I have a new phone and I am totally in love with it. OK I exaggerate a trifle but it is super uber-cool and is exerting a dreadful fascination over me.
I have had my current phone for three years and used Pay as you Go. My daughters complained it was never on and I told them that if they wished to speak to me during the day they had my work number, in the evening they had my home number and when I was on the train it was never on because I did not wish to add to the stream of moronic conversations going on around me and all I wanted to do on the commute was plug in my iPod and go to sleep. But if I travelled or was meeting people then having a mobile in the car or the handbag was good, I felt safer knowing it was there, but I never used it as a conversational tool.
It has changed now. I am finding with all the running around I am doing, the drives up to London, the calling and texting to Australia, replying to parents of grandchild who call regularly to make sure I have not dropped her down the toilet, that I was topping up my credit at an alarming rate, so it made economic sense to get a contract phone. OK, if I am really honest I wanted a new flashy show off one with all the bits and pieces etc but where to start? First of all, I went into the Car Phone Warehouse where I spoke to a 12 year old who obviously viewed me as a member of Noah's Ark and whose reaction when I told him my current phone was three years old was along the lines of 'Wow, that's like, ancient'. he didn't quite call me Dude but I could see the word hovering. One look at my face dissuaded him.
Went home armed with enough leaflets about Android, Wifi, Touch, MMS, Apps (short for applications so I am told, what we old fashioned users would call Downloads but admit doesn't sound so snappy) to sink a battleship and after reading and comparing tariffs and generally having a nervous breakdown I hurled them all into the bin. Left it for a week or two and then went out and got same leaflets and read them
all over again and decided on the Samsung Wave. My daughter and son in law have an iPhone, way out of my league really and far too expensive, plus I don't like Apple's ethos and hard sell, and it looked far too complicated.
So the Samsung Wave it is and I have spent the last few days coming to grips with it. It has all the usual attributes as well as an excellent camera which takes pin point sharp pics, wifi, email, diary, calendar, blah blah blah. (The pic on left is an illustration of all the stuff that is available, does not show up on the screen unless you want it to). Also has Twitter (and yes I now Tweet regularly which stuns even me) and when I managed to send a Tweet using the phone my children and I went into a collective faint, and then a repeat faint when I used Facebook as well. I tested You Tube and within 30 secs had Placido Domingo singing Nessun Dorma which threw me completely and then I downloaded a Soduko App and felt really pleased with myself. There are quite a few gizmos I will not be using, the Jukebox not for me and defo not the TV which seems to specialise in 'erotic tv' ie - porn and which I can live without.
Has not taken me as long to adapt to this as I thought it would but I have been nipping in and out of the T-Mobile store in Colchester for geek help and they have been really great there, explaining everything to me when I got my knickers into the proverbial. One thing I cannot do at the moment is send Picture Messages and when Chris, who is now my new best friend, tried to load it he couldn't do it either which made me feel better so he contacted Samsung etc and it seems that the settings for this aspect of the phone have not been downloaded onto the handsets because they are 'too new'. Hello? Wouldn't you think that before the phone went on the market this would be done? so I have to wait for a week or two until T-mobile has these mythical settings and then I will go in and they will sort it out.
I was really cross about this - I WANTED TO SEND A PICTURE - and I could feel a Grumpy old Woman of Colchester mood coming upon me and a Hissy Fit looming, but then common sense took over. Hey Elaine, will you die of a broken heart or will your life turn into a barren wilderness if this facility is denied you for a bit? Will the world come to an end? The answer of course is no, so I wiped what my daughters call The Look off my face (I knew it was there as all the guys in the shop had locked themselves in the staff room) and told them, no worries I would come back later on in the week and see what is what.
So apart from that irritant, the phone is great, I am really pleased with it and because I have 600 minutes of chat, which even I cannot use up in one month, and 500 texts it would make sense to use this phone most of the time in future and cut my land line usage back though I would never be without it. I also have a free 'booster' whatever that is, thrown in for Australia so all in all I now feel I am au fait with the Android system, the touch screen and am at one with the cutting edge of technology.
On one of my visits into T-mobile there was a lady there, about my age, wanting a new phone but saying she was worried about the touch screen and whether she could manage it so with the air of a seasoned user (ie - four days) I whipped out my phone, gave her a demo and said Go on get one you will be fine.
I tell you there is no stopping me now.
To Infinity and Beyond............
