Choosing a Phone and Operator Online

Excerpt from a feature, 2002.

Indonesia's cellular technology and its operators have grown remarkably fast. With a market that keeps expanding, it's no surprise that operators and phone vendors all but race to push their products — and no surprise that consumers end up “confused” about what to choose: which phone make and model, which operator, plus questions about tariffs, roaming zones, and the alphabet soup of services (GSM 900/1800, satellite GSM, AMPS, CDMA, and more).

So where can you get fast, accurate information? The surest way is to visit operators' and vendors' official offices or outlets — but visiting them all takes a lot of time. If you have internet access, the better route is their official websites; most provide reasonably good information. The catch is that an official site only ever sells its own “sauce”: every vendor will say its own products are the most reliable, and you can't expect to compare like-for-like against a competitor there. Say you have a budget of Rp 1 million — which phone can you buy, and what features will it have?

Happily, plenty of creative people offer exactly that kind of independent “total solution.” Among the mobile sites presenting it is www.x-phones.com, which is particularly compelling: it built an engine that compares phones in the same class from different vendors, complete with each one's strengths. It also offers free logos and ringtones, and shows which outlets are nearest you once you've made your choice. So before you go hunting for a phone, look up the full details of the one you're after online first.