Jim Kershner: Picking a cell causes plenty of hangups
Under the terms of my Verizon contract, I am now eligible for a free cell phone.
May God have mercy on my soul.
Is there anything more complicated than trying to choose a new cell phone? With the possible exception of choosing a calling plan?
After extensive amounts of research into this issue, I am facing this fundamental question:
Do I need a device that will make and receive phone calls, or do I need a device that will surf the net, send e-mail, track my whereabouts, download songs, download TV shows, play games, shoot bootleg videos and give me directions to Walla Walla?
The answer is no, of course, I do not need a device that will surf the net, send e-mail, etc., etc.
All I actually need is a thingie that makes phone calls. In fact, what I really need is a thingie that makes calls in the least complicated manner possible. If a phone existed with only three buttons – Call Daughter, Call Son, Answer Phone – that would be what I actually need.
Yet what I want is an entirely different matter. Here’s the problem, and this is a uniquely mid- to late-2000s kind of problem. The cell phone company is offering the simplest phones for exactly the same price as the insanely complicated phones.
To sum up: The phone which normally costs $19 is free. The phone which normally costs $179 is also free.
Now you see my quandary. The cheapskate in me wants to take Verizon for the most expensive high-tech phone they offer, because … well, because that is the Cheapskate Way.
Yet the realist in me is aware that under no circumstances will I ever download music to my cell phone. If I want to listen to Nickelback, I’ll do it on my iPod. And I do not want to listen to Nickelback.
So what should I do?
I asked for advice from my two 20-something kids.
“Get the best phone you possibly can,” said my son. “Why not?”
“Yeah,” said my daughter. “Don’t just buy the cheapest phone again. Did you know they make phones with color displays now?”
Then I asked my pal, Dr. Lyle, who, being a little older than a 20-something, gave his immediate gut-level reaction.
“Just get a simple phone,” he said. “You don’t want to have to carry an instruction book around with you.”
But then we started talking about the new VZ Navigator global positioning function, in which the phone will inform you which direction to turn on your way to the grocery store. We talked about the Bluetooth hands-free capability. We talked about the e-mail and Web browsing, and how that might actually be handy while traveling.
By the end of the conversation, he was saying, “Get the best phone you possibly can. Why not?”
Finally, I went to Consumer Reports, our family’s ultimate arbiter of all purchases.
The magazine told me that I should choose a basic model if I “want to limit cost.”
But what the magazine really liked were those fancy phones that would let you, for instance, “use the phone as your laptop’s modem and print pictures wirelessly.”
So I have been leaning toward a Motorola MOTOKRZR K1m, a cutting-edge phone that is even fancier than the old Motorola RAZR.
This MOTOKRZR has:
“A still camera and video camera.
“”Antique” photo effects, for those photos in which the family dresses up in derby hats and bustles.
“Music and video downloading, for all of my Nickelback needs.
“The VZ Navigator, to tell me where I am.
“Mobile instant messaging and e-mail, for those times when I don’t want to actually talk to anybody.
“Broadband access.
“Advanced speech recognition, so I can bark instructions at my cell phone
“Full-featured Wizard Wave ™ capability, so I can use the phone as a magic wand.
“ Full-featured Bluetooth capability, so I can go hands-free.
(Hint: Only one of the above items is fictional).
So, I am ready to order my new MOTOKRZR. I should have it in a few weeks, at which point a whole new cell phone world will open up for me.
As a cheapskate, of course, I will not be willing to pay the required monthly fees for Internet access, VZ Navigator access or media downloads. But it will be one heckuva nice thingie for making phone calls.