By John Toth
The Bulletin
My cellphone is running out of memory, which is a sign that I should buy another one. Another sign is that I can’t even remember when I bought this one.
I bought it when my previous one got so old that it could no longer run Google Maps correctly, and its operating system was having problems with app updates. I finally broke down and started shopping around for a new phone - my current phone.
I keep these phones as long as possible. I see no reason to spend money on a new phone to get a few new features that I may not even use.
Phones have come a long way since I was a child growing up in the big city, anxiously awaiting the Bell Company tech to come and install our new touch-tone phone. I was fascinated by how simple it really was. After he was done, I called someone to try it out. It sounded the same as the old phone.
I sat in the same chair in the living room, but instead of dialing the number on a rotary phone, I just pushed the buttons. You could actually play tunes with it. Some radio stations even held contests on who could play the best songs. I never called in, though. I was not very good at it.
I once got bored and disassembled the phone to see what was inside. I laid all the parts out on the dining room table for my mother to see when she came home. She wasn’t very happy when she saw her brand-new phone in dozens of little pieces.
I should have taken a picture, but I ran out of Polaroid film. The expression on her face was quite interesting.
“How are we going to call anyone now?” she asked. I detected a slight anger in her voice.
I told her I would put it together. I just thought she would be interested to see how the inside of a touch-tone phone looked like.
She was not interested.
I put the phone back together in a few minutes. She picked up the handset and heard a dial tone. She was relieved.
That’s when she probably realized that her son was a geek, also when kids in the apartment complex started bringing me their transistor radios to fix.
Those were the good old days, but were they really that good? Today’s cellphones can do just about everything. We live in exciting times, except for the cost of a new phone.
That’s another reason I keep my phones as long as I can. And when it’s time for a newer one, I avoid all those offers that would hook me up with a brand new phone for only $29.99 a month for three years, or something like that.
I believe “taking the back roads” to buying a new phone, which isn’t really new. I look through eBay, Walmart and Amazon to see which one has the best deals on a less-than-new phone that is reputed to be a workhorse.
I want a workhorse, because the phone will stay with me for a while. Once I decide on which one to buy, I pick a seller that doesn’t take two weeks to ship it. I don’t mind waiting for a few days, but that’s about it.
I found a T-Mobile-compatible used phone with plenty of memory for under $200. My current phone cost just around $100, including shipping. I decided to splurge a little this time and go to the next tier and 5G. I think it was a good call.
I can’t see myself spending $1,000 on a cellphone. My first and second cars cost half that. That’s a lot of money to spend on a single phone. A lot of people do, and that’s fine. I am not one of those. Call me a cheapskate, but if you compare features, the new phones don’t have all that many that you really need.
I placed my order and am waiting for the phone. It should be here tomorrow, or maybe the next day. I’ll let you know how I like it.
By the way, I never took my mother’s push-button phone apart again. Once you’ve seen the inside of one phone, you’ve seen them all.
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