Last of the Luddites

My lack of blogging over the past few weeks has not been due to the problems which I had with my home computer, but rather a combination of deadly headaches, loss of motivation, over-heating and nothing much to write about.

On 19 May, 2011 - just over three years ago - I wrote about receiving a new mobile phone, a Nokia 3710 fold. This was hardly top of the line at the time, but now it's a fossil. There had been rumours that my company would be replacing the old, dumb, mobile phones but I didn't pay much attention. On Sunday, out of the blue, I was asked which model I wanted (i-Phone 5 was the immediate and joking reply), out of a choice of two: Samsung Galaxy Trend Plus or Nokia 802. After some inter-family consultation, I plumped for the Samsung.

Today I received it and this evening I will set it up (or rather, my daughter, who worked for a year for one of Israel's mobile carriers, will do so). Then I will try and learn how to use this new object. I've been looking at the user manual for the past few days and it actually doesn't seem to be too daunting. Of course, I'm not particularly interested in the advanced, 'smart', abilities of the phone; all I want, at least at the beginning, is to make and receive phone calls along with managing my contacts.

This review has been very helpful to me. I don't see any irony in the fact that I receive my first smartphone almost the same day as the i-Phone 6 is announced. I am a Luddite in terms of mobile telephony and have no need for all the whizz-bang functionality (nor the cost) of a top-line phone. One advantage of this model - as opposed to the Nokia - is that "The Samsung Galaxy Trend Plus does not take micro SIM cards as many smartphones do today. Instead, it works with the old-school standard-sized SIM cards, aka mini SIM cards." So I can take the SIM out of my old phone, place it in the new, and immediately start calling all my contacts, without the need of any data transfers.

"On the front of the device is located a VGA camera for selfies and video calls. Image quality is poor, but having a front-facing camera is better than not having one at all" - this, of course, is very important to me (not!), likewise "Technically, the Samsung Galaxy Trend Plus is capable of recording 720p video, but it isn't very good at it. Footage is grainy and low on detail, as if someone has stretched a 480p video to fit into a 720p frame. Indoor and low-light videos are even worse – barely usable, we'd say". It's like stereo separates: if I want to film video, then I'll use a video camera.

Apparently my mobile plan includes 50Mb data so I can be connected to Whatsapp all day long. I doubt very much that I'll ever use the phone in order to surf the Internet as I have a computer at home, another computer at work and a third, mobile, computer, all of which are connected to the Internet. 

[MPP: 514; 0, 1, 6]