OT; simplifying

[scaredyclassic]

My smartphone contract is now up and I’m getting just a plain phone. Actually just gonna use my old treo for text n talk. It’s part of an effort to cut Internet usage by 95 percent. Heading to bestbuy today to make the break.

Simplify. Kinda become so mainstream an idea it doesn’t really resonate.

But it is something that calls to me.

[Diego Mamani]

Glad to know I’m not alone… I paid $10 for a Go-phone ATT&T phone, no contract. It’s a little flip phone, I also paid $100 for 1000 a minutes that should last me a whole year.

[Coronita]

For my personal phone use (non work related), I just have a voice only plan.

BUT what I do is put a voice only enabled sim card into a smart phone, and leave the wifi on…

If you already have a smartphone, you could just downgrade your account to have voice only.

[Coronita]

[quote=Diego Mamani]Glad to know I’m not alone… I paid $10 for a Go-phone ATT&T phone, no contract. It’s a little flip phone, I also paid $100 for 1000 a minutes that should last me a whole year.[/quote]

Don’t the minutes expire per month if you don’t use them?
That was always my beef with prepaid phones.

[svelte]

My wife and I were in a bar Sat night when a couple of late 20something males were just giddy over a little flip phone one of them had. They kept playing with it.

I think maybe there is a bit of backlash over the complexity and expense of smart phones. Some people are saying screw it.

Me, I’m still addicted to having the internet on my hip 24 hrs a day. At this point in time, I have no intention on turning back. 🙂

[temeculaguy]

I think in some areas of life, simplifying is good, but not so when it comes to phones. Go ahead, pick out your casket, not me. My employer provides me with a blackberry and I hate it, I often forward those call to my iphone. The iphone is simple in many ways, having to text on a flip phone pushing numbers on a number pad multiple times till the correct letter comes up is not my idea of simple, having to enter a password or push “7” to delete a message or be forced to listen to all of my messages to get to the one I want is not simple, it’s a pain in the ass. Don’t run from tech, embrace it. I even have my car’s idrive all figured out and I love it now. I hate driving without nav/live traffic and estimated time of arrival, it sucks. Anything but FIOS feels like dial up to me. Go ahead, let the world get away from you, I will be that guy in the old folks home with 700 channels of porn and sports on his ipad while you read the newspaper and complain about the government. Let’s see who’s room the nurses hang out in.

[CA renter]

We never did get a smart phone. As a matter of fact, we never got text capabilities. My phone plan costs less than $10/month for 20 minutes of talk time, free weekends, free mobile-to-mobile, etc.

For us, it just started to feel like we’re all expected to be “available” 24/7. Sometimes, like in the event of an emergency, it’s important; but we don’t want to be interrupted whenever we’re spending quality time with family or friends, or working, etc. The internet/technology can really suck the time out of one’s life, which can lead to neglecting one’s family, friends, work, etc.

Some tech is really, really useful: the internet (how did we ever live without it?), cell/car phones for emergencies or when you need to meet or locate people in a crowd, etc. But there comes a point when technology becomes your master instead of your servant. IMHO, we’re well beyond that point. There is the privacy issue, as well. AFAIK, my phone can’t specifically track where I am, and there are no advertisements.

Of course, for some people, having a “smart phone” is crucial, and those people would obviously want to have access to all the “latest and greatest,” but do we all need to be interrupted on a regular basis as we go about out days?

[Diego Mamani]

[quote=flu]Don’t the minutes expire per month if you don’t use them?
That was always my beef with prepaid phones.[/quote]
Flu, the minutes don’t expire for a year if you buy $100 worth of them at a time. That’s 1000 minutes, and that’s the case with T-Mobile and AT&T prepaid that I know if. If you buy less than $100, say, only $10 or $50, then the minutes expire after 30 or 60 days, and also the per-minute price is higher.

I hate yapping on the phone. I have a cell so that I can be reached when I’m on the road, and also b/c it’s so hard to find pay phones nowadays. When people call me (or when I call) I get to business right away and then finish the call. If they want to get social and talk about the weather, their pets, or the Padres, I tell them that I have to go, or that the connection is getting weak and I offer to call them back when I get home or office (and then I do call them back from a landline).

That way, the 1000 minutes truly last me a year, easily. To refill you can do it over the phone with your credit card, buy a card from Target, etc. Once I bought the $100 card from eBay for only $94, and no shipping involved: the seller took care of adding the minutes to my account.

[Diego Mamani]

[quote=temeculaguy]I will be that guy in the old folks home with 700 channels of porn and sports on his ipad while you read the newspaper and complain about the government. Let’s see who’s room the nurses hang out in.[/quote]

TG, you’ll afford a much better nursing home if you save and invest all those $1000s you spend on cell phone hardware and service every year. LOL!

[Ren]

Smartphones make life easier, which to me is simplifying. Sure I survived just fine without it, but apps do make you more efficient. A few weeks ago I was on the road (parked) and needed something dry cleaned overnight on a weekend. I googled dry cleaners (don’t need to enter the area, it knows where I am), touched the phone number which puts it in the dialer, called to ask if they could help me. Three calls later I found one, then touched the address to navigate there. Sure, you could do the same thing with a flip phone and pen/paper/GPS, but a smartphone makes it effortless. In the dark ages, I would have needed a phone booth, yellow pages, and a pocketful of quarters.

Not to mention zillowing and calculating mortgages while house hunting, a grocery shopping list sorted by aisle (with pics of the items, which drop to the bottom of the list as they are checked off – the other day it took me 5 minutes to load up $200 worth of stuff), comparing prices and reading reviews while looking at the actual item in the store, IMDB’ing that actress on TV without moving from the couch, etc. It is the most useful tool I own – more useful than my PC, although not as essential.

For those who don’t like to text (me included), those moments when you have no choice become not only bearable but easy. The ringer is off when I’m at my desk or in bed. You are only as accessible as you want to be.

[Ren]

[quote=Diego Mamani]TG, you’ll afford a much better nursing home if you save and invest all those $1000s you spend on cell phone hardware and service every year. LOL![/quote]

I aim a little higher than that, and choose both.

[UCGal]

Add me to the luddite camp. I never went to a data plan. I could never justify the monthly wallet hit.

I have internet access at home and at work. Why do I need it in the car when I’m going to/from work?

When I’m at kids sporting events, I want to pay attention to the kid… not my phone. And if there’s down time waiting for a kid – I always have a library book with me.

I’m cheap… that’s the basic reason.

[Diego Mamani]

[quote=Ren][quote=Diego Mamani]TG, you’ll afford a much better nursing home if you save and invest all those $1000s you spend on cell phone hardware and service every year. LOL![/quote]

I aim a little higher than that, and choose both.[/quote]

My good friend, you realize that the whole discipline of economics wouldn’t exist at all if resources were not limited. Limited resources implies making choices among competing alternative uses. Only in electoral campaign fantasy land it’s possible to have lower taxes and higher expenses…

I’m only half joking; there’s nothing wrong with spending money on something you really like. For me, it’s world travel. I’m aware that money I spent traveling is money that I can’t invest and multiply. I wish you enjoy your smartphone as much as enjoy my (dumb?) travel.

[Ren]

[quote=Diego Mamani]My good friend, you realize that the whole discipline of economics wouldn’t exist at all if resources were not limited.[/quote]

You don’t need unlimited resources to have a smartphone, a nice retirement, and travel (none of which are dumb). It’s not like we’re describing solid gold bathtubs – these things are completely within reason. Besides, I have the attitude that my income shouldn’t determine my goals. My goals determine my income. Luckily I have mostly modest goals. However, if I did anticipate not having enough money, I could sacrifice something I consider to be less important in order to have a smartphone and travel – for example, by living in a couple hundred fewer square feet.

[akbarpunjabi]

For me the $100/year T-mobile plan is almost perfect. I have a smartphone and since I’m near wifi 90% of the time I get “free” texting. I rarely use the phone so .10 a minute is fine for voice calls and texts when im not on wifi. T-mobile changes prepaid options all the time, but this one has been on for years. I can switch on the fly to a pay by the day plan and get all the calls or texts plus 2g internet for $2 or upgrade the internet to 4g/3g(200megs then 2g after that) for $3. I’ve done that a few times over the months when I needed to and its easy to swith back and forth right over my phone. My cell bill over the past fews years has averaged about $7 or $8 a month this way since you can get discounts on the $100 refill card fairly easy.

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