Challenging Nokia

The email took me by surprise: As a high-profile blogger on Sports Leader and as one of SA’s leading athletes, I have been selected by phone giant Nokia to test their super-expensive N79 cell phone. The catch? I have to look after the phone for two months, using the sleek Polar heart-rate monitor and the stylish arm band, to record and track my fitness regime.

Naturally, I accepted the challenge without daring to tell the Finns that they had the wrong person: I’m a hopelessly inconsistent blogger and my attempts to cycle and jog through the great outdoors hardly qualifies me as an elite athlete.

But it arrived — a beautiful, sleek package of titanium and electronics, with a gentle pulsating light that marks the main menu, a screen that changes colour to match its accessories, and a rather intimidating heart-rate strap which I robustly spat on to get it working.

Since then my relationship with my Nokia has been a bit fraught. It sits in my handbag, pulsing ominously — a not-so-gentle reminder that at some point I have to figure out how it works.

I have tried.

Cheating, naturally, was my first approach, and to a fanfare of internal trumpets and smugness, I handed it over to Ian to figure out on his early morning run — on an average day a Herculean traverse of Joburg’s hills and highways. But my Nokia died before he’d walked out the door — supposedly crashed, but I imagine it shut down in fear of the task that lay ahead.

So I recharged, and spoke to it lovingly, and took it this last weekend on a 4×4 trip up the Wild Coast to Mazeppa Bay. I got past the pulsing buttons and the chameleon colour changes and finally, with a lot of bottom-lip biting got the GPS started. And it worked beautifully — for two hours, my phone valiantly tracked each river crossing, hill climb, and cliff descent. It marked the moments where we stalled, turned back on ourselves, and got lost. But with 2 hours to go it gave in, ironically crashing by the wreck of the Jacaranda. It spent the Super 14 final in my coat pocket, trying to regain its gentle inner glow, while I found mine with plenty of white wine.

So, today marks Phase 3 of trying to meet the expectations of Nokia. I am taking my phone to gym for a spinning class, where my heart rate will move, but I won’t. To its pulsing light I will peddle furiously, while it changes colour and looks smooth.

I will pretend to be an elite athlete, and hopefully, just hopefully it will join in and tell me that I actually am.

Kerryn