My mom's HP case lights up her entire office when it's idle. There's one square power button on the front of her case, and it's not even made of an LED, it's outlined with blue, and it still freakin lights up the entire office.
My room is thankfully devoid of LEDs.
Are there metal cases that are entirely black or silver? I'm looking at doing something like that. I don't want eyes on my case, I don't want dragons or fairies or anything. I want a simple black or silver case. To me, that's a heck of a lot more imposing than a shiny blue-LED case with a cutout of a dragon, or eyes.
Can we get a mod up or at least some applause for the "Godzilla's Pocket PC" thing? Just the mental picture of Godzilla trying to figure out Pocket PC and cursing Microsoft...
It is debasing the value of human life, in my opinion. It's not about wasting organs, it's about the fact that China kills political prisoners and they shouldn't have those organs in the first place.
Also, it's illegal to buy or sell organs in most countries, so it's contributing to the black market problem.
I don't tend to trust giant companies, and I don't tend to trust Communist governments. That said, I think the lesser evil is Intel, because China can wreak more on several fronts, including the tech industries.
It looks to me like China is whining because things didn't go their way.
I was very happy with Cingular. The only issue I had was that it didn't work where I went to college. Overall, I think Cingular is very easy to use. It's not like Verizon, where ringtones are subscriptions, or by use. For Cingular, one price means one ringtone, for as long as you want it. But because Cingular wasn't working at school, there wasn't a point to having it -- why pay for a service you can't use?
I switched to Verizon and have been very happy with it. It's just a good thing that I've never been too download-crazy when it came to special ringtones and games.
I'm pretty much just like you. I love my camera phone, it's become very handy. Sometimes when I'm out, it's hard to explain to the person I'm talking to what something looks like. Why not take a picture? The MP3 feature is great, and it's a necessity for some people who really can't afford an MP3 player, or who don't have a large collection of music, but they want to listen to music. Or they don't want to carry around a lot of gadgetry, so they can get a phone with MP3 capability.
my phone has a great calendar. It's so basic, I love it. One button takes me to my calendar, where it's by day. All I have to do is go to that day, and put in whatever event I want. Plus, when I get to that month, it tells me how many events I've placed for that month, and it'll highlight the days on the calendar.
It also comes in handy, because I browse in bookstores a lot, and sometimes I don't have a notepad or sheet of paper or even a pen with me to write down the title of a book. I love reading, but I can't buy books all the time. So if I can't write down the title, and won't remember it later, I can take a pic of the book itself and find it at the library later.
Dude, I want a camera with a phone on it. "What kind of phone are you using?" "Nikon."
I understand the practices behind not allowing phones with cameras -- though I would rather companies just understand the possibility that their employees just can't switch phones on a whim because of their service and plan. For instance, I got my phone in November. If I was hired for a job right now, and the employer needed me to change to a phone without a camera, I'd have to say "are you going to pay my fees?" because I can't walk into my carrier and just change phones. It doesn't work that way. So I'd rather companies at least be willing to cough up the dough to pay for their employees' cell phone changes.
You get sharks with frickin' lasers on your cell phone?! Heck I'd pay to get that feature. Might help with the whiners who glare at me for talking on my cell phone quietly on a public street, because I happen to be disrupting them talking loudly on their cell phone, right next to me.
I have my internet at home. I have my internet at the office. When I'm out, I don't have phone booths. I don't have pay phones hanging around everywhere. Maybe pay phones are convenient where you are, but they're not abundant here where I live (very populated suburbian/metro area) simply because cell phones have been so much more common, and the use of pay phones is less, especially with the advent of "pay as you go" programs.
The fact is, you've found other ways more convenient for you to communicate with others -- others, like me, have found that a cell phone makes our communication easier.
I have had a cell phone for years, because it is convenient to use one, rather than hunt for a pay phone. It's also a fact that if I happen to be out at night, and for whatever reason my car breaks down, I'd rather not stray from the safety of my vehicle (especially being a woman) to go find a pay phone, regardless of where I am. Heck, my car might break down in a white picket fence suburb, but I'm not going to see a pay phone, and at this day and age, a stranger asking to enter your home at night always seems suspicious.
The best phone I've ever used was the Motorola T720. Amazing battery life, easy to use UI and it was pretty customizable. It was a very good clamshell design that was fairly small and it had big buttons that were spaced a good distance, so you couldn't accidentally hit a different button. Simple on and off, and central button for menu access. It was a good phone. I accidentally dropped it, and by then it wasn't sold anymore through Cingular.
Hmm. That's odd. When my phone gets put on silent, it's pretty much totally silent. Even when I use my camera, if my phone is on silent, then there's no annoying "click."
Sprint's just taking your money, isn't it? I'm in a similar predicament...sort of. I'm paying a for internet access on my phone, and for some reason or another the service doesn't work at college. I guess the towers just don't allow for it. But it works fine at home, near Washington D.C. So my problem is, is it even worth it to have a service like this if I can't even use it where I am 8 months out of the year? I think it's a pretty crappy thing, and I'm considering cancelling the service, but the only thing pulling me back is that I use the service when I am at home, and it's a heck of a lot easier to check movie times online than it is to call the theater and go through button pushing and automated messaging telling me how to get to their theater and the great popcorn that costs an arm and a leg.
Ugh the Razr. My roomate had that phone on Cingular, and she loves the thing, except for the fact that we don't get Cingular service at college. Oops! I've used the Razr on and off (using her phone), and I don't like it...perhaps it's that I have small hands because I'm only 5'3, but I found it too wide and the keys too hard to push with my thumb, especially since I can't actually stretch my thumb all the way to hit 1, 4, 7 or *. I did want one at first though, before I found it just too wide for my hand.
What's your carrier? I was in San Francisco last week and this week, and I didn't have one dropped call! In fact, I had full service everywhere I went. The lowest signal I ever got was 2 bars.
I agree, I think the user is just as much to blame as the companies. The phone companies are peddling the newest and shiniest phones and ignoring the plain jane phones, but they at least have a reason: profit. The people who buy them, then complain they're too hard to use, have no excuse. They bought into the idea, and they expect fairly competent technology to comply to their standards. Granted, I've used a lot of phones that are horrible and no amount of wizardry can make them become good phones, but I've also used a lot of really good phones which stump other people.
I think the key is not exactly to get a phone that is basic, it is to get a phone that suits your needs and your standards. Don't expect the phone to become simpler, it won't. But find the one that you're comfortable with using. I love my phone. It has all the bells and whistles and I can use it just as fast as any of my friends with a plain jane. The reason? I've picked a phone that suited my needs and my standards. If everyone else did too, there wouldn't be all this complaining about phones that aren't easy to use.
My Samsung works very well as an MP3 player. It uses transflash/microSD to store data, and it slips right into the phone, so the amount of music you want on your phone varies by how much you're willing to spend on a microSD card. I also have a camera and internet access, and AIM. I don't use AIM, because isn't that practically the same as texting someone anyway? and I only use internet access to check movie times. That said, the mp3 works extremely well and the audio is surprisingly good.
Also, I believe my Samsung does set their clock from the network. I took a trip to the West Coast last week, and my phone switched right away from EST to pacific. I use Verizon, and my parents are both on Cingular. My mother's Samsung didn't, but my dad's Motorola did.
What phone do you use? I use Verizon and I have never had problems with menus coming up too slowly. In fact, reading your post, I picked up my phone and flipped through all of my menus within 5 seconds. Each menu came up instantaneously.
Case in point. I used to have Cingular, and I was a happy customer. The town where I go to college doesn't have Cingular phone towers, thus my poor Motorola didn't work in that town. I happen to accidentally drop my Motorola and it breaks...actually, it still worked, but I had to hold both pieces of the clamshell together. By then I might as well have been duct taping it back together.
I go home for Thanksgiving, head into Verizon. The Verizon phone I have (Samsung SCH-a90) is massive compared to the Motorola I had. It was wider, longer, and thicker, all around. I'm very happy with my phone, but the thing was, Verizon does not sell small phones, whereas Cingular has a lot of very small phones.
The LG C1300i Cingular sent me was hands down, the worst phone I have ever used. The Ericsson I had ten years ago was better than the LG. It was way too tiny, the clamshell design was stiff, and the antenna was practically half as long as the phone itself. The keys were stiff and it took at least 3 keystrokes to get anywhere. The screen was too tiny, the font was too big, and I couldn't search my phonebook. Of course, that might have been because I became so frustrated with it that I opted to use my phone as less as possible, rather than just deal with the horrible interface.
What's really funny to me is that I have a Samsung SCH-a90 (also known as the red phone) and there's a button on the side of my phone too, that also turns on the camera. Except no amount of pressing will get my camera to turn on, so I don't think that is really supposed to happen. You might want to get your Samsung looked at, because my camera won't turn on when the cell is closed. I can, however, turn on the camera if I open up the phone, press the side button, and close the phone after the camera turns on. I guess it's a way to take self portraits.
It takes 5 keystrokes to get to my alarm settings. I actually prefer this, because then I can't turn on or off an alarm with one button. I would rather my phone not go off in the middle of a class.
The thing with searching by number is that you'd have to actually know the number. And if you know the number, wouldn't you also pretty much know the name? It's rare that I know 555-6978 but I won't know who it belongs to.
I highly recommend the SCH-a90. Apparently they've resolved the volume problem because I can change the ringtone using the side volume rocker. It even gives you the option to play the ringtone to see just precisely how loud it is. I've never used the menu within the phone interface itself to change the volume.
Okay, so you start to list your credentials, and you present yourself as fairly competent to handle practically any gadget that meets your hands, but then you find the iPod and blame the device itself for your ineptitude? Arguably, the first few generations of iPods were bulky and not as elegant as the current generation, but if people who lead much simpler lives, and aren't used to high-tech lifestyle as you claim you are accustomed to can handle working an iPod with total ease, aren't you really saying that you aren't proficient at using the iPod, and it's not a problem with the product itself? And because you've worked with whatever other gadgets with comfort and ease, it means you should be able to handle everything that comes your way, and when you can't seem to use a simple iPod interface, you blame the device.
I've had my iPod for about 7 or 8 months now. I have a 30gb video iPod and I've bought maybe...4 songs off of iTMS? Maybe 4? These are 4 songs out of the 15,000 I have on my computer, all from before iTMS. I don't consider it a great evil to have bought from iTMS, though admittedly, my favorite method of procuring music is to look at the other users sharing on my network (at college) and using myTunes to get their music. I certainly didn't buy the iPod thinking that iTMS or even iTunes itself was such an advantage. I, like others have mentioned, bought it because it was a good piece of technology that did its job well.
The appeal of iTunes is pretty simple. It's clean and simple to use. It's great technology but it presents itself as being very simple and utilitarian. It hides its complexity by making itself simple, and other programs tend to brag about how awesomely complex their software is, and that confuses the average joe and jane.
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The actual article is housed at The Baton Rouge Advocate online.
There can only be one, Highlander!
That Hello Kitty keyboard definitely spells "hardcore."
My room is thankfully devoid of LEDs.
Are there metal cases that are entirely black or silver? I'm looking at doing something like that. I don't want eyes on my case, I don't want dragons or fairies or anything. I want a simple black or silver case. To me, that's a heck of a lot more imposing than a shiny blue-LED case with a cutout of a dragon, or eyes.
Can we get a mod up or at least some applause for the "Godzilla's Pocket PC" thing? Just the mental picture of Godzilla trying to figure out Pocket PC and cursing Microsoft...
Also, it's illegal to buy or sell organs in most countries, so it's contributing to the black market problem.
It looks to me like China is whining because things didn't go their way.
Yes, I also found this quite hilarious. It's the "Do as I say, not as I do" mentality.
I switched to Verizon and have been very happy with it. It's just a good thing that I've never been too download-crazy when it came to special ringtones and games.
my phone has a great calendar. It's so basic, I love it. One button takes me to my calendar, where it's by day. All I have to do is go to that day, and put in whatever event I want. Plus, when I get to that month, it tells me how many events I've placed for that month, and it'll highlight the days on the calendar.
It also comes in handy, because I browse in bookstores a lot, and sometimes I don't have a notepad or sheet of paper or even a pen with me to write down the title of a book. I love reading, but I can't buy books all the time. So if I can't write down the title, and won't remember it later, I can take a pic of the book itself and find it at the library later.
I understand the practices behind not allowing phones with cameras -- though I would rather companies just understand the possibility that their employees just can't switch phones on a whim because of their service and plan. For instance, I got my phone in November. If I was hired for a job right now, and the employer needed me to change to a phone without a camera, I'd have to say "are you going to pay my fees?" because I can't walk into my carrier and just change phones. It doesn't work that way. So I'd rather companies at least be willing to cough up the dough to pay for their employees' cell phone changes.
You get sharks with frickin' lasers on your cell phone?! Heck I'd pay to get that feature. Might help with the whiners who glare at me for talking on my cell phone quietly on a public street, because I happen to be disrupting them talking loudly on their cell phone, right next to me.
The fact is, you've found other ways more convenient for you to communicate with others -- others, like me, have found that a cell phone makes our communication easier.
I have had a cell phone for years, because it is convenient to use one, rather than hunt for a pay phone. It's also a fact that if I happen to be out at night, and for whatever reason my car breaks down, I'd rather not stray from the safety of my vehicle (especially being a woman) to go find a pay phone, regardless of where I am. Heck, my car might break down in a white picket fence suburb, but I'm not going to see a pay phone, and at this day and age, a stranger asking to enter your home at night always seems suspicious.
The best phone I've ever used was the Motorola T720. Amazing battery life, easy to use UI and it was pretty customizable. It was a very good clamshell design that was fairly small and it had big buttons that were spaced a good distance, so you couldn't accidentally hit a different button. Simple on and off, and central button for menu access. It was a good phone. I accidentally dropped it, and by then it wasn't sold anymore through Cingular.
Hmm. That's odd. When my phone gets put on silent, it's pretty much totally silent. Even when I use my camera, if my phone is on silent, then there's no annoying "click."
Sprint's just taking your money, isn't it? I'm in a similar predicament...sort of. I'm paying a for internet access on my phone, and for some reason or another the service doesn't work at college. I guess the towers just don't allow for it. But it works fine at home, near Washington D.C. So my problem is, is it even worth it to have a service like this if I can't even use it where I am 8 months out of the year? I think it's a pretty crappy thing, and I'm considering cancelling the service, but the only thing pulling me back is that I use the service when I am at home, and it's a heck of a lot easier to check movie times online than it is to call the theater and go through button pushing and automated messaging telling me how to get to their theater and the great popcorn that costs an arm and a leg.
Ugh the Razr. My roomate had that phone on Cingular, and she loves the thing, except for the fact that we don't get Cingular service at college. Oops! I've used the Razr on and off (using her phone), and I don't like it...perhaps it's that I have small hands because I'm only 5'3, but I found it too wide and the keys too hard to push with my thumb, especially since I can't actually stretch my thumb all the way to hit 1, 4, 7 or *. I did want one at first though, before I found it just too wide for my hand.
What's your carrier? I was in San Francisco last week and this week, and I didn't have one dropped call! In fact, I had full service everywhere I went. The lowest signal I ever got was 2 bars.
I think the key is not exactly to get a phone that is basic, it is to get a phone that suits your needs and your standards. Don't expect the phone to become simpler, it won't. But find the one that you're comfortable with using. I love my phone. It has all the bells and whistles and I can use it just as fast as any of my friends with a plain jane. The reason? I've picked a phone that suited my needs and my standards. If everyone else did too, there wouldn't be all this complaining about phones that aren't easy to use.
Also, I believe my Samsung does set their clock from the network. I took a trip to the West Coast last week, and my phone switched right away from EST to pacific. I use Verizon, and my parents are both on Cingular. My mother's Samsung didn't, but my dad's Motorola did.
What phone do you use? I use Verizon and I have never had problems with menus coming up too slowly. In fact, reading your post, I picked up my phone and flipped through all of my menus within 5 seconds. Each menu came up instantaneously.
I go home for Thanksgiving, head into Verizon. The Verizon phone I have (Samsung SCH-a90) is massive compared to the Motorola I had. It was wider, longer, and thicker, all around. I'm very happy with my phone, but the thing was, Verizon does not sell small phones, whereas Cingular has a lot of very small phones.
The LG C1300i Cingular sent me was hands down, the worst phone I have ever used. The Ericsson I had ten years ago was better than the LG. It was way too tiny, the clamshell design was stiff, and the antenna was practically half as long as the phone itself. The keys were stiff and it took at least 3 keystrokes to get anywhere. The screen was too tiny, the font was too big, and I couldn't search my phonebook. Of course, that might have been because I became so frustrated with it that I opted to use my phone as less as possible, rather than just deal with the horrible interface.
It takes 5 keystrokes to get to my alarm settings. I actually prefer this, because then I can't turn on or off an alarm with one button. I would rather my phone not go off in the middle of a class.
The thing with searching by number is that you'd have to actually know the number. And if you know the number, wouldn't you also pretty much know the name? It's rare that I know 555-6978 but I won't know who it belongs to.
I highly recommend the SCH-a90. Apparently they've resolved the volume problem because I can change the ringtone using the side volume rocker. It even gives you the option to play the ringtone to see just precisely how loud it is. I've never used the menu within the phone interface itself to change the volume.
Okay, so you start to list your credentials, and you present yourself as fairly competent to handle practically any gadget that meets your hands, but then you find the iPod and blame the device itself for your ineptitude? Arguably, the first few generations of iPods were bulky and not as elegant as the current generation, but if people who lead much simpler lives, and aren't used to high-tech lifestyle as you claim you are accustomed to can handle working an iPod with total ease, aren't you really saying that you aren't proficient at using the iPod, and it's not a problem with the product itself? And because you've worked with whatever other gadgets with comfort and ease, it means you should be able to handle everything that comes your way, and when you can't seem to use a simple iPod interface, you blame the device.
The appeal of iTunes is pretty simple. It's clean and simple to use. It's great technology but it presents itself as being very simple and utilitarian. It hides its complexity by making itself simple, and other programs tend to brag about how awesomely complex their software is, and that confuses the average joe and jane.