i dont even own a cell phone. its to much intrusion on my personal life. most people i see are glued to that little screen.
I have the basic-est of phones - doesn’t even have a camera. I paid $25 for it. It makes and receives calls and texts. It almost never leaves my car. I don’t need to be constantly connected - heck, I don’t even give out my cell number. I can surf, etc, from the comfort of a desk chair in front of a large screen - why would I want to squint at a hand-sized screen??
Before he retired, my husband had a smart phone with a data package that he used mostly for email at work. It was handy on occasion - like looking up an address or business hours while we were enroute somewhere. But it was never a necessity for that. Granted, sometimes when we’re out at dinner and something comes up that we’d like to Google, we miss having the ability, but again, it was never that big a deal that we couldn’t wait till we got home to check.
Maybe I just not that popular, but I don’t understand people that worry about ‘being so connected’.
My work certainly does not call me or email me on my smart phone. Well, I might get a text from a co worker if she is sick.
Other than that, I get perhaps a dozen text’s a month, and maybe 4-5 phone calls.
People know to not call me on my cell unless it’s important. You want to chat? Call my land line.
As for email, I check it when I want to. But it is probably the one feature I use the most. Don’t have to fire up a computer to check email. I like that.
Transitioning was a great decision for me. I moved from tracfone 2g phone (about $10/month) to virgin mobile 4g smartphone (about $35/month) and it was totally worth it. My phone doubles as my MP3 player now (no need to carry 2 devices), I can get online anytime I want, I can store tons of movies and songs on my phone, etc. The phone functionality isn’t even that important, it is just a pocket computer that also makes phone calls. Having an internet connected pocket computer with decent storage (that also makes phone calls) has been helpful to me.
I’m glad I moved up.
I resisted a smart phone for much longer than everyone around me. I finally gave in after after a hiking trip of all things. People where communicating logistics and route changes on Facebook and email which I had no access to in the white mountains.
After giving in I don’t know how I survived without it.
5.25 inch floppies? Whippersnapper! I remember using 8-inch floppies. They stored about a megabyte, and we *liked *it!
MEGA byte? You, sir, are exposed as a poseur fossil. Even 5.25" disks only held 360Kb!
I’ve only transitioned very recently. Previously I was using a pre-paid phone for years. Pretty much I’d pay $100 for a years worth of phone time and I resisted the move to a smart phone. However I could see how being able to read my home e-mail in work could be useful. (I didn’t want to use company property to do that because it’s none of their damn business and theoretically they could snoop if I used their PC and network to do it.)
However the one thing that really pushed me to the smart phone camp was Waze. To put it bluntly getting stuck in a traffic jam where it took me about 40 minutes to go a couple of miles instead of 8 minutes sucked. Worse was my GPS kept insisting there was no traffic at all. (It in theory has traffic data, you could have fooled me.) When I started taking alternate routes it wanted me to go back to the traffic jam. At the time I was seriously leaning to getting a smart phone but after that I was pretty much set. (Especially since Waze is getting crowd source data in real time about traffic and it’ll only get better as more people use it.)
Why would I need a smart phone? Everybody I know already has one, so if I need to dig up some obscure fact off the Internet, or some such project, all I need do is ask the nearest person and they instantly do it for me.
What a newcomer. I remember when cassette tapes were used to record programs. Took about 20 minutes to load a 30kB program.
This was slightly after I transitioned from slide rules.
I am an IT consultant. I make very good money. My phone is a tax write-off.
What do I have?
I have an AT&T Samsung Rugby 2 tough flip phone that I use on T-Mobile. I don’t use the camera. Texting is turned off - I can’t receive or send them, nor do I want to.
I use the phone to make calls, receive calls, and trade voicemails.
That’s it.
Works for me. I don’t need the internet in my pocket, to be in constant update mode, walking head down, always checking for something new.
Also, the cost of ownership for a smartphone is ridiculous, but we never hear about that.
All of my friends have smartphones and I am happy for them. I don’t, and am happy with that.
An iPhone 5C. So far I really like this thing. Of course any phone that actually worked would have been an improvement, but having internet access so I can check my directions en route makes my life a lot easier.
I had one for a few months and just couldn’t stand paying that much money for a phone so I cancelled my contract & got a cheap flip-phone. US Cellular let me out of the contract with no penalty. I gave the phone to my nephew in law. I have a wifi only ipad and that suits me better.
Check your history scrolls. The double-sided, double-density 8-inchers held up to 1.2 MB. I always demanded the latest and greatest in tech gear.
You are cute. pats the newbie on the head I’m an IT consultant, I make very good money, my phone and computers are tax write-offs. My phone is a clam whose top lights up every minute; I like it because when it falls out of my pocket (as it did again last week) in the car, the lights make it easier to find.
Being the weirdest one in this particular crowd takes a bit more effort than that…
Gettin an iPad next?