May 19
For the last year and a half I have used the same cell phone — a Samsung m510 in green — and had been very happy with it. I had moved from a service provider that did not have coverage for me for most of my province to the crown owned service provider that allowed me to be covered everywhere (with very FEW exceptions in the most remote areas) for not only analog services, but also digital services like text messaging…
Until this weekend… when my phone decided that it was pretty much DONE with the business of acutally being a PHONE. Suddenly my phone was not ringing (or vibrating OR blinking) when calls were incoming, even when I had full digital service! The calls were not being registered at ALL (because it usually tells me if I have missed a call too, but they weren’t registering at all as having been recieved by my little green buddy) and the only way I would even KNOW that someone had tried to call me was when the voicemail beeped (I have voice to text, so it comes in as a text message) and I read my voicemail. Then I could call that person back.
There were times that the damned thing RANG, though, so I was sure that it was just something to do with the service in my house. For example, when I called my mother on Saturday and missed her, it RANG when she called me back. It RANG!! But when Reg called it didn’t ring (any of the 6 times he called between friday and sunday!), and it didn’t ring when theEx called to let the kids talk to me and say “happy mother’s day”.
Damned phone.
But I still got text messages, which really made me happy (since Reg and I text way more than we talk on the phone anyway)… and sometimes when I tested the phone at work (by calling it from my work phone, less than 1 foot from the cell phone) it would ring… or blink the red led… or vibrate… or all three (which is what it is supposed to do)… but 9 times out of 10 it would not register the call at all.
Well… last night it completely gave up recieving calls. And it would dial but randomly drop the call when I tried to dial out. Although it will still send and recieve text messages.
But I don’t have a home phone. This is IT. So if it doesn’t perform its PRIMARY function, which is to be a PHONE, then I need to seriously look into replacing it.
Now… I was planning to wait to replace it until the Palm Pre came out. Apparently the Bells (of which my service provider is one) are the ones who will be carrying the Pre… and since I have pretty much decided that I will move up to a smart phone when I formally renew my service contract (I don’t have a home phone anymore, so I would be using it as a base-of-communications (laugh)) I had hoped that my little m510 would last until the Pre came out (sometime in the second half of 2009, at least that’s the promise right now)…
But it obviously isn’t going to go that way.
Which leaves me with 3 choices now:
1. Get my phone repaired, at an estimated cost of $75 and might leave me without ANY phone for 4-6 weeks, and if they DO have a loaner phone for me to use I would have to give them $25-50 for use of the phone depending on model and length of time it takes to repair my phone.
2. Buy another phone to use for the remainder of my anxious wait for the Pre or the remainder of my contract time, at a cost of ~$100. This both buys me time and ensures that I have phone service until I make a decision to go to a data plan and smart phone (PRE!!!)… The pros are that I have phone/voice service uninterrupted until I can change plans.
3. Jump the gun and get on a data plan now, with a reduced cost for the smartphone to replace my currently adorable but actually not at all USEFUL phone. Since I know that I am going to go this way in the end, it makes some measure of sense for me to go to the smartphone option now, move to a data and voice plan, and just get it over with. But the downside is that the smartphone that I ultimately want is not out or available yet. I would rather get locked into a plan when I can get the phone system that I want, rather than going with a blackberry that I don’t want, just to do it.
Honestly, I think I am much more likely to go to option 2 — I can get the phone (and look into a refurbished one) to hold me over until the Pre comes out and then go to the data and voice plan that will work for me. It gives me more time to balance out my finances a bit too…
But it still sucks that I don’t have a working phone. I have to remedy that this afternoon when I go to get groceries…
Oh joy.
I would go with #2 myself. If there was a phone that I REALLY wanted, I would wait for it for sure.
I kind of hate the cell phone I currently have because I didn’t put any effort/money into choosing one. I rarely use cell phones, but I use mine even less than I would because I just hate it. It’s cute….but SO stupidly complicated when it comes to changing any settings or doing ANYTHING other than answering the phone. Arg!