Sorry if this sounds like a daft question.

I've got a new mobile phone for the first time in ages (my old one was about 7 years old) and I'm having problems trying to work it out.

When I try to send a text message it comes up with a box that says who it is going to (which I understand) but the same box also says "Validity period: 1 week" - what does this mean? I don't want to actually click to confirm that I want the message sent when I don't know what this means...

The phone is behaving rather differently to my old one.. I've worked out the radio, music player, camera and video (none of which my old phone had) - but am having problems getting it to behave like a phone.

I've tried asking the people in my office and they're as confused as I am...

I haven't seen a phone do this before, so if someone has and gives a definitive answer, then believe them .

In the meantime, my phone puts messages that it has sent into a Sent Box where they stay for 1 week and then get automatically deleted, so it could be that the phone is simply telling you this.

I think it's actually how long the service centre will wait before it gives up trying to deliver the text to the recipient. It's a "lifetime", if you will. So the intended recipient has their phone off for more than a week, it'll give up and they will never receive the message.

So it's not trying to tell me that I can only send texts for a week, or that I have to wait a week before I send texts from the phone, or that the contact I'm sending it to is only valid for 1 week? I've spent ages sorting my contacts list out and wouldn't want to lose it.

You're not a read the manual person then?
Not that it's always helpful.

Nope, it's saying that every text you send, will have a week to get to it's destination before the SC gives up and blackholes it. I'm pretty sure of it. If it asks you this each time you send a text, there must be some way to set a default in the options.

The manual is just a fold-out piece of paper, and it doesn't say much (and I have read it!). It hasn't given me any information on finding characters other than letters for typing (e.g. space took me a while to find because it's in a different place to on my old phone) and doesn't tell you how to delete text when you're typing (worked it out eventually by pressing random buttons) or anything useful like that. I think I'm a bit out of date with mobile phone technology...


Thanks.

My phone (Pretty ancient and very simple) sometines shows a picture of a little cup of tea at the top. I took it to the Carphone Warehouse and asked them what it meant and they asked around and said they didn't know! Made a few comments about how out of date it was too. The symbols comes and goes, but the manual doesn't mention it.

Maybe it's trying to tell you that it wants a rest. I've never seen a cup of tea symbol on a phone...

That will most likely mean that you have a java app running in the background somewhere.

Is it like this...?



It could also indicate what profile you have the phone set to...

it doesn't say java under it and I don't think my phone is complicated enough to run applications (Whatever they might be)

My old phone did this.

what phone is it Flossie?

I've just bought a new phone too, and was surprised to have only a rudimentary manual with it - a fold out sheet like Flossie's. Fortunately, I have a 19 year old in the house at the moment - he is so mobile-savvy, and has sorted out all sorts of things like turning off the hideous noises accompanying every operation, and finding a ringtone I can bear to listen to.

Mine's a Samsung J700i, Flossie. What's yours?

^ that's what I would take it to mean too.

For those of you asking it's from the Walkman series which Sony Ericsson do.

The next trick will to be try and work out how to get my own music onto the phone instead of just having the tracks supplied - it hasn't occured to them that some people might want classical music on their phones...

Just in case you haven't seen it, this site might help you

Thanks everyone.