{"id":2458,"date":"2011-01-10T10:29:53","date_gmt":"2011-01-10T16:29:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/polarbear60.org\/randr\/?p=2458"},"modified":"2011-01-10T10:29:53","modified_gmt":"2011-01-10T16:29:53","slug":"cell-phone-replacement-dilemma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/cell-phone-replacement-dilemma\/","title":{"rendered":"Cell Phone Replacement Dilemma"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m trying to figure out the path forward for cell phone philosophy.\u00a0 My challenge is finding the right instrument.<\/p>\n

My cell phone needs are simple.\u00a0 I need:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. An instrument and a service that will work reliably from nearly anywhere (understanding there are dead zones in the US — usually in mountain ranges)<\/li>\n
  2. Exceptional voice quality<\/li>\n
  3. Exceptional battery life<\/li>\n
  4. A functional camera is handy<\/li>\n
  5. External storage or another easy way to move pictures from phone without having to email them to myself.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I don’t care if it surfs the web.\u00a0 I don’t care if it plays music.\u00a0 I do like it to have an alarm — preferably the ability to store multiple alarms.\u00a0 I like the calculator and stopwatch functions.\u00a0 I even saw one with a compass, thermometer,\u00a0 and pedometer (way cool).\u00a0 So, yes, built-in tools are nice.\u00a0 Not essential, but nice.<\/p>\n

    Hubby and I talk to one another and only very seldomly do we call other family members or they call us.\u00a0 Any basic voice plan with mobile-to-mobile will do the job for us.\u00a0 Rollover is nice, but we never use the minutes, so it’s not a big deal.\u00a0 I send maybe three texts a year to one friend.\u00a0 That’s it.\u00a0 I like the camera feature, because I don’t always carry my camera with me, so they can be handy.<\/p>\n

    I believe I’ve mentioned before that my current provider is ATT.\u00a0 In Central TX, service is not the best.\u00a0 The debate is whether Verizon is any better or not.\u00a0 Other than anecdotal evidence from talking to other people (who all say we’re in a bad spot for cell service here), the mobile broadband experience is all I have to rate it on.\u00a0 As I understand it, if broadband works, the voice aspect of a service should be exceptional.<\/p>\n

    Broadband is what stresses a cellular system, so if that works, voice should work as well.\u00a0 On the other hand, data is ones and zeroes.\u00a0 If you have the right level on the signal, it’s a one.\u00a0 If you don’t, it’s a zero.\u00a0 As long as the signal is clean enough to detect that reliably, data is going to flow.\u00a0 Analog voice circuits can be touchier, but I believe we’re using all digital for voice now, too, so that shouldn’t matter.<\/p>\n

    All that was a long way of trying to say, when I had the ATT USB cellular modem, I could NEVER get it to connect and process data from Central Texas.\u00a0 With the Verizon MiFi mobile hot spot?\u00a0 No problem.\u00a0 It has connected every where I’ve tried to use it.\u00a0 Which leads me to believe, for Central Texas, Verizon might work better for us.\u00a0 If we were in San Antonio, Dallas, Temple, Waco, or anywhere closer to the I-35 corridor, it wouldn’t be a problem — any of the carriers would do the job and do it well.\u00a0 But we’re not.\u00a0 Not all the time, anyway.<\/p>\n

    But when I look at Verizon’s site and try to find a basic phone that meets the criteria listed above (and DOESN’T require a data package), I’m coming up short.\u00a0 And the reviews?\u00a0 Basically no help.\u00a0 People either love them or hate them.\u00a0 Some people love service, call quality, and battery life, and someone else hates it equally as much as someone else loved it.<\/p>\n

    Here are some of the phones I’m looking at.\u00a0 If anyone has any experience with them, let me know:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Pantech Crux (touch screen – complaints about having to press too hard and, of course, battery life)<\/li>\n
    2. Samsung Zeal (uses proprietary connectors, so current car chargers, etc won’t work — big negative)<\/li>\n
    3. LG Octane (looks reasonably good but has some complaints about not being sturdy enough, and, again, love it or hate it reviews)<\/li>\n
    4. Motorola Barage (a ruggedized device that gets mixed reviews on voice quality and battery life)<\/li>\n
    5. Casio G’zOne Ravine (a ruggedized device with the cool compass, thermometer, and pedometer features I mentioned above but also mixed reviews on voice quality and battery life)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      I’ll probably stop in at the Verizon store later this week and see what they have.\u00a0 By then, the rumors about them having the iPhone should be confirmed.<\/p>\n

      With that in mind, I checked out the iPhone tab on the Apple site.<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Number 1 requirement is more service oriented than device, but certain aspects in device construction will affect this — can’t say for sure if iPhone has it or not, but I suspect they do. 20 million people aren’t carrying bricks around just to be cool — I don’t think.<\/li>\n
      2. Should have decent voice quality if the network will carry the signal<\/li>\n
      3. Battery life reputed to be 7 hours on 3G and 14 hours on 2G (nobody else does that)<\/li>\n
      4. 5 megapixel camera that everyone says takes great pictures and videos<\/li>\n
      5. No external storage capability, but the transfer mechanism is in place to move pictures to another device<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Verizon requires as least a $15 per month data package with all their Smartphones, which provides 150MB per month.\u00a0 For $30, they have an unlimited plan.\u00a0 The current Verizon competition at this level is the Droid X, which many people love.\u00a0 The advantage of the iPhone over the Droid X is my existing app base on the iPad and how they are interchangeable and will talk to one another (I’m specifically thinking of my Budget app where it can form a group and collect data that way).<\/p>\n

        I wonder what hubby will say when I tell him it looks like he’ll have to get an iPhone if he wants battery life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        I’m trying to figure out the path forward for cell phone philosophy.\u00a0 My challenge is finding the right instrument. My cell phone needs are simple.\u00a0 I need: An instrument and a service that will work reliably from nearly anywhere (understanding there are dead zones in the US — usually in …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech-stuff"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2458\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}