Do You Really Need a Smart Phone?

Roblimo writes "My phone is as stupid as a phone can be, but you can drop it or get it wet and it will still work. My cellular cost per month is about $4, on average. I've had a cellular phone longer than most people, and I assure you that a smart phone would not improve my life one bit. You, too, might find that you are just as happy with a stupid phone as with a smart one. If nothing else, you'll save money by dumbing down your phone." I stuck with a dumb phone for a long time, but I admit to loving the versatility of my Android phone, for all its imperfections.

Comments

Many smartphone alternatives

[Mean Variance]

There are many alternatives besides the premium plans and phones (iPhone, high end Android).

T-Mobile via WalMart: Android phone for less than $200. 100 mins talk, unlimited data and text for $30/mo.

Pageplus: Bring your own CDMA phone. My kid has a Palm Pixi. If you don't abuse data or use wifi for data, it's cheap.

iPod Touch: That's the way I went. I have a cheap prepaid phone that costs less than $10/mo for my light usage of calls and texts. My iPod is in a wifi zone much of the time where I can leverage apps including free texting.

I'm on the waiting list for Republic Wireless who is trying an iteresting business model for $20/mo. The phone has to have a home zone of wifi. When wifi is available, it uses it. Otherwise data will be used. The phone is a basic Android.

It just takes a little effort and research.

I'm amazed at what people will pay for iPhone plans. Some use the value, but I know plenty who still just use it to call and text mostly paying almost $100/mo.

Water? Pshaw.

[Moridineas]

My phone is as stupid as a phone can be, but you can drop it or get it wet and it will still work.

My two-year-old dropped my iPhone 3gs in the dog's water bowl. From the time I heard the *ploink*, realized what I had heard, and ran to the kitchen and pulled out the phone out, it was completely submerged in disgusting dog water for at least 15-20 seconds.

The touch screen was so wet that I couldn't swipe to unlock in order to power down. The phone was on at least another 1-2 minutes. I finally turned it off (obviously can't pull the battery with an iPhone) and let it dry out for a couple days. On day 2, I put it in a ziploc baggie with some silica gel packets. During the drying process it would occasionally--randomly!--turn itself on with no interaction from me.

After 2 days of drying, it was good as new. Fully functional, no visible damage, screen fine, touch response fine, etc.

I was very impressed.

Re:Needs differ. Duh.

[Dr. Manhattan]

You can try to read a book. A real book. A fiction book.

Holy crap! I have never in my life done that before! I had no idea such a thing was even possible!

(Or, just maybe I load them onto my phone. And save the dead-tree stuff for bedside at home.)