Changing Cells March 25, 2010
Posted by Matt in random.Tags: cell phones, Generation X, Motorola Karma, upgrades
5 comments
To those of us Generation Xers who grew up in small town America in the 1980′s and 90′s, cell phones must have seemed like a strange novelty. I mean, we had old rotary phones at home and none that were wireless. When we were out places and needed a ride, we had to fish a dime out of our pocket and call someone on a payphone to come pick us up. But, sometime in the mid-90′s, that all began to change.
I got my first cell phone when I was a senior in high school, back in 1996. I was one of the first of my friends to own one and my parents got it for me following the serious car accident I was in at the beginning of the school year, when a call from a friend’s phone let them know what happened and might have even saved my life. It was a bag phone (remember those?) that was confined the seat of my pickup truck, but it did the job and that was all we could ask for. I’ve owned a few other cell phones since then, but I’ve always been content to use what I could get for free from A&T. I mean, it’s just a phone, right? Of course that was before I learned of the upgrade I was eligible for and decided that it was time to move into the 21st century.
Diana upgraded several months ago to a new one that I have to admit I was a bit jealous for. It had a full keyboard, unlike my phone which only has ten digits and forces you to push buttons up to 3 times for a single letter, and it was internet capable. I know that these things are old news to 95% of the world, but for me with this little Samsung I’ve been tied to for the past few years, it’s a big deal.
First of all, we considered some of the phones that everyone seems to be getting nowadays – Iphones and Blackberries and others that can singlehandedly accomplish any task you wish them to – but they would have cost more than we were able to spend and the data packages would have increased our monthly payment by about $30 per phone – ouch. So, instead, I took a step downward from those and picked up the same phone that Diana has, a Motorola Karma, which is light years ahead of anything I’ve ever had before. Since I was eligible for an upgrade, it did not cost us anything and the data package only ran us an extra $10/month, which is not bad at all.
Sure it may not be the most stylish or top-of-the-line cell, but it’s a radical difference from what I have grown accustomed to and I think it’s pretty cool. Now I just need to figure out how to work the dang thing…
