A couple of days ago, a friend of mine (a fellow cellphone technician) had proven for the 30th time that Indonesia is indeed a Dumpster for crappy Nokia Cellphones. I used to think that Nokia Cellphones are good, versatile, and reliable but after this event, i changed my mind a bit.

In Indonesia, Nokia Cellphones (especially the GSM ones) is the most popular brand in the market. Almost everybody uses (or at least had used) a Nokia. Although some of it’s low-end products tend to be unreliable; for instance, in Indonesia, one of the cheapest but latest Nokia is the 1600 (RH-64).

It’s a dual band GSM phone using 900 - 1800 bandwith, and it has one of the crappiest connection. The signal reception is highly unstable. Then, in South America, Nokia issued the 1600b (RH-65), a dual band GSM phone running on 850 - 1900 bandwith.

Both phones are basically the same. The difference would be in the software ID (like i mentioned before RH-64 and RH-65) / product code and the different bandwith of which the 2 phones are running. Otherwise it’s the same phone.

Here’s the story. A guy came to my friend’s shop and said that he has a 1600 which he bought in South America and he couldn’t use it in Indonesia. It was obviously locked by some cellular service provider of the original country.

When my friend tried to unlock the phone he realized one thing while he was checking the phone, it was not a 1600 but in fact an 1600b. He knows that it’ll be useless just to unlock the damn thing and that he had to replace the RF IC, the Antenna Switch IC, and also the filters IC for the phone to be usable in Indonesia.

FYI Indonesia only has 900 - 1800 for the GSM services. He went on and unlocked it, and he replaced the components to get it to work (he’s a pro and he did it many times before).

After he was done, he showed me the result which was rather shocking. The signal reception of the modified 1600b is actually very stable and also very clear (I compared it with a new 1600 he had in his shop using similar providers). The USED and MODIFIED 1600b beats the NEW LOCAL 1600 by far on signal reception quality and strength.

According to my friend, he had unlocked many non local Nokia cellphones and even though he had to modify them to work in Indonesia, the non local ones are always better then the local ones. This event lead the both of us to come to one conclusion. As much as i hate to admit it, Indonesia IS a DUMPSTER for a crappy Nokia cellphones. Thus i’m sticking to my Motorola.