The serendipity of foot-dragging – or how I got a Smart-Phone at no added cost)
Some 5 years ago, to appease my daughter’s attempts to drag me into the 21st Century, I bought a call phone. I opted for the cheapest deal I could find – a Virgin Mobile dumb-phone with a pay-ss-you-go plan. The basic cost was $20 every 90 days to keep the phone active; calls would be charged by the minute ($.50 every day I made a call, plus 20 cents/minute for each call. Daughter was, of course, appalled:- I would go broke paying by the minute).
Well, the reason I wanted the phone was to enjoy its “mobile feature”, so, I left it in the car, turned off, unless I was on the go.
I’m not a big “on the go” phone chatter, so I never once needed to add money; in fact, the unused dollars kept accumulating in my account
As time went on, I found the idea a better mobile phone desirable – my aging eyes and shaky fingers made using the phone’s old-fashion keypad entry awkward – and texting by numeric keypad is a night-mare (unless you’re teen-age enabled).
I wanted to keep my old plan and buy a new phone, but Lordy, what ever happened to the $20 cell! The cheapest phone available with a touch-screen for data entry was $90.
On a lark, I emailed Virgin and asked them if I could apply any of the balance of my account to purchasing a new phone; sure, was the reply, you can use you account to purchase anything on our web site.
Well, Mr. kept-his-mouth-shut for five years had accumulated an account balance pushing $400!!! All that money either for a shopping spree or texting contributions at $5/pop to Haitian Relief.
Charity begins at home.
I spent $280 for the best smart-phone available (A Motorola Triumph) and bought an up-grade for Woody for $90 – and still have money left. To make internet usage cost effective I did have to upgrade my plan to a $35/month version (which a great deal cheaper than most competitive services); that gets me unlimited 3G Internet and 300 minutes/month of vocal chit-chat.
I left Woody’s plan at the $20/90 day limit (he can get Internet by the minute, but it’s pricey) He can however receive text messages and reply with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard.
I am having fun learning the neat things I can do with my Smart Phone:
A. I have a text version of my Medication list available for Dr. Visits
B. I have the 1500 record Excel spreadsheet of all our DVD’s handy for viewing when shopping. (And I have a quick-link to IMDB to check on film details) (See Note 1)
C. I can send photos of merchandise from a store to my daughter to see if that’s the thing she wants.
D. I can check on restaurants and use a phone hot-link to make a call to check on daily specials or make reservations)
E. I can check on show times at Movie theatres and buy tickets ahead (at a premium).
F. I can amuse myself in the Dr’s waiting room reading the current news updates. (Or catch up on Haines His Way – see Note 2)
G. I can use Amazon to check on prices while out shopping.
Note 1. The Outlet Mall has a recent addition – an OOPS store that sells deeply discounted books, CDs, and DVDs (no Blue Ray yet DVDs are 3 for $15! Lots of Al Pacino, Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson, etc)
Our last DVD shopping binge was at Blockbusters whose close out sale included virtually everything, including Blue Rays, at $3.00 each!
Note 2: Haines His way is a bit clunky to use on a Mobile – even in landscape mode, easily readable type size throws most messages off screen. Plus, you need to expand the screen greatly to be able to touch-activate the page numbers to navigate. Someday maybe we’ll have a Mobile-friendly version that puts the left hand side avatar/stats window on top of the messages (at least puts the Users name in the message heading so you can move the screen to the right while scrolling down).
der Brucer