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Also, if you need to get that hanging-up-the-phone experience, I recommend the Bluetooth rotary set (an actual rotary phone, hollowed out and hacked to include a bluetooth module inside it) here:
http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9803
I have the Droid razr and I love it and in a year I'll switch to the latest and greatest and I'll love that too. I'm not big on nostalgia.
@ Eli, I got to the point when you started talking about hanging up, but had to quit there. I hope you got some catharsis out of this. And I hope you enjoy whatever you replaced your Razr with.
It did one thing, but it did that one thing better than any before or since. THAT was the phone.
i had to track a new razr down for my mom when her last one broke, it's the only phone she'll use
It's amazing to me that everyone believes they (and everyone else) need an iPhone. I find it totally obnoxious, too.
I realize this may shock some people, but I can't afford an iPhone and I don't need a smart phone (I am disabled and unable to work and pretty much have a laptop on my lap at all times) but occasionally I DO NEED a cell phone. I now have a trac phone - a Motorola, but not a RAZR. I pay for talk and text and live with having to deal with a crappy phone. As for my laptop - it's a 2006 macbook (I was working and not sick or disabled when I bought it) and it's a been nothing but a piece of shit since I bought it - with 5 HD replacements (the first was 4 months after buying the brand new computer - and all the Genuises had to say to me about it was "did you back it up?") - IT WAS FOUR MONTHS OLD.
We are all suckers in the tyranny of technology and it's dumbing us all down while corporations rake in billions in profit.
Not everyone can afford an iPhone and the tyranny of technology with regard to smart phones and data plans simply widens the gap between classes in this country.
That's not a sales pitch, just an observation. I got along with a regular flip phone until last fall, when mine fell in the toilet and my wife got a new job in the same week. We decided to upgrade our phones then.
We all should try to be satisfied with what we have and not believe we need the latest and greatest and run in a fucking rat race for status, which is what drives these trends. And, as you say, really only benefits the phone makers and service providers.
But I had absolutely horrible experiences with the Razr. I went through two of them and both of them deteriorated quickly. After just a few months phone calls became unintelligible static.
Except -- I like having a little keyboard I can use if I want, because seriously, I hate typing more than a word or two on that cramped little screen. I like not having to change carriers (T-Mobile). And I liked not having to pay a bunch of extra money. I'm not just too dumb to think about maybe getting an iPhone, people. I thought about it and I made a different choice for good reasons.
This iPhone triumphalism has got to stop. It seems kind of creepy, actually. Like our alien overlords are going to use them to issue the mind control rays.
Because, didn't I read in the manual that when you tell or ask Siri something, it's sent to Apple HQ for processing, answering, and... the freaky part... long-term storing? Not sure I want Apple to be holding a map of all my relationships.
I used a Nokia 3285 (brick kind w/extendable antenna) for around 2002-2007. No colour screen, no vga camera, no this, no that. It was my first cell and all the family (4 of us) got the same phone. I dropped the sucker many times and all I got was a small crack on the removable faceplate. I just replaced it with the faceplate of my mothers phone at the time when she decided to upgrade.
It lasted until a 2007 trip to florida and I found out that while (iirc) could call others I couldn't receive any calls. All calls coming to me and vis versa would go straight to voicemail. And it happened again a year later when my dad was using a hand-me-down (not more than 3 or 4 years old) phone from my mother. Damn you Verizon.
Well I've now got an LG Cosmos keyboard slider which should last until verizon decides that I shouldn't be allowed to make calls to anyone anymore.
It's especially useful when I'm traveling. The white noise app is handy in hotels... When I fly, it lets me check the status of my next flight while I'm on the tarmac and look up alternatives if I've missed it. When I'm somewhere unfamiliar and want to know where's a good place to eat. And on... Once I got the thing, I was actually annoyed that I hadn't made the switch earlier...
2006 was a good year to get my second cellphone (had to switch carriers when I moved, so said farewell to my HEAVY Nokia).
I loved the design of my Samsung flip phone (ugh, can't stand the term "clamshell"), especially because of its Star Trek roots and am still using it, even though the battery is worn out. But it hasn't lost any of its bits and bobs though I've dropped it on the floor too many times to remember. I've only used the camera a couple of times and almost never text, though the possibilities of apps are enticing. [ Oooh, shiny!]
However, I find the new flat phones without a protective cover to be annoying. Here's two reasons why.
#1) I have small hands and the flip nestled in the palm of my hand. Holding something larger WILL hurt.
#2) One Saturday evening, my cellphone rang. The ID showed it was my best friend, so I answered it, but got nothing but faraway sounds. The call didn't disconnect for maaaaaany minutes. When I talked to him a few days later, it turned out he'd been at a friend's, had leaned back against his jacket (his phone being in a pocket) and activated the last number dialled to call me. You can't do that accidentally with a flip phone!
Still, the tendrils of upgrading are probably going to ensnare me in the new few months.
But of everything in your delightful reminiscence, the only thing that bugged me was that you gave up your RAZR because of Twitter. Twitter? Really?!? I fucking hate twitter and everything about it. I despise twitter with an unhealthy passion. I know that I will someday give up my archaic phone and buy an iPhone, but the reason for my change will most certainly not be twitter. Ugh.
I had an old Nokia that I affectionately called "the toaster" because I could drop it from three floors up on a concrete stairwell. It would break into four pieces, I snaped them back together, and continued my T9ing with no worry of damage to the phone. I also loved how Nokia's always had the same charger connection for all of their phones.
I share your view of Twitter, too, but I believe it's a common worry among writers that they'll be forgotten if they don't jump in.
Thankfully, I lost the RAZR somewhere in Volunteer Park, bought an iPhone (begrudgingly), and finally saw the light.
/rant
http://www.motorola.com/staticfiles/Admi…
I've thought about upgrading to a smart phone, but right now, I pay about $30 every three months on my prepaid plan. I really don't need my phone for anything more than occassional phone calls and texts. When I need a camera, I have a camera that is not also my phone. When I'm bored, I can play Tetris, which can occupy me for a good long time.
Yeah, I'm a relic. But I'm a content relic. Plus, I'm not expected to respond to e-mails from work immediately, because the boss knows I don't have a smart phone (I don't have internet access at home, either...but that's another story).
Instead of whatever you did to get your example of Siri being dumb.
Most of the time, I do not need a bulky smartphone.
They are pocket computing devices capable of communication in a broad range of formats, one of which happens to be telephony.
The current series of these pocket computers is at least equal in power to the standard desktop PC of ten years ago.
So you didn't get a smartphone. You have a computer.
Later, people were trained out of the expectation of durability, and now buy things fully expecting them to wear out or break in a really very short time.
But that wasn't enough, and now we are being trained to replace products that are not in any way worn out - that are still fully functional - simply because a More Awesome iteration has been developed.
It is totally insane to me that not only will people buy a new phone or a new computer just because it exists. Let alone do so every year or two.
That even used to be the case in the personal computer world. I recently bought a new printer, only because my HP LaserJet IIIP finally failed after 20 years. I'll be happy if its successor lasts about 20% as long.
Sorry, the Motorola V3 "Razr" did not have T9 predictive text. They had their own inferior implementation of predictive text called iTAP. T9 was a predictive text tool from Like many other things from Motorola it was inferior to other products that were supposed to do the same thing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T9_%28pred…. If you read here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITAP you'll see it was developed by Motorola for their phones. It's a competitor to T9.
I'm plugging along with an LG EnV 3. (Clunky flip phone, QWERTY keyboard, etc.) I still have protective stickers on the screen, but the phone has been laughably unreliable, turning off at random several times throughout the day. I stopped using it as an alarm clock when I realized I can't trust it to wake me up. I'm more than ready for a smartphone.