I don’t even know how many that makes anymore. 5, 6?
Every two years like clockwork and I’m not even joking.
Every other Summer I’m down there wipping out my card and paying a bunch of money on a stupid cell phone.
I am ABSOLUTELY NOT paying big money for one of the damn things either.
And for anyone who wants to say, “well there ya go ya cheapskate, you get what you pay for”.
Not so Grasshopper.
While I’m bitching and griping to the guy behind the counter about it, he tells me he has the same problem with THIRTEEN HUNDRED DOLLAR PHONES!!!
Screw that!
I don’t even know what just the phone cost because of course you have to get the screen protector and a new case.
Which has some kind of Orange shit all over it.
Excuse me people, I’m not 14 years old. I don’t give a rat’s ass about your bling.
I’m 66 fucking years old. I just want a plain old Black Plastic motherfucker that does the job, OK?
But no.
Don’t have those in stock.
Whatever.
Bonus round just for fun, the new phone comes with a charging cable but no wall wart.
Oh no no no, you gotta buy that separate!
Insert face palm here.
The one I have been getting don’t have the little SIM cards in them. Now they have to sit them side by side and download everything wirelessly. Of course those rotten fuckers at GOOGLE are involved because all my videos and pictures somehow automatically get sent to them and are stored in that ONE DRIVE cloud shit which I ABSOLUTELY HATE!!
I have tried repeatedly to shut that off but somehow every time I turn around it’s back.
Out the door, I think it all came to about $375 and it took an entire hour.
The old one shit the bed after I was texting my brother and sent him a picture.
It locked up tighter than a Preacher’s prick in a calf’s ass.
I tried restarting it and it went through all the bullshit like it always does and then the screen went black and wouldn’t do anything. So I tried it again with the same result.
Fuck hat noise!
Because I have to use these things at work all the time and they actually kick me an extra $60 a month to go towards my phone bill, I am not even playing around with this shit.
I had the choice of them giving me a work phone, which absolutely not, if I can help it or give me some extra money to use my personal phone.
Theirs came with an encyclopedia of rules and horse shit I ain’t even messing with.
So down to the phone store I went.
The old one will get tossed in a drawer in an old tool box with the rest of them I have collected over the last 10 years until the day I decide they are taking up too much space and I pitch them.
Hopefully this one will last until I am fucking retired and I won’t have to worry about even having one of the fucking things anymore If I don’t want to.
$1300 phones, $80,000 trucks…they can fuck themselves in the ass before I pay…..
tossed my cell phone away after I retired. have a old land line.
people are always asking for my “cell number” and are shocked to find out I don’t have one. kind of toyed with the idea of getting a SAT phone though.
not sure if I want that even. I kind of like the quiet of no phone.
Oh boy! I’ve owned exactly 4 cell phones. Each ‘upgrade’ has been because the cell phone company no longer supported the version I had. Not because the phone had any problems. I buy the cheapest one in the display. The one I’m currently using cost something like 35 bucks, the case and screen protector were another 20, and the annual fees to use it are about 200 dollars. Granted, it spends most of its time on my desk or in the bottom of my purse. I’m not spending large sums of money for a hand-held electronic monitoring device.
I have an 8 year old Walmart Straight Talk Samsung Galaxy “smart” phone I bought for $99, it costs me $35 a month. Granted, I do not “browse” the interwebs but use it as a phone, a camera, a calendar and for text messaging. I keep the voicemaul full, bluetooth, wireless and location off Anyone who wants to find me can…if I recognize the phone number I answer. Otherwise, life is pretty peaceful.
Hello,
I am with you big time! Cannot stand dealing with getting a new cell phone. I am 57, and miss the days of lan lines being the norm. I do not have the issues you however because I can come up with the following when its time for a new phone…
Be ready, I’ve written a book here in the hopes it helps you and others…
First, I refuse to use Apple. When they dictate what apps are on my phone, even after downloaded, it is clearly not MY phone no matter the price. Thus Android is my choice.
Second, I am a dedicated user of MetroPCS. Ya I get it, they have many issues. Though unlike most cell carriers, they are often half the price for service, and by law other cell tower owners must allow their traffic. The bonus of using them is they have always offered a free (up to $250ish) toward a new phone for new customers. I get around the new customer issue by getting a new cell number when getting the phone. I have to wait 5 weeks to switch my own number over, and typically paying 15-25 to move the old number to the new phone (tho this time they waved the fee just to be nice). You can have your old number forwarded for that time if needed.
Third, I goto GSMarena.com and use their compare to find the biggest bang for the buck on the phones MeroPCS offers at the time. I avoid Samsung, their quality is horrific in the last 10 years. I prefer Motorol, and LG based on over all quality and durability from each. For me key features are a 3.5 headphone jack, sim and memory card slot. I also give bonus points to more actual ram on the phone. All my contacts are saved to my gmail account I use for the phone. Thus when I get a new phone, they all are downloaded automatically. This alone takes a giant weight off my back when using the new phone right off the bat.
Forth and a big point. I get my case and screen protector from Amazon typically. I always filter on 4+ stars and sort by avg. customer reviews. I never buy anything from Amazon with fewer than 500 reviews. And if you are like me who suck at putting it on, you can bring the new screen protector once you get it, along with the new phone back to MetroPCS and if you ask kindly, they will put it on for you. I often do this when I return in 5 weeks to get my old number switched to my new phone.
All my phones typically last 8-10 years and are often the source of a good laugh and awe by the rep at the store when getting a new phone.
Good luck and God bless,
RedR
PS- Thank you for the site, is a daily stop for me and always enjoy!
I’ve had the same Samsung for 5.5 years. No issues at all.
Dropped that thing so many times and the worst I’ve had to do is a restart..
Won’t get 5 or 6G but I don’t want that anyway.
Same with my LG, 6.5 years with a new battery, new screen, new charge port, and a bunch of phone-fixing tools in a drawer.
I’ll keep it going as long as parts are available or until the grid goes down, I guess.
Geez, ya got me to actually looking at my dead phone pile. In garage, a bag phone for a defunct system from 1985. Has the handset, the electronics suite box and an amplifier module, so 3 components once bolted to the van, not to mention the special antenna with through glass coupling…..
In front of me on shelf 5 phones from the 2000’s, including 3 apple and 2 android.
In basement, a box with 15 phones (I did have 2 kids of phone age back then) ranging from Blackberry to a dozen mystery brands now long gone.
I think we tossed some more over to the electronics recycling operation south of town along the way.
And now to add insult to injury, my Samsung S24 FE is glitching and I have only had it for 2 years. Built in fookin’ obsolescence I say. The battery is fine, suspect bad update/patches from the source. Bleah!
No way I will shell out for new, time to hit the “recently discarded” market on fleabay to see what can be had that is newer but not bleeding wallet edge new.
If you don’t need a smart phone, there are multiple hardy flip phones still out there.
Bonus is that there’s way less crap and I get next to no scam calls as it isn’t as easy for internet based voip etc to connect.
Wipe (factory reset) the old ones and give it to a domestic violence victim shelter. They’ll be grateful.
My last phone lasted 6yrs, the new one better last that long at least. Hopefully I do too. We’ll see.
I went to google and asked it “How do you disable Onedrive?” Worked for me.
Good luck.
“Built in fookin’ obsolescence I say”
yup, and updates that just make you wanna smash it anyway…if not for work, I likely would not have a smott fone
Back in my work days the County offered to give me $75/ month if I just used my phone for work. No thanks. I didn’t want to get work calls when I’m was on vacation. I actually ended up, about every six weeks, packing 3 cell phones in the work truck when my rotation for weekend Superintendent rolled around. Happy to say, those days are over.
Ever notice the ebonix crowd all have pricey iPhones as part of their bling repertoire to film the multitude of chimpouts occurring in any given day?
Most of the videos still look like Sasquatch encounters…
Whirl Star!
When work required me to have a cell phone, they provided it. My personal phone is whatever was cheapest at Tracfone when I got my yearly subscription. The phone is for 911 or AAA calls, and stays in a Faraday bag in the glove box of my truck. Look up “Luddite”. Yep that’s me. Funny thing is that I was a computer programmer for 20+ years. I’m not opposed to technology, just the misuse, lack of privacy and intrusion of cell phones.
Since 2007 i have had 2 phones and only replaced the first one in 2023 because it was no longer supported. It had a replaceable battery i swapped out every 23years for a new one though.
Current one is a rugged small brand phone and it gets abused for work with no issues.
Old phones make great targets.
Sat on a iPhone 6 for years, they were at 12 or 14 when I upgraded to 8se cause ima cheap bastard and not gonna pay a grand for a phone, just upgraded to a 14 have no idee what the current #is have saved a cuple grand probably
I’m still running an LG V60 thinQ, their final flagship phone, which I bought new at a steep discount about a year after it was introduced, and just after they announced their pulling out of the smartphone market after bleeding money on it for a few years. It’s an excellent phone with minimal boost (I bought a factory unlocked version and out it in MetroPCS, so had no carrier software bloat). It has now had tis battery, USB and headphone jack replaced once, and I have parts to do so again, probably before year end.
It gets no further updates or patches at this point, but it does what I need it to do, and is far better than anything else currently offered that I’ve seen. I’m actually planning to buy another NOS V60 here soon to have as my next phone, it should be supported for several years yet since it’s 5G capable and has high enough hardware specs that it isn’t slow by comparison to 2026 models.
I’m still pissed LG was forced out of the market by Apple and Samsung crap on the high end, and all the chinesium shit on the low end.
Sonim XP5 is the answer. Hard to break and good audio quality
That’s the major reason I did the LG V60. Very good audio, with a premium DAC, micro SD slot (for lots of music storage) and a true 3.5mm headphone jack (which is getting to be a tough feature to find anymore). I just wish there was something that still had an easily swapped battery, instead of all these damn sealed designs.
My wife and I are both still using our Samsung Galaxy J7 from around 2015..!!
My old Windows 7 still works fine…
Here’s one for ya’ll to remember them good ol’ days…enjoy!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OADXNGnJok
I gotta use the disposable phones. I break them like it’s cool. My friends won’t let me participate in the pool, said it’s like insider trading. Whatever.
My record is 5 phones in eleven months. After the last one the phone company sent me a check. Not lying. It actually pissed me off because on the memo line it said ‘device protection plan’ those rotten MF’s charged me full price for every phone! They made bank on me. That was MetroPCS. I ain’t dealing with them or T mobile ever again.
I had a ruggedized flip phone, i broke POS too. That was my last T mobile phone. I broke a ruggedized flip phone…
The best outfit I’ve dealt with is Boost Mobile. I dropped them years ago because they didn’t have coverage out here. Now they do so I went back to them. I hate my current phone. I really do not like it at all. It’ll probably lat a couple of years just to spite me. The last phone that i really did like, I broke it in a week. Bent that sucker so much that the rubber button over the microswitch fell off into the back of it.
Cell phones suck! They ain’t nothing but an electronic leash.
That’s all I got to say.