See I have a cell phone to do phone calls, and it is also a PDA so I can read ebooks, otherwise I would have to carry around 2 electronic devices. I rarely use the camera function [other than to take a brief clip of mrAru dancing with the cat one morning, solely for amusement purposes of course=) ] and unfortunately to get a phone I can read books on, and use as a phone is pretty much limited to pda type cell phones, which have all teh crap on it I dont use, and unfortunately also do the email internet stuff I can do without.
I need the ebook function because my main entertainment sitting in doctors waiting rooms is reading, and ebooks dont weight anything, and I can cram a couple hundred into my phone which means I dont have to try and carry a bag of books and walk on crutches at the same time. I can just slip the phone into my pocket, and gimp on my way mostly unencumbered.
True, but I like not having to carry another device. I’m not using Verizons GPS service so no additional monthly charge for GPS. I just downloaded the GARMIN application. It was a one time fee of around $100.
I also like to have the GPS when in a hotel room when traveling. Sure, you could carry your car GPS around with you, but this way, I always have it.
It’s also nice to be able to use it as a modem for my netbook. Again, no additional charge. Just the base data plan.
eta - Oh yeah, aruvqan, it’s great as an ebook reader as well.
I’m really not a technological Luddite, but I have no clue what ‘3G’ is or why I should care (although all those folks in the adverts insist that it’s something essential) and most of the smartphones I can think of leave me cold. I’ve got a company supplied Blackberry, and although it allows me to phone, text, surf the web and take photos, it is a decidedly mediocre compromise in the performance of all of those tasks. Trying to read the Dope on the damn thing is particularly painful.
I much prefer the user interface of the iPhone, but the company doesn’t do iPhone’s and I can’t be arsed to spend my own money on one.
I still keep my personal phone (an unassuming LG flipphone) and much prefer it when I need, you know, a phone.
Lynn Bodoni already noted the problem with cameras and recording devices being verboten in some offices for security reasons. I don’t know if anybody makes a phone with some of the other useful things one might want (e.g. GPS, ebook reader) and omits those.
It’s not at all hard to find basic phones without any advanced features. Finding phones with some advanced features but not a camera is harder but not impossible. For example older Blackberry phones like the 8800 have GPS but no phone. In general phones are available in an astonishingly wide array of features,form factors, operating systems and so on. There is no probably no other consumer product with this kind of diversity. The problem, if it exists at all, is more at the carrier end. And even there I think it’s generally possible to buy an unlocked phone without a subsidy and use it with a carrier.
I have a pay-as-you-go extremely basic mobile just in case the car breaks down far from home and I have to call the AA for a tow. Since my only regular long drives are back to the folks for Christmas and the odd family occasion (weddings, funerals…) and I drive a Mercedes. I guess my entry ought to be that I have a cell/mobile phone but I only use its paperweight function.
I’ve had my ten dollar GoPhone for almost two years now. I dropped it last month and it quit working for a few hours, then went right back to perfect. I buy a 15 dollar card every month and I’m good for emergencies. That and using it to keep up with my daughter when we go shopping is the only use I have for them.
I hate texting so much I finally told my daughter not to send me anymore. I guess I’m getting old.
There can be weird situations. My employer (the federal government) will not let me sync my email to a private handheld device. It supplies me with a Blackberry for that purpose, but for cost reasons, that Blackberry is data-only, with no phone plan.
I have two cell phones and I couldn’t tell you the number of either. One lives in the glove box and another in my saddlebags in case the car or bike breaks down. I travel a lot of rural roads and at odd hours; in the case of an emergency or problem they are how I get help. Basically they replaced the old FM I used to carry.
I have a prepaid phone just for emergencies. An iPhone or something like that would be cool and I could afford it, but I really don’t need one and for me it would just be an expensive toy, so I just can’t bring myself to get one.
I’ve found that if I go to the phone store, they’ll have the fancy phones, but if I want a basic phone without all the bells’n’whistles, I’ll have to order it and wait. In fact, that’s how I got my last phone…I browsed in a couple of phone stores, didn’t see one that I liked, couldn’t get the rep to order one, and the rep kept trying to sell me a plan that I didn’t want or need, so I walked out and ordered online. And yes, I complained about the reps online, too.
Oh, and yes, I did need a plan with one particular company, as my husband and daughter have an all-you-can-yak plan with this company. Since my daughter doesn’t have a landline, only a cell, I wanted her to be able to call her mother without spending her minutes. I still have minutes left over, most months.
Same here. Plus the occasional photo. And I do have one game (Tetris) that I play occasionally.
So on a “nut case” scale where 1 = “what’s a phone”, 3 = “calls only”, 8 = fond iPhone user and 10 = “clip my toenails and walk the dog”, I guess I’d be a 4 or 5.
Oh, I should add: part of the reason I am happy with such a low-end phone (and mine’s a nice enough one - the original LG ENv with the full keyboard) is that I do carry a separate PDA, and I have a separate music player (iPod). Each of these devices does a very very good job of its intended purposes, arguably better than a consolidated device. When the PDA finally dies I’ll probably have to switch over to an iPhone or similar (and even then I’ll lose one major function, Quicken that talks to my desktop). But I guess I’ll be around 8 on the scale then.
