDDI and to be honest I am very excited. As you may have already guessed the phone is in Japanese and of course I already am having trouble using it. However, there is an English setting and it is not to difficult to use after a few minutes of tinkering around with it. It is quite amazing with all the features you get such as TV., radio, email, web, and you can use it as a credit card to pay for things in vending machines and at stores. Now I have never had a phone with internet, nor have I had a phone do more than text and call other phones. So when I got this and heard of all the fancy gadgets on it, I was overwhelmed. It even has a camera mode that detects specific bar codes and brings you to a web pages or stores. Now with this all in mind you are probably wondering about the downside. Here’s the thing, with my basic plan that allows internet, radio, TV. and all those gadgets I pay around $12.00 and for using the phone I pay $15.00 so a total of about $30.00 per month is what I pay, for more features and services that I ever had with my American phone. However, there is one small problem, you have to find someone or be with someone who knows how to speak Japanese to fill out the forms and some phone can be a little expensive even with plans and the 2 year contract. My phone alone was about $100.00. Overall, I would easily trade in any one of my past phones, which were terrible to begin with, for this phone.

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