Call Me

I've had my iPhone for a little over two years; the contract period was up in the fall and I was qualified for an upgrade. At first I was just going to keep the old phone (a 3GS), but as the weeks went by there were more and more problems.  I guess that's not surprising. Apple is now selling the iPhone5; in cell phone lifetimes mine was geriatric.  Having the newest phone isn't important to me, so after some research I decided that I'd replace my phone with an iPhone 4S which I could get for half the price of the newest one.  However, I wasn't in any hurry to take care of the project.

We've always gotten our phones directly from the wireless carrier, either from a corporate store or the company Website.  A couple of weeks ago I was walking around the mall before I opened the Customer Service desk and stopped to talk to someone who worked at one of the third-party phone stores.  I told him I was in the market for a new phone and jokingly said I'd have to come check out his selection when I decided it was time.

One day last week when the mall was very slow the salesperson came to find me at the desk. He showed me the Windows 8 phone he used, and told me all about its features.  He even used the phone to take a couple of pictures of the store across from the desk so I could see how well the camera (both standard and front-facing) worked.  At the end of his demo, he mentioned that if I bought one of the phones from his store it wouldn't cost as much as it would from the wireless carrier.

I was intrigued, but needed to think about it.  The Windows 8 system is completely different from what I'm used to, but I didn't know anything about iPhones before I became the owner of one.  I could learn.  Over the weekend I did some research and Monday after work I stopped by the store to make the purchase.

Since I wasn't buying from the carrier, everything took a little longer to complete.  The salesperson had to pull out a three-ring binder that contained directions for third party vendors.  It took him a couple of tries to log into the system, and in the middle of the process had to change his password.   Since I had to wait around so long, he threw in a free phone cover as an offering for my trouble.

It's been a few days now and I'm still getting used to the phone, but it can do some pretty nifty things.  You can personalize the start screen with tiles, which you can rearrange and resize.  One of the coolest features is the ability to sync information wirelessly with the Windows Outlook calendar on my home computer.  The biggest negative I've found is the paucity of apps.  I've had to give up my beloved Words With Friends, but I hope with the game's popularity that will be temporary.

Five years ago today: New Thing #6--The Power of Pine