I am grieving over the loss of... a thing

[mmd]

I dropped my faithful old Blackberry Bold 'phone the other day, and it is kaput. I really liked that 'phone; I've had it ten or twelve years and it did just what I wanted it to do - be small, fat-finger friendly, and enable phone calls or texts in out-of-the-way low-signal places. My Crackberry worked in places where iphones and Androids gave up and displayed "no signal". Kicking and screaming, I have grudgingly entered this decade and now have a < cough, cough, gag > Samsung/Android too-big, too-many-gizmos cellphone. My daughter has congratulated me for stepping out of the Paleolithic Era and into the Anthropocene. Yuck.

Good-bye, old friend...

[Domesticated_Mr. Know It All]

I'm Amish, still got the Tracphone.




What I really want is a land line with an answering machine.

[TomF]

I look forward to being able to downgrade.

[Garret]

Wait a sec! You want to be able to make calls on your phone? How 90's.

I talked to an AT&T person about modern phones having poor reception & she laughed: "Folks in Boston, New York, etc. don't care about making calls with low signal strength so why should the phone mfrs?"

[JayInOz]

I have a cheapie old Samsung- inherited it when my wife upgraded. (Before that I had the cheapest little flip phones on the market- I tend to break a lot of stuff in my pockets) A couple of weeks ago I bent down to pat the dog and it fell about two feet out of my pocket and landed face down in the dust- and shattered the screen! It only needs to keep tractoring on until I retire, at which time I'll sit it on a stump at fifty yards and put a bullet hole through the middle. It will be my last phone. JayInOz

[Keith Wilson]

You can buy used Blackberries quite cheap, if you want to go that way.

OTOH, I do like having access to the entire web on my 'phone'.

[mmd]

OTOH, I do like having access to the entire web on my 'phone'.

I don't. I got a desktop 'pooter for that when I am in my office, a laptop when I am 'on the road', and a tablet for when I am seated comfortably in my big comfy chair. One more source would be for what? When I am on the toilet?

[LeeG]

Sorry to hear of your loss. I thought my phone was broken, well the battery only lasts a day now, but I forgot to pay the bill and it took a few weeks to figure that out. I kept saying I was going to get a shiny new picture phone in 2020. Maybe 2021 I will.But I hear smarty phone batts don’t last much more than a day anyway. Compost calls, brb.

[Jim Bow]

BD2C17D8-D714-4B09-B7BC-47937063D3FC.jpg

[mmd]

It runs on Android, Jim. No better in the boonies than any other brand now. Trust me, I looked into it.

[Jim Bow]

^ In other words, a fake blackberry

[Keith Wilson]

One more source would be for what? When I am on the toilet?

Nah. You can take the laptop into the bathroom. But I like to be able to look up information when just wandering around in the world, without carrying the computer. De gustibus non disputandum, though. There are piles of used Blackberries on ebay.

[The Q]

I used my phone yesterday, It can make phone calls, receive texts.. and that's it.. Looks like the old nokia's everyone once had.. Except this is in a rubber case floats and is waterproof.. which is why it's survived.. Needs a new battery soon though..

[Garret]

Sorry to hear of your loss. I thought my phone was broken, well the battery only lasts a day now, but I forgot to pay the bill and it took a few weeks to figure that out. I kept saying I was going to get a shiny new picture phone in 2020. Maybe 2021 I will.But I hear smarty phone batts don’t last much more than a day anyway. Compost calls, brb.

Depending on usage - 3-5 days for me. I don't watch movies on my phone - just calls, texts, & email mostly.

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

It runs on Android, Jim. No better in the boonies than any other brand now. Trust me, I looked into it.

The choice of operating system has very little do do with the efficacy of the RF section, TIS varies considerably among even phones running into the same system, on some cases the choice of which hand used to hold the phone has considerable effect.

One cheap trick is not to hold the phone at all and instead use either a Bluetooth headset or a wired headset, another and more expensive option, is to buy an active signal booster these may or may not be legal where you live ..


SSB and a Morse key?

[Norman Bernstein]

I use maybe 5% or less of the features on my iPhone 11... but I will freely admit that it does come in handy, as a vehicle for controlling devices. For example, when SWMBO calls down from upstairs because she thinks it's too cold, I can access my Nest thermostat without getting up from my seat, and turn up the heating system. When I cook a wide variety of things in the oven, my Meater cooking thermometer shows me the progress of the cooking time, estimates when the food will be done, and lets me know when it's time to take it out of the oven... all on my phone. I can kill the outside lights (controlled by Wemo switches) with the phone, if I want.

Similarly, nearly all of my calls to/from my grandchildren are with FaceTime, so I see their faces... delightful, and far better than just an ordinary phone call.

I also appreciate being free of 'cable hell'.... at night, the iPhone goes on a special nightstand, with inductive charging built in. I never have to plug in a cable, to recharge it. The same goes for my Apple Watch... which is the primary way I pay for stuff at supermarkets or the gas station: I simply press a button, and can charge my purchases by waving the watch next to the terminal.

For my wife, who would have trouble remembering to take her Parkinson's medication, she uses Siri to set a timer to remind her when it's time for the next dose. She has a lot of trouble using her fingers to do stuff on the phone (a consequence of her Parkinson's), so having Siri to help is a good thing.

I used to be the technologist of the family... but as is probably the case for many people, my daughter.. and even my granddaughters... know more about how to use the iPhone than I do.

Yeah, I have no particular love for Apple, who have done a number of anti-consumer things in the past... but I cannot deny that their products are useful and reliable.

[epoxyboy]

"Hey Google, when does the nearest hardware store close", while frantically driving around town 5pm-ish trying to get the vital plumbing bit or whatever - has proved to be infinitely more useful that I ever thought it would be. Betcha Blackberry couldn't do that.
Don't think of it as a phone, they are so much more than that - a surprisingly good camera, music streaming "Hey Google, play Pink Floyd", navigation, caravan bubble level, yada, yada, yada.
Samsung devices do seem to have wildly different weak signal ability - I have a smallish J5 which drops out way before my wife's larger J7. NZ has pretty ropey coverage in a lot of areas, but the J7 has shown a couple of bars where mine has "no service".

Pete

[mmd]

"Hey Google, when does the nearest hardware store close", while frantically driving around town 5pm-ish trying to get the vital plumbing bit or whatever - has proved to be infinitely more useful that I ever thought it would be. Betcha Blackberry couldn't do that.

Pete

Not needed, Pete. We have Carl's Everything Store, open to 9:00pm every day. Groceries, filleting knives, wooden blocks, copper, galvanized, and stainless piping fittings, 4-wheeler parts, you name it, Carl's has got it. Have an emergency need after 9:00pm? Call Carl and he will meet you at the store. Living out in the country is, um... different.

[willmarsh3]

I'm amazed how long that black berry lasted - 12 years. Nothing I have had has lasted longer than 4 1/2 years. Either it broke or became technically obsolete. Hope the new Samsung works well.

[Art Haberland]

I hear you on the size thing. The most favourite phone I had was the old Palm Pre'. It was a good little phone that Sprint made obsolete with bloatware. Next up was the phone that replaced it, the Samsung Galaxy 4s Mini. That one died in a horrific rainstorm I wound up working in, The inside pocket of my Gill Offshore sailing jacket filled with water, the pocket I had the phone in. The mini was a great little phone, the perfect size for everything I need. While Samsung still produces the "mini", you can't get it in the US. When I replaced it with my 7S edge, the lady at the Sprint Store had to call over a few people to see my now quite dead Mini, nobody there had ever heard of it.

I just hate the size of the new phones. "Phablets" as I call them. I have a tablet (two actually) and I do not need to try to stuff a third into my pocket.

[Paul Pless]

iphone se is the same size as the 4smini

verizon and att are giving them away

[Art Haberland]

that's great, but I use Sprint and I have a dislike of Apple Products. They are good products, but the fan boys really put a bad taste in my mouth.

[mmd]

My favourite 'old technology' phone story happened a long time ago, just when cellphone systems changed over from analogue signals to digital. Back then the cellphone coverage in the province was limited to basically a five-km radius around big towns and a corridor along the all-weather highway system. I had a big, heavy analogue Motorola cellphone that we affectionately called "the brick'. Every time I walked into the cellphone store to pay a bill or buy an accessory, the cute little bubbly clerk (they all seemed to be cute, perky 20-somethings) would ask if wanted to upgrade my 'phone to a new digital one. The conversatione invariably went like this:

I see on my computer that your cellphone is getting rather old; would you like to upgrade to a new digital one?

No, I am happy with this one.

Wow! I have never seen one like that. Are you sure that you wouldn't like to upgrade to the new Yamapalooza XR22 Mini triple-fold-out that's so light and small that you have to use a pen to use the keypad because the human fingers are too big?

Let me explain it this way. In the summertime do you like to go to Risser's Beach Park? (Risser's is a lovely two-kilometre-long white sand beach about twenty-two kms from town, and about ten kms from the 103 all-weather highway...)

Oh, yes! It is beautiful down there!

So when you get there around ten in the morning on a sunny, warm Sunday and find the beach pretty much empty, do you get on your cell and call all your friends to jump in their cars and come meet you there?

Oh, no. You can't call from Risser's - there's no signal there.

Only for digital phones, dear. The Brick works just fine there, even out on the Lahave Islands.

<long pause accompanied by a confused deer-in-the-headlights stare at my 'phone> ...Oh.

[Paul Pless]

and I have a dislike of Apple Products. They are good products, but the fan boys really put a bad taste in my mouth.

i don't understand

sign me, former samsung user until the exploding battery issues prevented me from flying with them

[Norman Bernstein]

that's great, but I use Sprint ...

Sprint was absorbed by T-Mobile... I've been with them for about 5 years, and am pleased with the coverage and service.

...and I have a dislike of Apple Products. They are good products, but the fan boys really put a bad taste in my mouth.

I like the products, but don't like the company. I agree that the fanbois get ridiculous, not much different than Trump cult members. It's getting to be the same, for Tesla fanbois.

[Hugh Conway]

given googles utter incompetence at supporting Android as a platform for more than an immediate sale, hard to fault Apple who’ll support devices for years post sale.

Truly obnoxious fandoms require a small niche (Tesla, old Apple, wooden boats ) that Apple grew out of years ago.

[Garret]

Sprint was absorbed by T-Mobile... I've been with them for about 5 years, and am pleased with the coverage and service.



I like the products, but don't like the company. I agree that the fanbois get ridiculous, not much different than Trump cult members. It's getting to be the same, for Tesla fanbois.

Just don't try to use your phone in Vermont. They have maybe 20 towers & the coverage is awful.

[Norman Bernstein]

Just don't try to use your phone in Vermont. They have maybe 20 towers & the coverage is awful.

Hmmmm... I drove through Vermont on my way to Montreal last year, and had no problems.

[Garret]

Hmmmm... I drove through Vermont on my way to Montreal last year, and had no problems.

Interesting. An old friend came to visit last year (pre-covid) & she couldn't get service anywhere except a few spots along the interstate.

However- next time you drive through to Montreal - let me know! You went within 15 miles of my house!