Phones likes, dislikes and wishlists

had a flip phone for years, mostly for emergencies. got an iphone awhile backand wouldn't go back for anything.
it is so handy to have the net at your fingertips anywhere you go.
and now, with car companies charging a monthly fee for gps, that reduces my $25. mo.phone payment to $15., which is only 5 dollars more than the flip phone service back in the day

 

I understand and respect where Light Phone is going.
I don't want to go there with them - mostly because I do not have to.

Just yesterday I finished up at work and did some chores for my CFO.
I returned home to find my 8-year-old granddaughter was over to visit while my sweet daughter and the other two littles were working on her classroom.
Siblings.
Divide and conquer.
When I went to bed some hours later I went to charge my iphonethingy and discovered that I had left it in my truck.

No.
I do not want to go back to a decades-ago world of small neighborhood grocery stores and mom and pop diners just because some people cannot control themselves and eat too much of all the wrong foods thanks to mega-grocery stores and fast food outlets.
I don't wish to plant crops and I'm not really enthralled about equine transportation - or some of their owners, quite frankly.

Besides.
The notion that the world's landfills are bulging from billions of discarded smart phones because their batteries are dead or their screens are broken is counterfactual.
My gracefully aging Samsung 8 from 2017 ago is still fully functional and still worth a buck or two on the open market. I do not use it as a phone but it still serves as an IOT device when I 'want to adult' and use it for apps that aren't available on IOS.
When it dies it will be recycled - as nearly all phones are, eventually.

Apple is the company that I love to hate and hate to love, but I cannot remember an owner who did not trade in their usta-apple for its replacement.
As a matter of fact, the Apples have perfected the GM model of planned obsolescence by combining it with Toyota's marketing strategery of making you buy a "+" model to get some particularly useful option. Those that are trapped behind that gilded wall garden trade out their phones more often than people who use smart phones and like automobiles - they're nearly universally recycled.
Getting most any phone's screen or battery replaced is about as easy as replacing those items on a car, and fortunately, usually scaled to the price of the phone itself.

YMMV....

 

i started with msdos in the 80's. and was a dell guy for years because my company was.
i eventually got tired of buying a new $700. dell every couple years when the crapped out, and tried a macbook because everyone said they were easy to use (which i disagree with) but it did cost 2 grande back in '14, and had better last forever, although the touch pad gets touch in humidity.

so our first smart phone was for my wife for i messaging with the kids, and i took her motorola flip.
at 10 bucks a month for service, i was offered a free iphone se by comcast and $15./mo. service which seemed a great deal for all the features.
i've been reasonably happy with apple, but the do tie you up in knots with the synching between devices and icloud.
i agree that i won't be going back and even bought a new se when the first one crapped out after only 3 years, wasn't too happy about that.
i did give an asus $300. laptop a test drive from amazon, but decided it wasn't worth the learning curve at my age, and of course the phone and ipad synching.

 

I like the old style flip phones. Have no desire to be tethered to the internet- actually find it refreshing to be disconnected and if I am at home I never carry the phone, I leave it in the kitchen and the wife or kids will answer it and get me if it is important.

Young kids are unable to even grasp the concept of growing up when the only phones were landlines that were party lines you shared with 4or 5 other families. I am actually glad I have the experience of growing up before cell phones, computers or constant TV broadcast - I think regular TV used to go off the air at 6 or 7 pm. I don't feel like I 'missed out' on anything by not having those devices.

Recently at a family gathering I had two 30 something people ask me about my flip phone saying they were going to do a 'trial' separation from a smart phone.

Here is my weapon of choice.

 

Having always refused to pay the Apple Tax, I have settled on the Samsung A5n series as a reasonable cell phone. Android, does everything I need with a minimum of fuss. Cheap Verizon plan because of where I live and the dead spots for cheaper alternatives. They last 4+ years at least and I'm not inclined to upgrade until I need to. No replacement batteries is the downside. The only experience I ever had with a battery replacement gave me a notepad that would only charge to 50%. Took it back, they did it again and same result. So I buy on the low end and consider them as items with a limited life. And given that the free OS updates are only for a few years, it is what it is. It gets recycled when the battery dies.

 

As far as I'm concerned the worst mistake is to change horses. Then there's two (or more) big companies harvesting your data. Might as well stick with with the devil you know.

That said, I do appreciate the fact that Apple makes their money on hardware rather than advertising. I have owned and used android phones but never with a google account connected to them.

When I shop for phones (every 4 years or so) my primary criteria are quite simple: what is smaller and lighter than the one I have now?

 

Respect for the choice but if they have a screen and a camera isn't that like buying vodka by the bottle instead of the case because you're afraid of drinking too much.

I gave up on windows after their Fisher-Price themed OS came out and when they started the the whole end-of-life thing.
Apple does the same thing but they at least don't charge you for the OS and they support them for a bit longer.
The deets are a little sketchy but the Apples still seem to be doing security updates (say some) to phones going all the way back to the 6's or 7's.

I still use Windows/Unix daily of course because silly little things like telecommunications gear (AND nucular weapons fire control systems) still use either DOS or early Windows applications.
As a matter of fact one of the enduring battles I fight is being able to use a USB-serial interface since they stopped putting serial connectors on PCs. The technology is decades old but fighting the nebbishes in my IT department who do not trust me with admin rights or the use my USB ports reminds me of Bleachbit and home-brew email servers.

My latest solution involves, literally, digging some Dell D600s out from a storage locker (Telecomm people are hoarders) changing file type or using steganography for the outputted data and emailing the crap back to me.
I'm also considering an RS-232 Bluetooth adapter. Lightning/USB-C adapters will not work of course because of the Apples AND my work phone being remotely administered.

All because of a 6' air gap.

 

I use neither the screen nor the camera - when it rings I open it and answer it - when the call is over I close the phone.

I'm not sure the phone I use even has an operating system.

Try and find a flip phone that doesn't have a screen or camera - especially one that is offered for $5 from your carrier like mine. The plan charges are $15 month for unlimited calls and texts(number of text for me per month = 0)

 

The phone I have is used only as a nod to my wife and kids. That way if they need help, they can get ahold of me. That is really the only people that call me on it other than my brothers and sisters.

We have a traditional home phone and that is what I am most comfortable making calls with.

As I have aged, I probably also need to carry one in case I have a medical emergency.

I should probably admit to also being a confirmed and self-admitted cheapskate.

Basically, I am just a boring old man - I wish there might be a dose of international espionage, secret affairs or even possible living on the edge of the law - but - unfortunately those activities would probably make my blood pressure go too high!

With our kids fascination with technology there are a couple of old Apple Phones - a SE and a second generation SE that they discarded that I could probably reactivate and use but I am just not interested.

 

i mostly use my phone while waiting for a doc visit, which is increasing with every passing year.
it's also nice for taking family pics and sharing them with out of the area friends and relatives, and vice versa

 

Props to MB for not being one of those ACAB types that you see these days.

Seems like a solid guy.
I'm a boomer, so he's not one of my subs but I'll give him a like and a comment if I see him in the tubes.
My phone choices are set in concrete for now and my personal EDC is a 13 - so I expect several more years out of this unit barring any trauma.
Then?
Certified Refurbished Products - Apple

Not likely.
BTDT for the bucket list 30+ years ago and I'm good to go.