Cell Phones - Blessing or a Curse?

[k0ua]

Re: Cell Phones - Blessing or a Curse?

I do. I talk on mine a lot. Some texting too!

 

[k0ua]

Re: Cell Phones - Blessing or a Curse?

By the way, my 5 year old Motorola "Droid turbo) Still works very well, still has good battery life, (original integral battery) and has excellent audio including speakerphone audio. I am extremely pleased with its quality and durability. It is a very rare remote location in SW Missouri that I don't have a good signal with Verizon service (Verizon has the best coverage in SW Missouri, no brag, just fact). Its 21 Megapixel camera is great, and a very clear sharp display. Did I mention how pleased I am with this phone?

 

[ultrarunner]

Re: Cell Phones - Blessing or a Curse?

The work phone is a Android Moto G5 plus 7.0

Don't have anything bad to say about it... nothing really to compare it to but I do know friends with Apple phones plug them in every night.

On mine, just to be safe, I plug it in about every 5 days.

No Data Plan so WiFi only for data.

 

[drssg]

Re: Cell Phones - Blessing or a Curse?

The work phone is a Android Moto G5 plus 7.0

Don't have anything bad to say about it... nothing really to compare it to but I do know friends with Apple phones plug them in every night.

On mine, just to be safe, I plug it in about every 5 days.

No Data Plan so WiFi only for data.

I didn’t know that’s still possible. Perhaps it’s just a corporate option?

My first couple of smart phones had a pay-as-you-go data plan, so I turned off the cellular data to ensure it was never charged.

I had WiFi at work and at home, and that covered most of my life.

 

[turnkey4099]

Re: Cell Phones - Blessing or a Curse?

I consider it a tool. Less than 10% of my use is talking to someone.

Best Apps ever:

Latitude Longitude, quickly pinpoints your location with 911 mailing address and Latitude/Longitude numbers. I use it when calling Dig Rite to locate underground utilities.

Angle Meter Pro, has multiple selections of data reporting. I use it to determine slope of road banks. As a simple Level. Construction slopes such as roof.

Compass, self explanatory.

Google Maps, self explanatory.

Climate.com, use primarily as a rain gauge. I have a dozen locations pinpointed across a 10 mile area, including my homesite and my farm. Averages 80%+ accuracy. Good enough to save me a 6 mile trip to the farm just to find out it rained an inch.....

Unit converter, converts any measurement you can think of to something you understand. Great for old timers that refuse to learn the metric system.

Group Me, great for texting in groups larger than 10. Use it to group communicate with the offroad gang I hang out with.

I keep all these on my Home Screen for handy access.

My usage is usually in short spurts. Frequency dependent on how busy I am that day. Cell Phone was my families idea because I'm out alone at night pushing snow in the Winter, somewhere on 50 miles of sparsely populated rural roads.

"Google Maps, self explanatory": Take their locations with a big dose of skepticism. I had to rescue another person trying to find my house with it. Google maps has me on the wrong side of town and 7 miles from the correct location. I think it was google maps that has also misled people onto roads leading nowhere.

 

[ovrszd]

Re: Cell Phones - Blessing or a Curse?

"Google Maps, self explanatory": Take their locations with a big dose of skepticism. I had to rescue another person trying to find my house with it. Google maps has me on the wrong side of town and 7 miles from the correct location. I think it was google maps that has also misled people onto roads leading nowhere.

I use it for sat pics of areas I'm familiar with.

 

[Industrial Toys]

Re: Cell Phones - Blessing or a Curse?

I found the compass on my Apple phone was worse than useless for accuracy. It just looked great.

 

[Diggin It]

Re: Cell Phones - Blessing or a Curse?

I didn’t know that’s still possible. Perhaps it’s just a corporate option?

My first couple of smart phones had a pay-as-you-go data plan, so I turned off the cellular data to ensure it was never charged.

I had WiFi at work and at home, and that covered most of my life.

Most all phones now are capable. Buy them outright and you don't even need to sign up for a cell carrier to be able to use them as a handheld tablet of sorts.

 

[Diggin It]

Re: Cell Phones - Blessing or a Curse?

"Google Maps, self explanatory": Take their locations with a big dose of skepticism. I had to rescue another person trying to find my house with it. Google maps has me on the wrong side of town and 7 miles from the correct location. I think it was google maps that has also misled people onto roads leading nowhere.

Years back, I bought a thing that needed to be delivered by truck. That day I got a call from the driver telling me he'd be here in a few minutes. I asked him where he was. Once he told me, I asked him what route he was planning on taking. When he told me, I said' Nuh-Uh. You can't get here from there. There ain't no bridge on that road across the river. Ain't never been a bridge, ain't never gonna be a bridge.'

All he knew was that the mapping system showed a state highway route number, but no details.

 

[Ritothebull]

Re: Cell Phones - Blessing or a Curse?

I don't know why they even call them phones anymore, their really just portable computers that can make a phone call. We recently lost our phone and dsl to lightning and it took Century Link 5 days to get it fixed so we ran everything from our phones mobil hotspot, my wife works from home and she is on the computer all day.
I take motorcycle trips with some friends and very seldom get cought in storms anymore because we can watch the radar and avoid the bad stuff. We ride a lot in the Smokey Mountians and it can be raining on one side of the mountian and beautifull on the other so we have very little downtime these days. We also check the traffic when traveling on the interstate and can now see where the traffic is, if you ever drove through Atlanta you'll know what I mean.

 

[3930dave]

Re: Cell Phones - Blessing or a Curse?

The work phone is a Android Moto G5 plus 7.0

Don't have anything bad to say about it... nothing really to compare it to but I do know friends with Apple phones plug them in every night.

On mine, just to be safe, I plug it in about every 5 days.

No Data Plan so WiFi only for data.

Battery life.... that's a big issue for me, and is one of the key things I look for in a phone.... I'm not interested in having to charge every day. You are doing well with that Moto, but no data is helping battery runtime too....

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

Re: Cell Phones - Blessing or a Curse?

Years back, I bought a thing that needed to be delivered by truck. That day I got a call from the driver telling me he'd be here in a few minutes. I asked him where he was. Once he told me, I asked him what route he was planning on taking. When he told me, I said' Nuh-Uh. You can't get here from there. There ain't no bridge on that road across the river. Ain't never been a bridge, ain't never gonna be a bridge.'

All he knew was that the mapping system showed a state highway route number, but no details.

Various gps stories out there, this one is one of the worst....

Albert Chretien: Remains of Canadian lost in Nevada wilderness found six miles from town 18 months later | Daily Mail Online

I remember that happening.... several years later, the picture of that Astro/Safari van with running boards stuck off-road is still fresh in my mind.

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

Re: Cell Phones - Blessing or a Curse?

So, does anybody use them for ..... you know ..... calling people?

Only when I want to tell somebody about a great new App I found

Most of the higher end phones are still OK, but some of the low-end phones have pretty poor audio - in a budget design, with text and data a higher priority, not many pennies gets allocated for audio...

Flex-functionality in a smartphone lets it do an endless # of tasks; we've hit on just a few in this thread. They are more popular as portable computers than audio devices today.

Sometimes they change, even when you don't want/need them to...... last update on mine radically changed how the camera zoom was activated.

I'm pretty good at sorting out most forms of tech..... I do get slightly irritated when a key feature changes mostly "Just because We Can......".

Rgds, D.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Re: Cell Phones - Blessing or a Curse?

Just having google maps for traffic is worth having one. I saw a huge backup on the interstate the other day, i was able to get off ahead of it and go around. On my detour i saw the interstate stopped for miles, and no way for them to escape. Saved me at least a couple hrs. I use it daily.

 

[Diggin It]

Re: Cell Phones - Blessing or a Curse?

Just having google maps for traffic is worth having one. I saw a huge backup on the interstate the other day, i was able to get off ahead of it and go around. On my detour i saw the interstate stopped for miles, and no way for them to escape. Saved me at least a couple hrs. I use it daily.

Paper maps did that for decades. And you (probably) won't get cited for using one while driving.

 

[Industrial Toys]

Re: Cell Phones - Blessing or a Curse?

Paper maps helped avoid congestion? Really?

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Re: Cell Phones - Blessing or a Curse?

Paper maps did that for decades. And you (probably) won't get cited for using one while driving.

Never had a paper map show me there was a backup ahead.

 

[Industrial Toys]

Re: Cell Phones - Blessing or a Curse?

Maybe that's what the ketchup stains mean.

 

[/pine]

Re: Cell Phones - Blessing or a Curse?

CB radio with side band for the latest, greatest traffic conditions...!

 

[Jstpssng]

Re: Cell Phones - Blessing or a Curse?

Various gps stories out there, this one is one of the worst....

Albert Chretien: Remains of Canadian lost in Nevada wilderness found six miles from town 18 months later | Daily Mail Online

I remember that happening.... several years later, the picture of that Astro/Safari van with running boards stuck off-road is still fresh in my mind.

Rgds, D.

I have to say that story was told many times before the advent of GPS and/or cell phones. We had a few years where it seemed that every December when it started snowing somebody would have to go exploring and wouldn't make it back. I travel a lot of marginal roads and am set up for most situations; yet you wouldn't believe the people that I see in the darnedest places and find myself wondering what they would do if they got in trouble. On one occasion I was 20 miles in the woods on roads that were so icy that I had sanded the approaches to all of the bridges; I thought I was the only person for miles yet one day I met a Chevy sedan with handicapped plates, and some old guy just out "exploring." On another occasion I had chained up and beaten a path up a snow covered road, and kept it packed down so that I could get to where I was working. One day I was headed out and met a Subaru on a hill. He thought that I was going to pull over and let him go by.
It didn't happen... I would still be there.