EE are awful, giffgaff probably have a plan that’ll suit you for cheap.
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I would do terrible things for an HTC Desire Z with an up to date processor. Terrible. Things.
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Indeed, traditional Tracfone handsets keep the airtime balance in the phone, which is why the firmware locks itself to the supplied SIM card (and will reject non-Tracfone SIMs). I’m not so sure how they’re doing things with their new Android handsets that run off Verizon’s network, since when I drank the smartphone Kool-Aid I went with prepaid T-Mobile service.
Since I stay the hell away from Facebook and such, a smartphone isn’t so much of an attention vampire for me, but I find it handy when I have downtime and want to check the news. Overall, my advice would be the “dumb down your smartphone” option. For me, navigation with dynamic routing, and the ability to stream music off my phone via Bluetooth, are the two biggest pluses.
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I am thinking about my own phone needs along the same lines. I am strongly considering the Nokia offerings. Of special interest to me are the models with two sim slots- handy, I’m guessing, when your main carrier is unavailable and you simply must have the ability to make calls.
The problem with dumbing down your iPhone is you still have the battery problem and a big target on your phone for the next wave of script kiddies with time on their hands.
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Now that’s a classical, vintage phone!
This would be a highly tempting, stylish accessory if it was modded into a “handsfree” unit and connected to a normal phone. The extra space can be used for the phone itself (if the antenna is coupled outside of the metal case), and for batteries for the phone.
Whatsapp (supposedly) uses encryption that hasn’t been compromised (unlike regular SMS or MMS).
Whatsapp is a cross-platform texting app, meaning I can text my son from my iPhone to his Android (unlike iMessage).
Whatsapp uses wi-fi or cellular data, meaning it knows no national boundaries (unlike SMS), very useful when traveling or you have friends and family living abroad.
Whatsapp allows you to have a cork-board background.
(Moderator: sorry for the off-topic post; just replying to a response to my earlier post.)
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Some guys like pocket bulge.
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But that doesn’t explain the large number of Android unlocked phones like the BLU Advance selling for under $100. The difference in camera,memory and processor to a top iPhone or Samsung can’t account for a 600% difference.
I have to say, that was one of the joys of my recent smartphone conversion, it just sucked my Outlook contacts out of my Hotmail account when I set up the email, and keeps it synched. No more of the gymnastics I always had to do to backup my contacts, and it’s in the cloud hopefully never to be lost.
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In the search for establishing a healthy relationship with your technology reminds me of Douglas Rushkoff’s book Program or be Programmed
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I’m so glad I could post this with context.
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Does that tiny silhouette of Michael Jordan make a pair of Nikes 3x better than a similar brand? No, but that is a manufacturer premium, not retailer price fixing.
“It costs every company about the same amount to manufacture a phone, he says — the price of an Nvidia processor and a Sharp display is consistent whether HTC, Nokia, or Motorola is signing the check. But those costs are only a small piece of the price you wind up paying when you walk into a Verizon store and buy that phone — which either costs upward of $500 or requires a hefty two-year contract. You’re also paying for Samsung’s nine-figure marketing budget, HTC’s HR department, or Sony’s huge New York City skyscraper. What if you could buy the same high-end phone from a company without all that cruft and overhead? How much would it cost?”
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I was thinking a used phone that sat in a sweaty guy’s front pocket for most of the last decade, but your idea works too.
I’d advise against such choice.
Two words: chloride corrosion.
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This is pretty decent as well, provided you’ve got a buddy who’s fine with accompanying you everywhere:
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Finally a topic that I can comment on with much experience. I used a flip phone for most of my life, and I just switched to a smartphone at the end of 2014.
I stuck with LG phones until about 5 years ago, when Samsung flip phones became more widespread for Verizon customers (and thus better deals when upgrading). I did my research, and settled on a Samsung Convoy 2. It lasted about a year until I accidentally dropped it in a puddle. When I went to a Verizon store to see what could be done, the guy said basically I need a new phone, and because it was still under warranty (for a flip phone! ha!), I could get a free refurbished one. So I did. That refurbished one lasted me for 4 years until I upgraded to a smartphone (for career purposes, since I’m a web developer trying to get into mobile development).
I highly recommend the next one in the lineup, the Convoy 3, which is what I still consider switching back to whenever I feel like this smartphone is taking over my life. The Convoy 2 could do a lot of things, and it was really rugged (even more if you put a case on it like I did). Since I’ve only ever used flipphones, I could text very quickly without looking and without using the T9 predictive text. A list of a few awesome things about it:
- The camera was good enough to take photos when you forget your actual camera.
- There’s a button to just turn on the flash to use as a flashlight.
- There’s a front screen, which when the phone is closed, you could use the music buttons (the phone can play MP3s like smartphones, and has a micro-sd slot for you to load from) to navigate a simple menu, one of which is the camera, so when the phone is closed, the camera turns into selfie camera.
- Since it’s designed to play music well, the speakers are pretty good when you put calls on speaker phone.
- It has blue tooth! (although a lot of flipphones now do) Which means you can actually play music from the phone in your fancy blue tooth input in your car!
- The hinge is very well made. The phone I had before it, an LG VX series, had to be replaced because its hinge snapped after a drop, and you had to hold it together as you open it. The Convoy 2 hinge held up really nicely after multiple drops.
- Last but not least: When closed, you can stand the phone up on its bottom edge, and it spins when vibrating, so the phone literally dances. With the appropriate case on it, it won’t even fall over!
I’m not sure if it’s available for non-Verizon carriers, but the Verizon Samsung OS it used was more than enough for what I needed. It can even access 3G so in a bind, if you had the 500mb data plan that Verizon makes their lowest tiered customers get, you could use the built in browser to actually search for things. And not that it would matter to you, but I always got a kick out of my friends being dumbfounded when I posted a photo to facebook by sending a MMS with a picture attached.
But even with such a hardy phone, constant abuse did take its toll. Around year 3 the vibrating motor died from repeated drops (I had a habit of using my phone as my fiddle toy), and then near the end of year 4 it wasn’t receiving half of text messages sent from smartphones (which everyone except me had).
Man, now I kind of wanna switch back!
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A $100 Blu Advance isn’t comparable to an iPhone or flagship Galaxy device.
A better comparison might be a $300 OnePlus or Xiaomi device.
I had a Blu feature phone for a while last year. It was less capable than the Nokia I had in 2002, with buggy firmware, weird glitches, and no documentation or online support. It also had crappy build quality. On the plus side, it had two GSM slots that worked simultaneously and an SD slot to make up for the lack of any usable internal storage.
But, but, your crops will wither and die.
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I solved my phone probs about 5 years ago - I don’t have one. Ever since Vodafone tried to screw me out of <£3,000, I’ve simply not bothered. Too much hassle. I never used it, so what was the fucking point…?!
