My adventure at the local T-Mobile store...
 

So I had the N900 loaner from the office and needed to hit up the T-Mobile store to get a new SIM card.

I walk in, they ask if I wanted to trade in my fiefdom to AT&T (I was holding my iPhone in my hand) and move over to T-Mobile... I whip out the N900 and say "I need a new SIM card for this..." and I notice the look of shock on their faces.

About two minutes later, I finally get the inevitable "What is that?"

"You're kidding, right? It's a Nokia N900."

"Is that a phone?"

"Yes. This is... a phone store, right? And besides, this internet tablet with phone capabilities works on your 3G network and not on AT&T's 3G network frequencies."

"Is that a phone?"

"...yes. It's a phone. Made by Nokia."

"We sell that?"

"Not directly. Nokia sells it, Amazon sells it, Dell.com sells it and your network supports it."

"And it needs a SIM card?"

"Yes. It should have been waiting for me. Calling in by Mr. X."

"Oh yeah! We have that right here. But where does it go in?"

"I'll handle that... "

"Can I touch it?"

"Sure. Just don't hit the auto-destruct button."

"IT HAS ONE OF THOSE!?"

"You betcha."

"..." (walks away from N900 slowly)

"I was joking man... you can touch it."

I cannot believe that nobody from T-Mobile, including the district manager who was in the store - the one I scared about the auto-destruct button - hadn't seen a Nokia N900.

Sorry for the boring story. Just had to share...

Re: My adventure at the local T-Mobile store...
 

yeah its a sad truth

Re: My adventure at the local T-Mobile store...
 

LMAO, reminds me of the experiences I had with my N-Gage classic ;D, good times man, good times...

Re: My adventure at the local T-Mobile store...
 

Reminds me of when I walked in to a Nokia official store in Singapore one of the first few days the N900 was available here (I got mine earlier from the US). The store manager proudly said 'I've sold one of these today!'. Just across the shopping center you could see the huge queue of ppl lining up for an iPhone...

Re: My adventure at the local T-Mobile store...
 

Store by me knew everything about this phone and the DM played with it for 30 minutes while i played with his proto hd2

Re: My adventure at the local T-Mobile store...
 

:D Funny story. I still have people calling my N900 an iPhone or Blackberry. Apparently, if it's not a flip phone, it's got to be one of those two.

Re: My adventure at the local T-Mobile store...
 

Same here. First thing people say is that it is an Iphone, and then I open the keyboard and they say "I didn't know the iphone had a keyboard!!!!!!!!"

I was in a Tmobile store playing Quake 3 on my N900 and the sales lady said that "That game is like what I have on my HD2"......I have yet to find anything like Quake 3 for my wifes HD2....

2 years ago I was getting "Whats that!!!" from Tmobile when I would pull out my N82 and use the front cam or play Ngage games..... Go Nokia!

Re: My adventure at the local T-Mobile store...
 

Similar story when I brought my N900 into a T Mobile store. The salesman was wowed, said, "you've got one of those? I've heard about them!", and asked if he could see how it works!

Re: My adventure at the local T-Mobile store...
 

funny thing happened to me as all those who see my n900 ask if it's an iphone, a droid, or an evo...

sad to say that because the u.s. market survives on subsidized phones compared to asia and europe, americans are limited to what network providers offer. they don't know that better devices exist aside from what they see at stores...

Re: My adventure at the local T-Mobile store...
 

With mine I called at&t when I first got it last October and said I need to raise my data plan to a smart phone plan. They asked what phone I had and I told them. I was then told that the only smart phones are either iOs, Blackberry, or Windows Mobile based. Then I was told that for feature phones(dumb phones) I had to get the much cheaper basic data plan. I just said ok and went on paying my $10 a month.

at&t didn't havn't an android phone back then which is why I assume he didn't include it in the last of smart phones. Funny think is I think at&t does some symbian phones but he didn't list them as being smart phones.

Re: My adventure at the local T-Mobile store...
 

ROFL! Similar issue. When I tried to bought a velcro case for it, here in Puerto Rico, the guy at the store was eye watching it without blinking :eek: . Then I told him you can touch it. It won't break. After minutes of skin to phone contact, he even put the kickstand out and place it on the booth, He asked The Magic Question.... Ta da! What is it? :p

PS. The worst part was when he asked, if it's an Iphone clone with a keyboard? :mad: Here in Puerto Rico are many many clones out in the street.

Re: My adventure at the local T-Mobile store...
 

Similar adventure here.

It was back in december of 2009 some weeks after I got my N900.
I was visiting the local MediaMarkt just to check out the mobiles and netbooks.
There was an Ovi event and I asked the (good looking) Ovi-girl if they already have a N900 to test.
She said that no and that it is not available yet.
I swiped out my N900 and asked her what that then is.
She got big eyes. :eek:
"YOU HAVE A N900?????!!!!!111"
I said yes and that I am one of the firsts.
She asked to play with it a little bit since she got only one opportunity for about 2 minutes back at a Nokia training.
Of course, I said and handed her over my N900. I wasted the time playing around with other phones.
After playing around for !half an hour! she came to me and gave it back (she managed to install some games).
She said, that she likes the touchscreen, that is because it is capacitive.
I said no, it is resistive, you can touch it with anything you want, took a cable from a charger and used that as stylus.
She was impressed.
Then I asked her if I could play around with the BH-905 Bluetooth headset (because one hour before I was told by another one that this is not possible since it is a hygiene product).
Without a word she opened a package and gave it to me.
WOW! What a sound!
The whole time she was standing next to me watching my face. :o
After I had anough testing I gave it back and she said that she would like to see me again.
I thought: LIAR!!! You only want to play with my N900!!

Well we never saw us again, but maybe sometime?

Re: My adventure at the local T-Mobile store...
 

funny guys from the states lol. a few months back at school i was messing with my n900 and a guy suddenly says "wow everyone's got an n900" and trust me i've seen it out and about.

where i come from (malta) nokia is kind of the king of phones because of their reliability. If I ask for an HTC most will get confused and that's not mentioning that a smartphone has an OS haha many don't even know what symbian is let alone android or maemo. xD

Re: My adventure at the local T-Mobile store...
 

Sorta contradictory to say Nokia is king in your area but folks don't know what Symbian is...

Re: My adventure at the local T-Mobile store...
 

no not really. most are just non techy people they just buy nokia devices blindly because of their reliability. so no it's not contradictory. they just don't care what's inside as long as there's a nokia logo on the phone

Re: My adventure at the local T-Mobile store...
 

I don't mind admitting that I'm wrong - good point you've made there.

But now it brings up another... what's worse? iSheep or SymbianSheep?

It's rhetorical.

Re: My adventure at the local T-Mobile store...
 

I went into T-Mobile here in Austin to get a new SIM card. The guy had never seen an N900, and (thankfully) handed it to me to pull the back off, but he was not a total ***** like some of you seem to have run into. Actually, I was the one who had a moment of confusion wondering why the sim card slot was empty when he pointed out I was looking in the SD card slot (I really don't open the back that often!).

Re: My adventure at the local T-Mobile store...
 

lol i think the world could without them all iSheep SymbianSheep MeeGoSheep DroidSheep WebOSSheep WinSheep etc...

everyone should just stick to what they actually like and not what they are conditioned to like.

Re: My adventure at the local T-Mobile store...
 

Loved the story!

Re: My adventure at the local T-Mobile store...
 

Unless you're a hermit living in an ice cave, you're already conditioned to like certain things. Trends. Even the hermit is probably conditioned to like certain climate or aesthetics by the way he's lived.

The important thing is for people to understand what they need to achieve in life and make their decisions around it. Including tools purchase such as these.... whether it's just a conscious leisure spending or work tool or a combination of both or whatever...

Conscious, self aware sheeps are okay in my book. As long as they're aware of the condition. There's no real need to trailblaze your own way (is there really such thing nowadays?) just for its own sake.

Re: My adventure at the local T-Mobile store...
 

similar experience at tmobile store.

"I need a tmobile sim so i can play on your 3g network"

"OK, what phone would you like"

"I already have it"

"Where did you buy it?"

"Doesnt matter, just give me a sim on no contract"(yes I am mean and ornery with salespeople)

"Is it a smartphone?"

"It is a nokia n900"

"We don't sell any phones like that, it is not in my computer"

<three person + manager huddle commences for 10 minutes>




Eventually did get a SIM, but definitely felt like a square peg in round hole land :)

Re: My adventure at the local T-Mobile store...
 

are u kidding me??????????????

I work for T-Mobile.... and i have a n900 so yea in here there is ppl that actually knows abt phones, soooooo dont say that, i dont work for a store tough, so i dont know who train them... but usually dealers are very bad at that...

U hurt my feelings lol....

Re: My adventure at the local T-Mobile store...
 

OMG, CYPHERC I really doubt that you work for t-mobile.

Re: My adventure at the local T-Mobile store...
 

These terms apply to people who know what Symbian or OS is.
Here, in Iraq, they call OS the "system", and if you want to buy an LG phone, they will tell you it has a complex system, take Nokia, it's system is much easier, they even don't know what Symbian is or what OS is.
Same goes on with Desktop OS, they think that Windows is the "default" OS everywhere, very very little who aware of other OSs.

Re: My adventure at the local T-Mobile store...
 

Thanks man. I honestly learned something new.

Cool!

Re: My adventure at the local T-Mobile store...
 

mmm ok..........

Re: My adventure at the local T-Mobile store...
 

I love this thread because I love shocking people with my phones. I think the n900 just looks classy, and so that's why it garners so much attention.

When I went to switch from ATT to T-Mobile, the happiest day of my year, none of the employees had seen or heard of the n900 and it was a US corporate store, not an authorized reseller. They were more excited about making the sale than trying to figure out what my phone was, but I got the feeling that they see non T-Mobile branded phones all the time.

Stay classy n900.

Re: My adventure at the local T-Mobile store...
 

I bought a sim card from a Tmobile store not long ago and got efficient, polite, knowledgeable, unawed service. But I didn't bring my N900 with me; I was afraid they wouldn't sell me a prepaid sim if I had.

Re: My adventure at the local T-Mobile store...
 

I shock more people with my N82 than with my N900. Atleast the N900 is mistaken for Iphones and other known recent phones. But the N82....people are like...what is that? and I say....a Nokia N82...and they respond "No seriously....what is that?" "Who are you with (carrier)?" Most people ask me why don't I upgrade to a newer phone since the N82 is "ugly and basic looking". Then I load Quake Trilogy, Ngage game: One, use the front facing camera, turn out the lights and take a picture with Xenon flash, show multitasking, Nalertme motion alarm and show DVD quality (smoother than N900 video) video recordings and tv-out and they ALL go WOW!!!!!!!!!!!! WHERE CAN I GET ONE!!!

I then give a smirk/smile and say "Never judge a phone by its covering"

THEN......I tell them that you have to buy it unlocked.......and they say "Oh........" and change the conversation. :(

Re: My adventure at the local T-Mobile store...
 

I always get is that an Android phone and what carrier are you with. I have had a few girls ask to play with it and they left there number in it which is pretty cool. Most people are amazed with the kickstand more then anything though.

Re: My adventure at the local T-Mobile store...
 

Yesterday, a friend asked me if my N900 was an iPhone 4. I quote myself:
It's twice as thick as an iPhone 4, it's totally black, it has a keyboard, and I'm using a stylus on it. You're an idiot.

Re: My adventure at the local T-Mobile store...
 

Don't forget to mention that it doesn't matter how you hold it...

Re: My adventure at the local T-Mobile store...
 

Here's my story to the tmobile store yesterday to pay my bill. So I walk in get in line to pay, I was up next just so happen the rep asked me which phone I had I said its an unlocked phone and pulled out my phone and he said wow you got an Nokia N900 I said wow you know what kinda phone that is. He said yes he almost got one but went with the nexus one. He asked to see my phone I was about to give it to him but another person came him and I had to go to the gym. So when I was done with the gym I came back and asked another rep was here there cause he really wanted to see my phone so I showed it to him. He played around with it and said the layout and UI is better than his android phone lol. Come to find out here was an big time Nokia user and made some apps for it back in the day and still have his N95 phone. And he has the N800 which he still use til this day even though he has an Ipad. He knew all about maemo. I was just so shocked someone finally after over 8 months of having this phone someone knew what it was lol. But that was my trip to the tmobile store yesterday.