I'm a dedicated medium-late adopter, so by the time I get around to buying any hardware, the price has dropped and the bugs are fixed. This phone replaces one that served me well for (gulp) more than four years. I almost hate to let go of the latter since 50 months is by far the longest I've ever kept a phone and I really liked it, but the battery life was starting to fade.
Like my previous phone, this new one fits in one hand and in my front pocket, important since I like to go places without a purse when I can. (I don’t understand how some people carry their phone in their back pocket, which seems like an invitation both to butt-dials and theft. But I digress.) With twice the memory of my old phone, a far better camera, and a speedy processor, it's definitely a step up. It was time.
I know it’s important to back up your contacts before getting a new phone. I’d done that with my previous phones, but I’d never pared them down. I did so this time, culling my contacts by more than half. Gone are the dozens of duplicates. So, too, are the names and numbers of most of the big team of health professionals that helped my Dad through his final years.
So are contacts from jobs I had in the late 2000s, and the names and numbers of my daughter’s friends from the same era. (I'd inherited her first phone, an orange LG one with an inner keyboard.) As an aside, I really hated touch-screen smart phones when they first came out, but of course I got used to them -- and I wrote most of this in the Notes app on my new phone, waiting for the bus today.
I've recycled most of my old phones, but I still have that orange one, just because it is an awesome relic from the not-distant past. (See below.) And I still have its predecessor, a flip phone from near the turn of the century, just in case I someday need to live even leaner than I do now. But for now, I'm living large--for me, anyway--with my not-so-new smartphone.
