I got my LG flip-type phone for free last year when I signed up for a new number and returned to AT&T after a brief 18-month fling with T-Mobile. It has a 2.0 megapixel camera without flash, a 0-9 (plus * and #) keypad, a lousy speaker phone speaker and a tiny screen. It can make calls, text, calculate numbers up to 12 digits long, takes basic notes, and has demo versions of Tetris and Pac-Man.
My friends, meanwhile, keep upgrading their Blackberries and iPhones and Palms and HTCs every few months. Sometimes, it’s because there’s a new model. Other times, it’s because they break or lose their old ones. They show me the new features, the piles of apps, the snazzy screens and cutting-edge hardware.
Then, they call me.
We get cut off, diverted or dropped. Echoes and tinny sounds and beeps go off in the background. Their Smartphones don’t seem to do perform the task of the suffix of their compound name very well.
Then, research came out showing that smartphones give off a lot more radiation than dumbphones like mine. Some of them give off over 300% of the radiation that mine does. But who cares about that?
So having a dumbphone makes me feel less dumb. It might not have the cool extra features or decent web browsing capabilities, but it makes good calls, sends texts just fine, and will give me brain cancer at a much slower rate.
But darnit, that new iPhone looks awesome.
