My wife and I each got our cell phones the other day, and our phone choices reflected our wants and needs (imagine that). We ended up both getting the LG Accolade, a nice simple flip phone. We didn’t get any texting plan, and no data plan. We also transferred our home number from Vonage to my wife’s cell phone.
Personally, I chose a simple phone over a smart phone because I haven’t been happy with any of the smart phones I’ve tried. At least, not for the cost. They’re really neato, and lots of fun, but I’m not paying that much for neato right now. I’m looking hard at a MiFi from Version for my mobile data needs.
I realized that a smart phone is like a swiss army knife. They do a lot of cool things, but none of the tools is *really* specialized. Try swapping a Marine’s K-Bar for one and see what happens. Or a surgeon’s scalpel. Or a seamstress’s scissors. My phone is like a specialized tool, and it makes calls, and it seems to do it quite well.
Ah the days of simplicity. I look forward to the day I can fall completely off the grid.
Well done. I’m heading that way too, I believe.
I thought as you do and I carried a $15/mo dumbphone for many years.
Recently, I got a Droid. I now have a mobile phone, self-updating GPS, email client, calendar, all of my contacts and all of their information, every social networking client, IRC and instant messaging client, MP3 player, podcast client, standard def video camera, 5MP camera, feed reader, youtube viewer, and the whole freakin’ WWW at my fingertips at all times.
And those are the things it does well. I find myself using the Droid to do about 3/4 of everything I used to do on a laptop, and doing it without having to find a place with a chair, wifi, and a power plug.