There’s some people in Australia who thought of this name before me, but they’re not doing anything with it so I’m not going to let that stop me.
In an attempt to be more present, to cut down on my incessant self-distraction and limit my FB exposure I’ve decided to try a little digital detox.
While Im not the kind of person who is on their phone while ostensibly socialising with others, I absolutely will dive into it the second you go to the bathroom. It’s not feasible for me to go entirely phoneless, but I am setting the goal of not regularly carrying a smartphone for a month and seeing what happens.
Phone free February report: 8210 was cute and comfy but really not practical, especially with its proprietary charger (with Irish plug). It also gave me disturbingly warm ears under use, leading me to think that SAR rating is something to bear in mind.
On day one I discovered that it costs about 25kr to look up a number by phone. On day two I realized I was going to need to use BankID and that I have two other authentication apps I was going to need to use, so I had to bring iPhone anyhow. I also realised that no smartphone means no internet bank or Swish… So, off the field with the 8210 and on comes 6220. Fiddling around in the settings I find annoyed texts from Suz in February 2010 asking would I not at least bring an iPad for texting and I realise we’ve been here before…
It’s true, I have a love for old tech and a reluctance (presented as environmental awareness, but mainly just stinginess) towards buying new phones. There has been one perfect phone and that was the HTC Wizard, aka the Sidekick. I would pay in blood for an update of this little gem, a smartphone before that was a buzzword, with a full qwerty slider keyboard, excellent voice control via Voice Commander, wonderful emulation and media capabilities, Internet and limited geofencing capabilities via cell-tower-triangulation. What were we taking about again? If I were to look in the inbox of the Sony Ericsson X10 pro mini on my nightstand I am fairly sure I would see more desperate texts from this time last year, with my wife imploring me to ‘just buy a new bloody phone already!’. Like it’s that easy…
I’m pretty entrenched in the iOS end of things these days and what I would really like, to be honest, is a small candybar feature phone with really good MP3/podcast/audiobook integration and hotspot capabilities. That way if I needed smarter features some days I could being a small tablet, but most days I could just rock a plain phone. Until then though I think I have to grab a more up to date burner, before my ears fall off!
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Enter the burner. I could go on at length about what I was trying to achieve in my choice of phone, but let’s just say “this wasn’t it”, “ElGiganten don’t accept returns” and leave it at that. Feverishly installing ironic wallpapers, I attempt to wring some small drop of entertainment from this device. Actually, due to them only having this shiny, white casing it’s kind of begging for Stormtrooper or GladOs livery. So; phone is only for calls and basic texting, it does have basic surf for if I need a number but it’s so much hassle I won’t be overly tempted. Podcasts on the iPod as the MP3 function is beyond basic and I don’t need the aggravation. More serious attempt number two starts tomorrow. To be continued.
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