I have a smart phone.
It's a Motorola Droid. What I really like about it is that it's expensive. It's really satisfying to know that I am spending nearly $200 a month for something that wastes some much of my time. I bought it because I was told that it was less sucky than the previous model. Not so. It does more stuff, but it also does it badly. So since it does more stuff badly than the previous model, it follows that in aggregate, it's worse.
I have already decided that if I were to find myself in a situation where my life depended on this device, I would certainly die.
When somebody calls and I want to add them to my contact list, after I type their name in, the phone will assign them a random phone number.
It has internet and that works fine. It's just that I can't read the screen because the letters are too small. I can of course make the letters bigger but then I have to memorize the stuff that is off screen. For that reason I got the "Jet Pack" which is my own secure mobile hotspot so that I can use a laptop with a screen I can actually read.
When I need help with this device it's easier to drive to the store than go to the website. Which is ironic because when I need to use it to look up some information, it easier to drive home and look in the phone book. Like today, I was looking for a shoe repair place and the phone directed me to Fort Collins, CO, a 2-day drive away.
I went to the Verizon phone store today to find out why this new and improved model takes 3 times as long to start up as the previous model. It turns out, only God knows. And he was off visiting somewhere else. Who can blame him?
Today I lost an App that I'd like to keep. When I touched the icon it merged with another icon and when I touched it again it vanished. I can't get a new one because the Play Store doesn't know who I am. And I don't know how to tell it who I am. In order to sign in I have to use the Gmail App which I also don't have. I do however have a 10 pound sledge hammer. Which may yet come in handy.
It also has such great reminders such as "background information is restricted". Very useful to know, that. I am given other choices of tasks to perform that are meaningless as well.
Remember those Professors who seemed to think that the only class you were taking was theirs and that you didn't eat or sleep or had a life? I think this phone was designed by that sort of person.
Thanks for listening. Regular programming will resume shortly.
Smarmie Doofus
(14,498 posts)And now I know.... neither am I.
K and R
(Hey. Somebody help this guy!)
discntnt_irny_srcsm
(18,475 posts)I think megabucks would be involved in getting a phone without a color camera.
Phones without an internet browser are can only be found in stores that still sell pagers. (Remember them?)
GPS, 411, text, IM, facebook, tweet...
Voice commands, games, banking... all these things are a tremendous collection of, if not sufficiently intuitive, expensive confusion. My phone came with half a dozen apps that I deleted without even thinking about it. The one that's least friendly is the app that lets me download other apps.
I've created my own theme with custom wallpaper. I started the camera app, turned off the flash, held the phone inside my black sock and snapped a picture. It only took 10 minutes to figure out how to set that picture as wall paper.
It does work almost as well as my last phone. It even works okay to make and receive calls.
The visual voice mail interface was apparently designed by a former locksmith/safe mechanic in the pattern of a Where's Waldo interface.
The best part... the user guide is web based and spread across a few gigabytes of tutorial video that tout "gestures", "flow" and "integration".
ThingsGottaChange
(1,200 posts)but, your post was hilarious! Me? I'm sticking with my dumb flip phone. It rings, I talk, I hang up. Simple.
Worried senior
(1,328 posts)Have my $9.99 Tracfone.
astral
(2,531 posts)Constantly installed more apps i did not want, re-enabled the ones i used to have disabled, had me accidentally calling people
Refused to let me hookup to my usual wifi spots, and decided it was the boss of me. Bought a BlackBerry bold 9900 to play with and play music on, and when my LG decided to kill my microphone i just put it away and made the switch. Imagine a phone that does not install spyware, and lets you delete any app you wan, cuz you're the boss of your phone. My bold only cost $175 on ebay and my Z10 only cost $15 more.
Z10 can also do android if u want.
I really dont understand how anybody can stand to use android now, i could never go back.