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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.
You can not own a television.
Man who does not need bells and whistles says bells and whistles not needed. Story at 11.
News for luddites?
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
This is the most pointless post ever to appear on the /. front page.
I avoided getting a smart phone for a long time, even though I'm surrounded by people with smart phones, because I knew that as soon as I had one it would become indispensable, just like my Visor did, and my Palm, and my iPod, and ... so on.
Now, I have an iPhone, and it's indispensable. Sure, I could manage without it, but I use it all day, every day, and I feel I would be lost without it. And while I know that's an illusion, I also know how my brain works. ... which is why I don't have an iPad yet ...
Apache guy, Open Source enthusiast, runner
This may be a sample size of only one, but I can definitely state that not only do I not need or have a smart phone, I also do not need or have a dumb cell phone.
My landline gets little enough use as it is, and when I need to call outside of my local area, I have more minutes on this prepaid phonecard I keep around than I will ever use.
This space unintentionally left blank.
For others, no.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
My N900 portable computer have phone functionality.
I like the idea of a smart phone, but I have a greater like for 5 to 10 dollars a month for my mobile expenses. At some point I'll get a smart-ish phone, but only when I get the service I want at a nominal fee without some damn 2 year contract.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
But I still want (and have) a smart phone.
Necessity is not the driver of the smart phone market.
forgot the details but having email on the go allowed me to get some deals before others. like buying a condo/coop in NYC and getting a lot of the bidding done over email on the go
overall i don't use it that much but i'm part of a family plan, it's only $30 a month and the device is free after i sell my old iphone/smartphone after 18-24 months
I agree. I have a dumb 2G phone, and a subnotebook if I want to look at the Web or do email. I'm not interested in trying to do input on a dinky screen. If I want to watch a movie, I have a 42" screen at home for that.
Amusingly, the phone I have has a web browser, but if I try to use it for anything, either Sprint's 2G network times out or the browser crashes.
Lying in bed and reading web pages without a bulky laptop (or pants, for that matter) is too good to give up.
As with most things, you only need a smartphone once you have it.
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.
I'm not actually sure if I actually need a phone at all. I spend several orders of magnitude more time on my phone doing other stuff (email, listening to podcasts, general web browsing, GPS navigation, etc) then I do actually using it as a phone.
As such, I'd lose the "phone" long before I lost the "smart".
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
I don't feel any need to own a cell phone, smart or dumb. I have a landline at home. I have a landline at work. I don't need to talk to people on the phone when I'm in my car (and I don't want to endanger myself or others by doing it when I'm driving). I don't need to talk to people on the phone when I'm walking down the street, or shopping, or hiking or riding my bike.
Find free books.
I'm one for distinguishing between 'needs' and 'wants'. The thing to realize is that if you can afford it, fulfilling your 'wants' is a valid exercise, it's what drives like 90% of our economy today.
I had a simple cell phone for years - now I more want a Pad type device that can also act as a phone via bluetooth. Is it a need? Heck, I technically don't need a cell phone in the first place, though a basic plan today is cheaper than the landlines, especially when you figure all my family are long distance at the moment.
I don't read AC A human right
Oops! Nail polish was supposed to reference the fact that nail polish sales go up when the economy tanks because people are looking for cheaper ways to brighten up their lives.
I want to say as a programmer, yes.
However, most of the smart-phones currently being offered are kind of frightful for programming purposes. See, it's the whole tethering aspect which appeals to me, and it's the one thing that I seem to have to most difficulty getting my smart-phone to actually do.
Which brings me to my current project -> getting my Motorola phone to talk to my PC. I'm working on getting the cloak, sacrificial alter, and goat necessary to make this work, only it's on back order because of the holidays.
I am John Hurt.
Most people don't NEED a smartphone. However they WANT a smartphone. Most people also don't know the difference between the two. When enough people have them, the carriers will convince/dictate to you that you NEED a smartphone too. When plain old device service (PODS) is discontinued by the carriers, you will not have a choice but to have a smartphone.
BTW, I claim patent, copyright, and trademark on that acronym. I will sue everyone and Steve Jobs' corpse for 1 Billion dollars if you do not pay my license fee for using that acronym. Even if you are quoting me, you violate the EULA for my acronym.
I had a fairly stupid phone for a long time. Up until about 3 months ago. I would plan ahead using google maps or use my GPS when travelling. However, that doesn't help much when you are walking around a new city. Now that I have a semi-smart phone (BB), planning ahead becomes less necessary and there isn't much risk of having to ask people in a bad (or perhaps bad) neighborhood for directions.
To each their own. You can certainly live without, but it seems like a philosophical stance against technology. Seems like the OP doesn't travel much.
"I assure you a smart phone would not improve my life one bit".
Sorry, but that statement is frankly idiotic. You have NEVER needed a map? Yeah right.
There are a thousand other little ways in which a smartphone improves your life, that's just the most obvious...
Also, most smart phones can be dropped or even accidentally put in water with the same survival rate as your dumb phone.
I can totally understand someone simply not wanting much of a monthly bill, but lets not get absurd about there being no tradeoff for going dumb.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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.
I have an iPhone - wait for it - without a contract. It's on AT&T's GoPhone style pay as you go service.
So once you get past the initial hardware, which then comes down to a typical hardware decision, I get all the fun of a smartphone in places with wifi (work and McDonalds!) but all the low expenses of a prepaid-as-you-go plan.
$100 in phone service lasts me about 4 months.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Seriously. Is this what we're reduced to now? Nobody gives a shit if you don't want a phone with more features. Now fuck off.
A car. I could quit my job, or bike to work and arrive a sweaty mess, or move to a city, or take mass transit for an hour vs 25 minutes of commute. A radio. Music is a luxury nothing more. A home phone. People can write letters like we used to did in my days as a kid. A TV. News is only entertainment and the entertainment isn't even entertaining. Electric lights. Candles work, and who needs to be up after dark falls? Plumbing. There's an outhouse down the block. None of these are necessities, unless you want to have a career. Personally my Job mandates I have a smartphone. (IT). So I need one, as without one, I wouldn't be able to afford food, shelter and clothing right now. Past that there is no place for a Smart Phone on Maslow's hierarchy of needs unless it helps to achieve one or more of them. A cell phone is not very useful when what you need is clean drinking water, but then again not much is.
Replace "phone" with "vagina" in the summary, and bask in my glorious wisdom.
Hey, I don't need expensive hoppy microbrews in my beer fridge, but that doesn't mean I'm going to replace my premium beer with cheap megaswill. If luddites are happy being luddites, good for THEM. Also, get the fuck off my internets.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
How do you spend only $4 a month?
For that price, I might actually get a cell phone.
I did the dumb phone thing for quite a while a couple of years back. I'm not a huge phone talker and i'd use a couple hundred minutes a month. I bought a tracphone for $20 and loaded minutes on it at the rate of about $20-30 a month. If I lost the phone...who cares?
But when I got my current phone...Verizon/Incredible...can't go back. $120 a month easy...I'm getting murdered on that...my biggest single monthly expense. I'll still pay. I'm a sucker, but it just keeps doing way cool shit. This morning I used google navigate to get to a service call at a client i'd never visited. When I pulled into their parking lot, I look down at my phone and there's a picture of g street view of exactly what I'm looking at out the windshield of my car. It was kinda surreal. And worth every penny.
At home using WiFi it synchs with gmail contacts and calender. Thus even on the road all the contact info is available. Reminders and alarm clocks with multiple alarms work. Cheap 5$ apps like Co-Pilot gives you some GPS functionality, directions etc. (Co-Pilot takes a while to get find the satellite and calculate current position, after that it is not too bad). Some simple games, good storage for lots of music and photos etc.
But the best feature is the Wi-fi calling. Most cell companies charge you air-time minutes even if you use the Wi-Fi calling. But that is home base minutes. Not roaming, not interntional. So if you are on a cruise ship or a foreign country with cyber cafe, you can save a bundle on international calls. Cruise ships typically charge 50$ for internet vs $3.95 a minute for cell phone call. International roaming is outrageous. Most foreign cyber cafes give you internet access at about 1$ per hour.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Major freeway tie-up when I needed to catch a plane. Smartphone got me there.
Big problem at work and not near home or work. Smartphone to VPN, ssh and solve it quickly.
200 passwords to keep track of. Smartphone does it.
Dumbphone wouldn't work for any of that.
So if you want to argue that "people don't need smartphones" - I find it kind of nonsensical. If I had to give-up one major feature of my "smartphone", it would probably be the "telephone" piece. If I were to rate in order of importance what I use my iPhone for, I'd have to say:
- Calendar (Shared and synced)
- Notes (Everything from gift ideas, to what kind of light bulbs I have in my house. Some of my notes I've been maintaining and using for YEARS).
- Email
- SMS
- GPS
- Camera
- Games & Entertainment (Yeah - hate to say it - but I kill a LOT of spare time with my iPhone!)
- Facebook
- Mobile Web (Hate to admit it, but the "experience" is still lousy on a small screen)
- Misc. productivity apps
Oh yea...and..
- Telephone
http://www.mobile-phones-uk.org.uk/nokia-c2-01.htm
There you go (not a recommendation necessarily, just the first thing the search engine produced). If you want something like you described, why don't you buy it? What made you go for the touchscreen Android smartphone if what you wanted was something else?
As someone else said earlier in the thread- man who doesn't want bells and whistles complaining about the cost of bells and whistles. I like the extra things my Android phone does- but if I didn't, I wouldn't have spent the money on it.
I had a choice: Buy a $200 bagpipe tuner (the cheap chromatic tuners are all equal tempered, and thus don't work for just-tempered instruments like the great highland bagpipe), and a ~$100 GPS and a $100 ipod and a $20 metronome... or buy one android phone, install gStrings, mobile metronome and PowerAmp (under $10 total) and get more total functionality for the same overall price. That's ignoring the phone aspect, obviously. And the camera. And the e-mail. And the text messaging with a full dvorak keyboard. And the mobile web browser...
Not a sentence!
People that know you - family, friends, work colleagues - need you to have and use toilet paper.
http://www.acetonestudio.com
I have a 10 old retention plan from Sprint that's too good to replace. I get 2500 anytime minutes shared among 5 phones (in 4 different area codes), nights and weekends starting at 7 PM, unlimited long distance, unlimited phone to phone minutes, unlimited texting, unlimited 3G data pack, unlimited photo pack, and an Airave hot spot-all for 110 dollars a month, including all taxes and fees. To change my plan so I could use a smart phone would at least double my monthly cost, si I have the smartest dumb phone I can have, an LG Rumour Touch.
Woo hoo! Someone with a little sense. I had an old Palm treo 850. Nice phone. Had it for years and never used the data end of it. It finally died a few months ago. I ended up buying a Sonim XP3300 because I don't need or want the 'smart' aspect. I just want a phone that I can beat the shit out of, but it will still work. While the Sonim has the capability of web, GPS and other things, I don't consider it smart by any means. I could best describe it as a smart phone that has had a lobotomy.
Why is it that most of the people that I encounter seem to have been shat from the Sphincter of Mediocrity?
No you don't need a smart phone. You also don't need a computer, car, TV, ipod.
For that matter you don't need shoes, a toothbush, medecine or soap.... but damn if they don't make life easier.
Now, for MY job on the other hand, I need this phone. I'm expected to carry this phone and be this 'in touch' at all times. If I'm not, they'll find someone who will. So don't tell me I can do without when responding to email on a timely basis is part of my job.
Thanks
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
I ride the bus to and from work every day. I could carry a dumb phone, plus an mp3 player, plus a netbook, I suppose... but instead I have an original Droid, and it gets all that done in a much smaller and more convenient package, along with GPS navigation, flash drive file transport, encrypted password wallet, and a cheap camera.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
I've got a blackberry :-(
I played the "keep up with the latest phone" game for a long time and then quit cold turkey. After the initial withdrawals.. yes there are real withdrawals, it is amazing how free you feel.. imagine the day you turned in that company beeper.. its like that freedom but 24/7. The addicted will squeel about all manners of why they need them.. For me, it was like shedding shackles.
I can't tell you the number of times my iPhone has allowed me to take the kids to the playground while tending to work stuff. The kids can play, and I can spend 90% of the time playing with them, and 10% answering emails.
The alternative would have been the kids stay home and don't get a workout.
Do I *need* a smartphone? No. But has it saved time enough for everyone in my family to make it worthwhile, and improved family life? Yes. absolutely.
Not anymore it seems...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Ancedote:
My smart phone paid for itself the afternoon I accidentally misconfigured the firewall on the company's ecommerce server (which is in a colo several hours drive from me). Misconfigured as in blocked my own IP address instead of whitelisting it. I was able to download a SSH client, open a terminal session and revert the firewall settings from my phone.
"You want to know how to help your kids? Leave them the fuck alone." -George Carlin
. Is there a cheaper option in the United States?
+5 Funny
Required reading for internet skeptics
FYI, your "wifi-only smartphone" is called an iPod touch.
The problem is that until very recently, Apple had a near monopoly on "Wi-Fi-only smartphones", or "PDAs" as they used to be called, and there weren't any Android counterparts the way there are to the iPhone. That changed a couple months ago when Samsung introduced the Galaxy Player.
I wonder if the anti-smart phone as an unneeded expensive expense people are people with IT careers that have peaked or not.
Are these people cutting edge IT folk still gaining standing in their tech careers or are they older people whose careers have plateaued, at least as far as their technology learning goes?
I mean absolutely no disrespect.
I am an older IT professional ( > 20 years old ) myself. I also think, from a purely rational and financial perspective smart phones are a bad idea.
That is, from a rational & financial perspective.....purely.
A few years ago I noticed my attitudes gravitating toward the conservative/anti-innovation side of things. I was becoming old in my thinking.
I've been working on my attitude since then.
I've been thinking about getting an android. Not to feel a need, but to avoid becoming the old crank who lives slightly out of the loop with everyone else, going on about how he doesn't need email, phones or cars. After all the pony express still delivers letters.
I remember those people from my youth and my vanity will not let me become one of them.
I grew up watching Star Trek and being a sci-fi fan, so I was kind of shocked when I noticed myself not running with technological change.
I got into computers when I was fairly young... well, for the time. I was 13, and Way Back Then not everyone was born already having a computer or three in the house.
And even Way Back Then, one of the dreams, the truly grand dreams that we HOPED we'd ever see but didn't know if would happen in our lifetime, was a truly portable computer that fit in your pocket.
AND NOW I HAVE ONE. It's in my pocket right now. It runs Linux, I can ssh into (and out of) it, it is virtually ALWAYS CONNECTED to yet another of our dreams, the now-ubiquitous Internet, I can TELL IT to search for something and 90% of the time it'll get it right, I can check my email on it, and in rare circumstances, and I mean rare... I can use it to make and receive phone calls.
You know what you should do? STOP CALLING IT A "SMARTPHONE". It's a portable internet-connected computer that happens to be able to make phone calls, and it's AWESOME that something like this even friggin EXISTS. I can't WAIT to see what they look like in 5 years, let alone 10, but unless the thing requires brain surgery I'm sure as hell going to have one.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.