To Buy or Not to Buy
I hear a lot of people commenting that cell phones don’t last very long…. after only a year or two something breaks and they need to get a new one. This type of a conversation is quite commonly heard in passing on the TTC. My cell phone is around eight years old and continues to work. The reception is not that great, but that may be due to a missing antenna and also the battery life is very poor on the old clunker so I have been considering getting a new phone. The trouble is that I’m not sure what features I want. A camera is a nice feature and they all seem to come with that. Music is nice but I have an iPod. I think a calendar application that syncs with Google calendar would be a helpful feature…but when I asked my friend about which phones have that feature he said the iPhone. The iPhone is very expensive (around $800) and not available in Canada yet. Is the calendar feature worth that much to me? Not at all. My dollar store calendar is cheaper and easier to use and probably the best match for my needs. When I receive an Evite there is a button that allows the invitation details to be imported into Outlook (and only Outlook). Other invitations I receive allow the event to be saved to other applications. At this point calendaring does not seem to be cross compatible so you end up having to write things in manually anyways.
The other features of the iPhone are certainly very enticing. Playing video is great…since I don’t seem to have much time to watch television I could possibly watch shows and movies when I’m on the go. But if I consider the price of it and consider the fact that I’m quite happy just reading books or listening to music and podcasts on my iPod, I realize that it may not just be worth it for me. There is also talk that you may need to sign up with a plan with the iPhone….not a cool incentive for someone like me who uses a $10 pay and talk plan.
I could continue to use my old cell phone and save a lot of money.
There are so many variables …. I’m still thinking?
May 3rd, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Since I have never had a cell phone and probably never will…am not an expert on such topics but I do feel that these, and many other products, are produced cheaply so that the consumer will shortly be buying another and another and another. Wake up.
May 4th, 2008 at 6:43 am
That is so true, but people won’t stop buying cellphones to protest their cheap make. Cellphones are too handy to do away with. Even if you don’t use them to chat they are good for emergencies and informing people that you are delayed in meeting them. Sometimes I have plans to meet someone but we don’t see each other so we just call each other to verify our where abouts so that we can actually find each other. It has saved many a day — definetely worth the $10 per month.