Well, my current cell phone (Samsung N400) has finally just about had it. Recently it’s been having trouble charging and I’m pretty sure it’s to do with the contact within the phone. There was a rubber filler covering the charge/USB connect which I ripped off long ago as it was annoying (probably didn’t help).
The home charger would work as long as it was positioned correctly, but I made sure that was no longer possible last night. It wouldn’t stay in charge mode and it quickly became frustrating. I figured it’s so old and used that the piece was pushed in farther than it should have and the contact for the charger wasn’t long enough to reach it anymore. So, I decided to pry it outwards. Now, it’s a little loose and the home charger no longer works. The car charger would work fine when the home charger wouldn’t, but now it needs to be in a certain position. Since this is terribly inconvenient I decided to just finally get a new phone.
I’ve had the same phone for almost, I don’t know, 5 or 6 years. I guess I should be lucky it lasted this long. Since people upgrade their cell phones pretty regularly, I’m sure they are not made to last more than a year or two at most.
I’ve been out-of-contract for almost 2 years. I thought it was great to be free, but after looking at alternatives I realized that all phone companies are just as bad as one another. I guess it all comes down to which phone you want to use. I happen to like Sprint, being all digital and having good coverage. One huge downside: most of their phones are pretty boring. Way too many clamshell designs, hard to find a single phone with all the features you want without the extra garbage you don’t want.
I didn’t want to think about it too much. I just flew over to the Sprint site and chose a phone based on two things: I wanted another Samsung and I wanted it to be as inexpensive as possible. My last two phones were Samsungs and they’ve been great. Eh, I guess I wouldn’t know the difference. I just didn’t want to purchase another car charger and am hoping the one I currently have still works with the new one (I know it works with a friend’s newer Samsung). I didn’t want to spend a lot of money as I’m not at all concerned about my cell phone. I use it as a timepiece and alarm clock for the most part. And something to pretend to use when I don’t want to look like a lost puppy.
So I went with the Samsung M300. Pretty basic phone with the features I want. Normally would retail for $180, but because I signed a 2-year contract (I don’t plan on going through the hassle of changing carriers anytime soon) and ordered it over the Intertron, I get it for free. I could have also gotten a $150 credit (and a more expensive phone), but I would have had to jump through a few more hoops. Since I didn’t want to change my plan to a more expensive one (the requirement was pretty low, $35/month, but I’m on an old $30/month plan that they don’t offer anymore), I passed on the offer.
Samsung M300 – taken from official site and GIMPed together (used without permission or scruples)
Oh, and doing a Google Image search for “samsung m300″+silver with the large images only option selected somehow produced this sole result:
US Election 2004 – Results listed by average IQ
Not surprising, yet highly amusing.