A friend of mine was so exultant about a new device he had bought this week, that I though he had just bought an iPhone.

"This is simply the best phone ever made," he said. Then I looked. No, it was not an iPhone, but a relatively ancient Nokia 6310i, which had set him back 150 euros. In fact he bought three. "This used to cost 250 euros a year ago and 350 euros before that, what a bargain," he said. "The only reason they are still available on the market is because they are still included as an accessory in new Mercedes cars."

After some investigation I found that the Nokia 6310i has quietly built up a huge fan base, one that might be as rabid as the iPhone crowd. According to one reseller, no other phone in the history of the mobile phone industry has been so successful.

The phone's fan base is still there even though Nokia discontinued making the 6310i four years ago. Now companies on the internet claim to sell new Nokia 6310i handsets. Instead they are refurbished ones. According to one fan site, Mercedes still offers the Nokia 6310i as an alternative to the proprietary MB Motorola V60c phone, depending on the region. The 6310i came to the market in 2000 as a business phone, with e-mail, text and picture messages, Bluetooth, Infrared, WAP and Java applications. The model was updated in 2003, and that's it - no more production for the fans.

Understanding why a cell phone without an MP3 player or a digital camera is still so popular indicates that given the chance, buyers will go for the meat and potatoes instead of the dessert.

Simplicity of design counts, but the phone is also known for its toughness and battery life. This is a no-frills phone where modest users should expect 10 days to two weeks of standby time, according to one reviewer.

Other reviewers (and I had to dig back on the internet to see some of the early ones) cite the phone's high-contrast monochrome display, the lightness of the phone, and ease of use in dialling and texting.

To me the phone felt heavy compared to my tiny, newer Nokia but the heft of it felt good, though it is not something you can easily slip in your pocket. Despite the phone's divergence from the current trends, I believe the features it embodies will come back to the fore, especially as we all now talk about the growing needs of an ageing population.

Think you'll be able to punch up a text easily on your current mobile in 10 or 20 years time while peering at a multicoloured screen? If you're seeing a certain age in sight and still can't afford an iPhone, then think again.

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"Chinese hackers attack Belgium," newspapers in Europe blared out this week. Meanwhile the BBC World Service this week broadcast a feature which revealed, much to my surprise, that Brazil has more phishers and internet con artists than the rest of most of the world.

In the online world, phishing describes attempts to fraudulently acquire personal information - such as usernames, passwords and credit card details - by sending fake e-mails and putting up fake sites masquerading as a trustworthy entity, such as a bank or other business engaged in money transactions.

Phishing initially involves the sending of a sucker e-mail to draw people to the site. Sometimes it just involves an e-mail or instant messaging, purporting to be from your bank and claiming some emergency that needs you to sign in. On the BBC programme, the head of the internet fraud squad said out of the 32 calls the unit gets a day, three to four are classified as serious. Brazil came to the fore as a phishing centre last year after police arrested 55 people suspected of being part of a gang that defrauded about $4.6 million from online bank accounts. Apparently the gang broke into about 200 accounts at six different banks, by infecting internet users' computers with spyware sent to online banking customers via e-mail.

This week, 38 people in the US were charged with phishing as part of a global crime ring based in Romania. Apparently millions have been lost, and millions more will be lost as phishing becomes more sophisticated.

Be careful out there.

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