". . . little shall I grace my cause

In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience,

I will a round unvarnish'd tale deliver . . ."

(William Shakespeare's Othello, I.iii.88-90)

Friday, December 14, 2007

New Toy

My cell phone played out a few weeks ago. The display had been malfunctioning for some time, intermittently taking on the appearance of a photo negative, and finally the battery quit charging. So even though my husband was drowning in work this week, preparing for Advent and Christmas services while simultaneously trying to complete the requirements for several graduate courses in which he was enrolled this semester, he took me out shopping for a new phone a few nights ago. We drove about two minutes away to our newly constructed neighborhood T-Mobile store and quickly settled on the model shown below. After factoring in a rebate plus the credit we received for renewing our T-Mobile contract (which recently expired), our cost was $49.99 for a Motorola phone that has a 2.0 megapixel camera, a memory card, video capability, voice recognition and command capability, a music player, and stereo Bluetooth connectivity (not that I really know what all that means, but it sounds pretty good, doesn't it?).

Oh, and best of all, it matches my blog!



While we were comparing models I asked the sales representative about how long the average cell phone lasts. She said that if you get two years out of a phone (mine was a little over two years old) you are doing remarkably well. Does that sound right to you cell phone users out there? If so, we'll probably be repeating this shopping trip soon because our other phone is also two years old (we don't have a land line anymore). Our sales rep added that she personally changes her phone about every six months either because she has damaged it or because she is simply bored and ready for a change. What I want to know is, where does a 20-something young woman working at T-Mobile get the kind of income that would allow her to trade up her cell phone every 6 months? (She acknowledged that she gets much higher-tech models than the one we purchased.) Oh yeah, I forgot--we're church musicians with three kids and a mortgage. That might explain it!

By the way, that same dear husband who took me shopping followed up our excursion with a stop at Boston Market so that I wouldn't have to cook supper. (My plate has been pretty full this week, too.) Am I one lucky girl or what?

Now if I can just figure out how to make this phone do all the stuff the box says it can do.

3 comments:

Susan K said...

1. My last cell phone was behaving very badly after about 21 months. The people at Verizon said that's normal.
I think that's dumb because I'd rather have a more sturdy phone that acts like a phone and not a camera, web browser, etc. and NOT have to buy a new one every two years.

2. That girl probably gets a big discount. And is dumb with money.

3. Cute phone! It's so you. :)

Anonymous said...

Cheryl,

Believe it or not Troy and I have had the same cell phones for almost 4 years! Troy is getting ready to bite the dust...but mine is fine for now. We just continue in the same contract because we have yet too see a better deal than what we have currently.

Love your phone!

Michelle

Kim said...

The first cell phones we ever got lasted around 4 years, the ones since then have lasted between 1-2 years. My phones always last longer than dh's because he uses his all day every day for work. Usually the first thing to go is the battery. I figured we get so little time out of them since we only get the free models which we are eligible for every 1.5 years. I just want to make calls with it so I have never cared if it has all the bells and whistles but I do enjoy having it be a bright color :)