Well crap, I need a new phone!

My ruggedized Samsung Rugby is a victim of the 3G turn-off (Despite being a 4G device), so I need a new phone. Think I've settled on the Sonim XP3Plus.

Too late now but if your old phone had a removeable sim card, you probably could have obtained a 4G sim card and had it working again if the phone is truly 4G capable.

I just bought a new phone (S22+) to replace an old, cracked, worn-out-connector, S8. If I didn't care about 5G, I could have just swapped in my 4G sim card from my old phone and been good to go (without 5G). Instead, I went to Verizon and got a new 5G sim card to get the upgraded capability where available. I don't believe there was any cost for the sim card.
 
Too late now but if your old phone had a removeable sim card, you probably could have obtained a 4G sim card and had it working again if the phone is truly 4G capable.

I just bought a new phone (S22+) to replace an old, cracked, worn-out-connector, S8. If I didn't care about 5G, I could have just swapped in my 4G sim card from my old phone and been good to go (without 5G). Instead, I went to Verizon and got a new 5G sim card to get the upgraded capability where available. I don't believe there was any cost for the sim card.

Unfortunately not. The old phone wasn't on AT&T's list - I was hoping it would work anyway. The SIM card swapped over to the new phone and works there. Not all "4G" phones will work - the early ones apparently used 3G for voice.
 
Showed up today, had to set it up to run with Consumer Cellular, but it works splendidly. Missed a Dr.'s appt while I was without a phone as they left a friggin' voicemail. I sure wish people would use email...
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Old Samsung on the Left, new Sonim on the right. This thing is a BEAST! Loving it so far.

hey that thing actually looks pretty cool. I'd 100% use one of those over a smart phone if I could. But there are aspects of my job, like communicating with my coworkers back at the factory while I'm troubleshooting refrigeration equipment on a white roof in direct sunlight, no place to sit a laptop and couldn't see the screen if there was. Or like yesterday, I was able to ride an hour round trip to go look at a car and "work" from the passenger seat using Microsoft Teams.

I'm with you on the voicemail thing. It made sense when it was all we had (no email or text) but now it's an obsolete relic that people continue to hold onto for some reason.

Nowadays, I don't listen to them, ever. I'll read the transcription that my phone produces for me but occasionally that fails, and if that's the case, too bad.
 
These little guys are popular with inmates. You can still carry it even when your skirt doesn't have pockets....

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hey that thing actually looks pretty cool.

I'm with you on the voicemail thing. It made sense when it was all we had (no email or text) but now it's an obsolete relic that people continue to hold onto for some reason.

Nowadays, I don't listen to them, ever. I'll read the transcription that my phone produces for me but occasionally that fails, and if that's the case, too bad.

Voice to text can be a good thing - I wish my VM would encode and email it to me. VM sucks - you can't skim it, you can't print it, you can't save it (elsewhere) and idiots insist on leaving their fucking life story on it. I've been toying with the idea of simply turning it off altogether, much like I did texting. If you gotta leave me a VM, I want to hear your name, number, and subject in 3 words or less - then HANG UP!
 
Nothing ironic about it. Phones and I aren't a good mix - not even landlines. My computer has email open and running at all times, if they had emailed me, I would have gotten the message immediately. Voicemail is horrid, even under ideal conditions.

I can't wait for the day where we can have a device that would act as a phone, have the ability to send short messages, can be used to quickly check - or even transcribe voicemails, and can be quickly used to send and read emails... Once someone figures that out, they're sittin' on a gold mine!!
 
I can't wait for the day where we can have a device that would act as a phone, have the ability to send short messages, can be used to quickly check - or even transcribe voicemails, and can be quickly used to send and read emails... Once someone figures that out, they're sittin' on a gold mine!!
Why would anyone want to mate a phone with email? What a friggin' nightmare...
 
So you can confirm doctor's appointments in 6 seconds from anywhere ;)

Why would I want to do that? Esp. on a tiny screen with a sucky UI? "Sitting on a gold mine"? Yep - to the detriment of society in general, and poor people in particular.
 
Why would I want to do that? Esp. on a tiny screen with a sucky UI? "Sitting on a gold mine"? Yep - to the detriment of society in general, and poor people in particular.

Pretty sure I can respond to most all emails faster on my phone than my laptop.

Posted from my iPhone
 
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Pretty sure I can respond to most all emails faster on my phone than my laptop.

Posted from my iPhone
Good for you. There's no way in Hell I could. I need a full sized screen so I can see what I'm doing - and far more importantly, I need a real and full sized keyboard with tactile feedback.

I had to use my wife's smartphone a couple or three times during this inter-phone period. What a miserable experience...
 
Why would I want to do that? Esp. on a tiny screen with a sucky UI? "Sitting on a gold mine"? Yep - to the detriment of society in general, and poor people in particular.

Why would I want to have my computer booted up 24/7 to be able to check and reply to simple emails? 🤷‍♂️

Good for you. There's no way in Hell I could. I need a full sized screen so I can see what I'm doing - and far more importantly, I need a real and full sized keyboard with tactile feedback.

I had to use my wife's smartphone a couple or three times during this inter-phone period. What a miserable experience...

Sounds more like a user-issue, rather than anything inherently wrong with the phone. I mean, I wear XXL/XXXL gloves and have zero issues typing on my iPhone. Not 75-80 wpm that I can on a keyboard, but I'm rarely typing a thesis on email replies. My MIL, who is 77, and my wife's great-grandmother (~82? I think?) sends emails and "check-ins" via email when she's on the road all the time. Seems as if their old eyes and arthritic hands - plus my sausage fingers can manage the "tiny screen" and "sucky UI", seems like almost anyone can...
 
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Why would anyone want to mate a phone with email? What a friggin' nightmare...

So when someone calls you and you miss it, you want them to send an email (in your world that would mean them going to a laptop to send the email since email on the phone sucks), then you don't get the message until you go grab your laptop and read it from there? Sounds efficient.

OR, why don't they just send the 3 word voicemail subject over text? Wait, nevermind....you turned off texting because it's texting.
 
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So when someone calls you and you miss it, you want them to send an email (in your world that would mean them going to a laptop to send the email since email on the phone sucks), then you don't get the message until you go grab your laptop and read it from there? Sounds efficient.

OR, why don't they just send the 3 word voicemail subject over text? Wait, nevermind....you turned off texting because it's texting.
They're a business. I expect businesses to act like businesses. They're sitting in front of a computer all fucking day long - but they don't even need to lift a finger, the computer can send the appt. reminder automatically. But if they don't have the budget to program an auto-reminder, they certainly can send an email from the computer in front of their face. Being a business, they're going to have one type of landline or another, no texting from that anyway.

Funny thing is, my appointments at the beauty salon work EXACTLY like this. I get an email reminder a day or two ahead of time, all I have to do is make one click to confirm my appt. No fucking smartphone needed nor wanted on either end. I absolutely, positively refuse to do business via text. Text is fine for teenaged girls and even for short 1 off messages like "Pick up milk while you're out", or "I'm suck in traffic", but otherwise it sucks. Not for the least of reasons that its tied to phones (dumb or smart) and not my computer. Lack of a real keyboard is another drawback.
 
Why would I want to have my computer booted up 24/7 to be able to check and reply to simple emails? 🤷‍♂️



Sounds more like a user-issue, rather than anything inherently wrong with the phone. I mean, I wear XXL/XXXL gloves and have zero issues typing on my iPhone. Not 75-80 wpm that I can on a keyboard, but I'm rarely typing a thesis on email replies. My MIL, who is 77, and my wife's great-grandmother (~82? I think?) sends emails and "check-ins" via email when she's on the road all the time. Seems as if their old eyes and arthritic hands - plus my sausage fingers can manage the "tiny screen" and "sucky UI", seems like almost anyone can...
I *can*, but why would I want to? I do type about 80 WPM when I have a good keyboard, cribbing something out on a touch screen is just as painful as cribbing it out with pencil and paper. I took typing in 4th grade as I hate handwriting in general and cursive in particular. Why would I want to use an expensive, overpriced "device" that is very sub-par when I can use something that was designed better, is far easier to use, and is cheaper in the long run besides?

I think I've related this before, but years back I bought a cheap android tablet to see what the hubbub was about. The OS is sub-par, the UI is sub-par, the screen is too small (although bigger than any smartphone), the whole thing was obviously created to suck money out of one's wallet, etc, etc, etc. Nothing has changed my mind since.

You seriously expect me to use a smartphone when I can use this?:

DSC00917.JPG
 
So when someone calls you and you miss it, you want them to send an email (in your world that would mean them going to a laptop to send the email since email on the phone sucks), then you don't get the message until you go grab your laptop and read it from there? Sounds efficient.

OR, why don't they just send the 3 word voicemail subject over text? Wait, nevermind....you turned off texting because it's texting.

Me (recently): *gets message from daughter that she needs a copy of birth certificate sent to pole vaulting camp*

Scenario 1: grab my phone, head inside, grab birth certificate, scan as PDF through camera app, attaches immediately to new email, uses thumb-hold to copy email address and paste, types a brief but cordial note within the body of the email, hit send. Total time ~2 minutes.

Scenario 2 - the "Zorba Approved Method" - head inside, grab birth certificate, fire up the printer/scanner, open scanner software, walk over to printer, put document on tray, hit "scan", wait for it to scan and load, save scan to desktop, open up email, click "new" email, attach document, type brief but cordial note within the body of the email, hit send... Spends the next 15 minutes thinking about how smooth and comforting the keys felt under my fingers. Spends the next 25 minutes internalizing to myself that this was much more convenient with a remarkably better user interface. Spend the next 30 seconds yelling "FUCK!", after realizing I forgot about my doctor's appointment, wishing there was a device that was always with me that could keep track of appointments and have a calendar function :ROFLMAO:

You seriously expect me to use a smartphone when I can use this?:

Yes... :)

For one, that's the most uncomfortable looking workspace I've seen in a long ass time.

But also for the same reason I don't use a sledgehammer to hang a picture :) I work from home but even still, I'm not always in front of my computer (not that I want to be!). I sure as hell don't want to have to wake up my computer just to sent a 15 second email to confirm something. That's the antithesis of convenience and "UI".
 
Why would I want to have my computer booted up 24/7 to be able to check and reply to simple emails? 🤷‍♂️

But also for the same reason I don't use a sledgehammer to hang a picture :) I work from home but even still, I'm not always in front of my computer (not that I want to be!). I sure as hell don't want to have to wake up my computer just to sent a 15 second email to confirm something. That's the antithesis of convenience and "UI".

Computer is "awake" and running 24/7/365. So is my scanner. Plop the birth certificate on the scanner, hit "scan to email", address it and off it goes. That is, if I don't already have it as PDF in my file system. With a real keyboard, real pointing device, and especially a real screen, its a matter of moments to click said doc and its gone to whomever needs it.

Oh, and talk to me when you do programming, graphic design, web page creation, CAD design - electronics or mechanical, your choice - on a tiny screen with no keyboard nor mouse. Go ahead, I'll wait. Smartphones can do many things - none of them particularly well if you don't count sucking money out of your wallet - and there are other things they basically can't do at all. I've been using, programming, designing, and building (from the component level) computers since LONG before most people had ever seen one or knew what one was. Maybe even before you were born. I know what good computer design means, both hardware and software as I made my living for decades in the field. A smartphone ain't it - and I'm not interested in subjecting myself (or my wallet!) to the experience.
 
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