Kindle Fire HD 7 inch
You could call me old-fashioned, but I’m not. I’m also not stupid, out of touch, nor a technophobe. I love technology. If I had more money, I’d have even more computers than I do and arguably, I already have too many.
It’s just that I think we’ve lost track of why we have telephones.
I have 3 personal computers: a desktop with a big HD monitor, a 15″ laptop more powerful than my desktop, and a notebook mini that I use in the bedroom and lives on my night table. I also have 2 Kindles, including the new Fire which is a media center, though some consider it a computer (I don’t). For mobile communications, I have a Blackberry Torch .
Blackberry Torch
It’s very good at 3 things — all of which scream “communications” to me: Email, telephone calls, and maintaining a shared calendar with my husband so we don’t double schedule stuff. It would text just fine, but as it happens, I hate texting. My 10-inch notebook has as small a keyboard as I’m willing to use for typing anything beyond a couple of words. I type with 10 fingers. My thumb, opposable and all, is excellent for picking things up and holding a pen, even for playing the piano. They are not designed for typing. That must be a genetic adaptation that occurred in the last 30 years. My thumbs are not pointy or fast-moving. They are thumbs that perform thumb-appropriate tasks.
In a never-ending attempt to make a single device that can do everything, mobile phones now do just about everything except make quality phone calls. Most of them have terrible audio quality on the phone. They may have decent reproduction for music and games, but you can’t hear a voice on the other end of a call. Crackle, white noise and low amplitude makes real phone calls torture. My husband and I each bought a Blackberry because we wanted to be able to make phone calls and hear each other and sometime, other people, on the telephone. Shocking concept? Are you appalled that we use our phones primarily as portable communications devices?
iPhone 5
While we were in the phone store, we tried out all the different phones including the iPhone and the only one that had good quality voice reproduction on telephone calls was Blackberry. The others are all trying to be a cross between an MP player, mini computer, and game boy. The voice quality on phone calls was awful, but apparently no one actually uses that function anymore.
I have computers to compute. I have an MP player and I have the Kindle Fire for media. I use my telephone for communication. Oh, and I carry a small, good quality camera for taking pictures on the fly.
I strongly believe and no one has ever shown me any good reason to change my mind that anything that is trying to do everything isn’t doing anything really well … or it’s doing one thing well and twenty other things badly.
My son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter have telephones that are now close to half the size of my Kindle. Soon, they will be as big or bigger. Does anyone remember how we all wanted smaller phones so we didn’t have to carry a great big “thing” with us?
For a while, they got a little too small for my taste, but then they got back to a size that is definitely telephony.
Dell XPS 15
Now, with each added function they put on the phone, the more apps, widgets, peripherals, gadgets, functions, styli, wires, earphones, docks and doodads you need to do accomplish these different things on what originated as a telephone, the less I want to do with them. It’s not that I don’t understand them. I understand just fine
I don’t LIKE them.
Honk if you think a phone should be first and foremost, a device that is very good for making and receiving telephone calls!
November 3, 2012 at 1:15 pm
I remember our first ‘portable’ phone…a hugh black box that sat on the floor in the car beneath the radio! It was very cumbersome but back in the day it was the ‘real deal’!
November 5, 2012 at 1:08 am
Garry had one of them. It was enormous and weighed a ton. But that thing could make a phone call from anywhere. There were NO dead zones. Probably fried his brain, but it always worked. About the size of a brick.
They are getting almost that big again. Not as heavy, but almost a as big!
November 2, 2012 at 7:48 am
Honk!!! It’s impossible to buy just a good phone these days. They generally come with lots of useful gadgets like calculators, notepads, calendars & appointment makers. I also love the built it phone book with all my contacts. My Samsung from TracFone haas a camera that I’ve used a few time when I had to capture a shot and didn’t have one of my 3 digital cameras with me.
When digital phones first came out they sucked. You’d quickly lose a signal as there were dead spots everywhere. Now, the opposite is true, you can get a clear connection all around you. Keep in mind I live in Silicon Forest so wi-fi and free networks are all over the place. Still, I use a phone as a tool and keep my original iPad in my “manbag” over my shoulder. I have my Kindle in the bathroom for reading right next to the “throne”.
November 2, 2012 at 9:38 am
It isn’t impossible to get a simple phone that has good sound, but it isn’t easy. When my last Blackberry died, I wasn’t ready to replace it so I bought fr $30 at Walmart, an AT&T “go-phone.” It works fine. It won’t synch up with our schedule or I’d just have kept it. It’s a telephone. It makes telephone calls. It also texts if you’re into that. Good reception, good size, useful. As for regular phones, they are out there. The problem is finding one that has high quality voice reproduction. You’d think that wouldn’t be an issue at this stage of telephone development. You can ignore the extra stupid stuff, but being unable to hear what someone’s saying on the other end is my deal breaker. Anyone who wants to use their phone as control central is welcome, but first — a telephone should be able to make phone calls.