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5/3/2013 3:32:24 PM
19
Smartphones... what's the point?
I remember being filled with so much excitement back in 2007 when Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone. Since then, a lot of companies have hopped on the smartphone bandwagon and now these things are even [url=http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/gadgetbox/smartphones-out-ship-feature-phones-worldwide-first-time-6C9635107]starting to outsell feature phones[/url].
But I still don't own one.
Since late 2010, I've walked around with the same iPod Touch (4th gen.) in one pocket and a flip-phone in the other. I have no data plan. I purchase pay-as-you-go minutes in $100 increments and the effective cost of my phone service is roughly $15 per month. I have no contract, and I can change my carrier whenever I want to.
Yet I've come to understand that a significant number of people these days are walking around with only one device that they pay closer to $35-50 per month to use, and are locked in to two-year contracts with carriers that place caps on their internet usage. To me, this system feels like a scam. I'm fully aware of the utility of having a GPS I could put in my pocket and being able to access the internet anywhere I could get a phone signal, but I still don't see myself investing in these devices any time in the near future.
[b]TL;DR:[/b] does anybody [i]not[/i] own a smartphone, or not think smartphones are worth their cost? Does anybody find smartphones and/or their services indispensable?
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Edited by Flee: 5/3/2013 5:57:29 PM>iPhone. >No contract. >$15 per month for virtually unlimited data usage (2GB/month) and texts (2.000/month). I charge my phone for $15 when I want to. This gives me one month of 2GB of data and 2.000 texts for free. When the month is over, I still have the $15 in credit left. 1 text or 1 mb of data then costs me around 8 cents, so that credit still usually lasts me for 2-4 weeks. Then I charge it again, and it all starts over. Effective cost: 15$ per 1.5/2 months for all the data and texts that I want. Pretty good, I'd say. And what do I think of smartphones? I think I've gotten to the point where I kind of do need one. I'm 20 years old now, and up until 5 months ago I had an old Nokia model. I like to think I'm in a pretty extraordinary position though. My girlfriend lives on another continent, so these apps are really useful. Texting her would cost me 70 cents per text, and a phone call would cost 1.5$ per minute. Now we use apps like Viber, Textplus, Whatsapp and Skype, which makes it so that texting and calling is essentially free, as long as you have an internet connection. If it weren't for my girlfriend and our situation, I probably still wouldn't have gotten a new phone.
