UPGRADING to a dumb-phone

MarkB · Jun 22, 2014

Indeed. My Galaxy SII fits nicely in a shirt pocket, and whilst it's not ideally sized for watching video I can and do use it regularly for reading ebooks, to the extent that I've come to find it preferable to paperbacks.

When I first bought it a couple of years ago I wasn't sure I'd use enough of its features to make it worth having, but now I wouldn't be without it.

Janx · Jun 22, 2014

Morrus said:
Well, to be fair, you've chosen the largest smartphone on the planet! It sells itself on it's size. My iPhone lives in my front jeans pocket, and I'm not even aware it's there.

uh yeah. I carry my wallet and Phone in my front pockets (since forever, it's more secure and fairly safe).

If you're toting a Phablet, then of course it's too big.

Cergorach · Jun 22, 2014

Janx said:
If you're toting a Phablet, then of course it's too big.

Some people need to, you know, 'compensate'... ;-)

But as someone who walked around with a fridge (htc x7500) for a smartphone for three years I won't judge...

sabrinathecat · Jun 22, 2014

To me, the smartphone is like Clippy: it's so busy being helpful that it gets in the way. (this is exactly what led to the high-impact stress test)
Also, with all the do-dads and apps and what-not, the single hardest thing to get the darn thing to do was function like a phone! I just want to call someone! I takes up to 5 buttons to start dialing numbers! And then I have to delete the numbers the phone inserted into my way because it was "hel(l)ping" me.

I also prefer buttons to the touch-screen. I'm a tactile kind of guy.

Funny how many of the phone numbers started popping back into recognition so quickly.

Used to be, you could buy ring-tones, and the service provider has a ton for you to choose from. Now Verizon provides "ring-back" tones so people can listen to the music you choose while waiting for you to pick up, but I cannot find any ringtones. Oh, but you can make your own... but frequently the quality sucks. Not sure what the logic or thinking is there. The phone I had 10 years ago had a great system for ringtones, and it worked. Heck, it even sounded pretty decent. How did that technology get lost?

Cergorach · Jun 22, 2014

This sounds like a case of RTFM...
I'm the first to agree that certain 'features' are a pain in the arse, but there's generally an option to turn that stuff off, just Google it!

sabrinathecat · Jun 22, 2014

Cergorach said:
Some people need to, you know, 'compensate'... ;-)

I always express sympathy when someone drives by in a jacked up, over-sized truck or any vehicle with over-loud speakers. Obviously they feel under-endowed and self-conscious about it.

MarkB · Jun 22, 2014

sabrinathecat said:
To me, the smartphone is like Clippy: it's so busy being helpful that it gets in the way. (this is exactly what led to the high-impact stress test)
Also, with all the do-dads and apps and what-not, the single hardest thing to get the darn thing to do was function like a phone! I just want to call someone! I takes up to 5 buttons to start dialing numbers! And then I have to delete the numbers the phone inserted into my way because it was "hel(l)ping" me.

This I don't quite get. Unless the phone actually automatically dials the suggested number for you, how is it interfering? You can just keep typing until you finish your number (which you were going to do anyway), and that will override any suggested number.

Used to be, you could buy ring-tones, and the service provider has a ton for you to choose from. Now Verizon provides "ring-back" tones so people can listen to the music you choose while waiting for you to pick up, but I cannot find any ringtones. Oh, but you can make your own... but frequently the quality sucks. Not sure what the logic or thinking is there. The phone I had 10 years ago had a great system for ringtones, and it worked. Heck, it even sounded pretty decent. How did that technology get lost?

Eurgh, I remember the ringtones craze of 10 years ago with loathing. Everyone went for the same gimmicky ringtone-of-the-moment, and the damn things sold in such profusion that they displaced real songs from the singles charts.

These days, if I hear a tune I like for a ringtone, I find a decent-quality version on Youtube, use one of the numerous free online Youtube-to-MP3 converters to download it, maybe edit it a bit with equally free editing software to trim it down to just the bit I want, and then upload it to my phone. Zero quality loss.

And if you're not up to doing that, iTunes does still exist, right?

Homicidal_Squirrel · Jun 22, 2014

Umbran said:
That depends on the phone. My Galaxy S5 is effectively much bigger than my old dumbphone was. I could hope to carry my dumpphone in my front jeans pocket if I wanted. No way I'm doing that with my smartphone.

Really? I have the Galaxy Note 3, a far larger phone, in an Otter case, making it even larger, and it fits comfortably in my front pocket.

Hussar · Jun 23, 2014

Yes, but Umbran's in his leather skinny jeans (pink), so that might be the issue.

sabrinathecat · Jun 23, 2014

I did mention I was having a really bad day and was extremely short on patience, right?

If it had just put forward the suggestion, that would have been one thing, but it inserted the whole number in the middle of my typing, including area code. Had I finished typing the number, it would have been 21 digits long.
And yes, while helping, it has dialed the completely wrong number, more than once. I type in a number, press the green button, it dials someone else from my recently called list that it seemed to pick at random...