My VOIP (home phone) rate to Thailand is just under $0.01/minute.
My cell rate to Thailand is a whopping $2.29/minute, because I don’t have an international long distance package. With the package, it would be $0.10/minute; the package costs $3.99/month. If I ever made calls outside the NPA regions with it, the package would pay for itself quickly, but I’ve never done so.
A quick glance at another provider’s rate sheet shows calls to Thailand from the US at anything from included (just uses minutes, no extra charge) to $1.99/minute, depending on the plan, but their discount plans are more expensive.
The last time we were out pontooning, the sky’s began to look ominous. The sort of appearance that makes you rush for the marina. I pulled up one of the weather apps on my phone, looked at radar, and knew that we would catch the edge of a quickly moving storm. We stayed on the water for five minutes of wind/rain instead of ending our day.
Ooopsy! When I said I’d never had a smart phone…well, I meant I’ve never had a cell phone. Just a landline. That’s what I thought y’all meant, but I see now you mean ‘last hold out’ to upgrade their cellphone to a smartphone!:smack:
I AM indeed the last holdout - to not have ever owned a cellphone !
I feel a proper dinosaur! But the truth is now everyone has one so there is most always one at hand anyway, should a need crop up!
(I was initially impressed there were so many others like me, only to discover y’all just have older cellphones!)
I don’t wear a watch either, but that’s because of the nature of my job. I’m a baker IRL, and I’d have to keep taking the watch off, putting it on, finding a place to put it when I’m not wearing it. I’d lose it for sure.
I like to wear a watch on airplane flights and at the movies. (I like to check the amount of time between the listed start time and the time the movie actually starts. It’s usually ten to fifteen minutes.)
I don’t like smartphones, because they can be used against me. “Oh, Tripler has email on his phone? We can email him and he’ll respond quickly!” The expectation of responses (in part due to my curiosity) would be crippling. So, my personal phone is an LG “Nokia” lookalike, on a TracFone plan. When I want to call someone, it rings out. When folks call my, it plays its 16-bit ringtone. For all other situations, I wear a watch, a pocketknife, carry a wallet, sometimes bring a compass, cash, or notebook, and can wear a .45. If I want to surf the web, I either bring my tablet or wait until I get hometo hop on a normal computer.
Now, for work, ‘they’ signed a BlackBerry out to me; I don’t think this falls under the category of “SmartPhone”. I use it primarily for phone calls and doing work email. That’s it.
Tripler
Life’s too short to stare at a tiny screen all day playing FarmVille.
No! That’s what everyone assumed. I went from never having any kind of cell phone to the latest and greatest. (My husband’s defination, not mine. :D)
So far, I’ve learned how to get my mail. It’s too small to read and making it big enough means there are three words per page.
I’ve learned to text. It’s like trying to live in a doll house.
I’ve learned to answer the phone. The only time it rang was my husband to see if i could answer it.
I learned to call using FaceTime. I learned to answer FaceTime, because hubby butt dialed me.
It’s not that I can’t learn every “cool” thing it can do, it’s that most of those things I can do on my nice, big computer that has a human-size screen and keyboard.
Based on my brief experience with TracFone about ten years ago, that would probably be partially due to serious problems with their voice mail even working in the first place. I burned a weekend (seriously. SIX calls to their alleged customer service) just getting that IMO basic feature in place.
That weekend is a large part of why I switched to Virgin Mobile as soon as I’d used up the minutes I’d already paid TF for.
Ay, I’m with the older crowd now, I guess - I just cannot see web browsing on a small phone! My son asks me from time to time to get a phone so that he can text me, but I tell him that wouldn’t be good for me, because I couldn’t read it. Oh and I abhor how much time folks spend on their phone, if not talking, then texting or playing games or whatever. I just don’t need or want to be that much available! I do have a go type phone, for emergency purposes only - I can’t tell you the last time I actually used it and by George, I don’t actually recall what the phone number is. :smack:
I too prefer my 21 inch monitor and personal computer, thank you very much.
Another happy dumbphone user checking in. I do a lot of texting, so I splurged and got one with an ittybitty QWERTY keyboard a couple of years ago. However, I do regret losing the Luddite cred of a flip phone.
People sometimes say to me, “If you got a smartphone, you’d LOVE it and never go back!” But that’s exactly what I did. My daughter gave me her Galaxy SII when she upgraded to an iPhone. I used it for a few weeks, then told my carrier to switch me back to the dumbphone.
This old Windows Phone ad perfectly encapsulates how smartphone users look to me.
I have a dumb phone, because I took advantage of a really good deal at Metro several years ago: $25 a month, unlimited talk and text.
To try and make sure that everyone upgrades to more expensive service, the only phone available with this rate will not even transfer pictures you take with the phone to your PC. …but why would you want to, because the phone takes shitty pictures anyway. <sigh>
My dream is to someday have a smartphone, so that I can play “100 Doors.”
I absolutely hate my flip phone. I have to do the multiple-press thing to text. I have to pay for email use if I want to take a picture and xfer to my PC. It’s got annoying side buttons that I accidentally press when I take it out of my pocket to answer calls. All the sudden, I’m on speakerphone and have no idea how to undo it.
But I don’t want a smart phone. It’s too friggin’ expensive. If I get a used phone, it will go obsolete in six months. I don’t need all the bells and whistles. I just want something I can make calls with and not be a money pit. Any suggestions?
Ask your carrier about switching to a “feature phone,” which is their term for a phone that is somewhere between a flip phone and a smartphone. They cost a little more than basic phones, but have QWERTY keyboards for texting, somewhat better cameras, and (usually) a USB port and/or Bluetooth to transfer pictures to your computer.
My old flip phone was constantly going into speakerphone mode with those stupid side keys. This has never happened with the feature phone I use now (which I believe is a Samsung Freeform). The salesman at the carrier’s store discouraged me from getting it (he acted like I was buying a tricycle when I could have a Porsche), but I’ve been pretty happy with it.
I’m 62, and I had no idea how up to date I was. I’ve had a smartphone for as long as there was such a thing. It is with me 24/7 and I never plan to do without one.
Never used it, but did get one great “wrong number”.
Seems this guy has a wonderful idea for a business (but not an actual business plan) and is calling every person he has ever met, trying to sucker someone into financing it.
“No, I’m not John - what number are you dialing”
“OK, but hey! Ive got this really great idea for a new business - do you have a few thousand you’d like to…”.
I kinda wished I had gotten his name/location/business idea. My life went down the tubes, it would have been nice to see him at least try.
Hell, somebody needs a dream to work from time to time - silicon valley is full of surplus parts from dreams that didn’t quite work, or products that sat on the shelf too long.
I decided that the only thing that is ever going to feel right on my belt is a tape measure (maybe a holster).
Well, in getting the phone set up as it’s supposed to be I had to up-grade my OS on my 3 year old iMac. In the process, it up graded Safari.
I HATE this!
It logs me out of everything every session. The only things I had permanent log-ins were my home page, here and one other social site.
Yeah, ok I know it’s safer, but I still liked being lazy.
It also has this big, wide, “Favorites Bar” along the left side that is identical to the one along the top. I don’t need two and I still use the one I’m used to
Who knew a cell phone would ruin a perfectly good browser.
