# PHONE



## lotsasteam (Jan 3, 2008)

Well a couple weeks ago i changed over to the ANDROID World from T-mobile,first i thought its a cool thing but with every day use i started to hate that thing ,can't answer the phone quick enough-touching a button i didn't mean to,running outa juice,internet sucks when i try to enlarge the screen something else came up .....After a week off serius trial came thing 2 sony ericson?? Bahh what a piece of sh.....Thing 3 started sneaking up on me and i am a kind of ok customer with mu LG GS 170!!

Manfred Diel


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## lotsasteam (Jan 3, 2008)

Posted By lotsasteam on 18 Aug 2010 09:38 AM 
Well a couple weeks ago i changed over to the ANDROID World from T-mobile,first i thought its a cool thing but with every day use i started to hate that thing ,can't answer the phone quick enough-touching a button i didn't mean to,running outa juice,internet sucks when i try to enlarge the screen something else came up .....After a week off serius trial came thing 2 sony ericson?? Bahh what a piece of sh.....Thing 3 started sneaking up on me and i am a kind of ok customer with mu LG GS 170!!

Manfred Diel

KEEP it simple!


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## Del Tapparo (Jan 4, 2008)

We recently went from reliable flip phones to a touch screen from T-Mobile. It was exciting at first, but I've already canceled the web access, because it was a complete pain to use. Can't find a manual anywhere that explains anything other than changing batteries. I'm happy with T-Mobile, just made a poor phone choice I guess, and should have returned it within the window of opportunity.


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## nkelsey (Jan 4, 2008)

I have a Motorola Droid on Verizon. Really like it as I synchronize my google calendar and contacts with it. I do not email on it however. The google maps with navigation is good and there are some fun and neat apps out there. I like the barcode scanner which will read the barcode, then allow you to search for prices on the web with the data, great for comparison shopping. Has a charging cradle that sets it up to be your alarm clock.


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## Dwayne (Jun 10, 2010)

I've been using an iPhone for almost a year. Love it! As a trucker it is handier for emailing, web browsing and online banking than a laptop as I can carry it all the time. AT&T has good coverage most places I travel.


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## NW Jim (Jan 2, 2008)

I concur about the iPhone. It's so easy and intuitive, it doesn't come with an instruction book! I've been a heavy user of cell phones for 20 years, and this is by far the best phone I have ever had....and I'm not a Mac person!


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## markoles (Jan 2, 2008)

I had a Blackberry Bold with AT&T. Now I have a Blackberry Storm from Verizon. Prefered the real keyboard on the BOLD, and since the STORM doesn't have a text message plan, I never ever use it. It is for work anyway, and I am always in the office. 

My personal phone is a Samsung Impression, and it is just OK. It has a slide out keyboard and a touch screen. The problem I have with it is that I can't work it with one hand. Really need 2 hands. The slide out keyboard is a nice touch and it does take nice pictures and videos, but I miss my smart phone. I saw the new Samsung Droid phone and it looks pretty sweet. But, I want the iPhone 4, maybe get one next year. It is funny how Consumer Reports blew the glitch with the antenna way out of proportion. Less than 1/2% of users reported that problem. 

Here's a question: How many of you have an actual landline in your house. If so, why? We still have ours, and I don't think we'll ever get rid of it. But, then again, I am a track powered guy anyway.


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## Schlosser (Jan 2, 2008)

Why do I have a land phone? Ever have the power go out and the cell phone quits working because the battery need recharging? But the land line phone still works.

Need to call a business and wait on hold? Cell phones keep adding up the minutes, even on 800 calls; the land line doesn't charge for 800 calls nor the interminable - and I mean interminable - wait time.

Need to check prices or 'is it in stock' locally? The land line gets the use.

Art


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## wchasr (Jan 2, 2008)

Went from a flip phone to a Balckberry Storm adn am now on my third phone. First one died while ona trip to NYC jsut would NOt hold a charge for more than an hour and the heat that battery put out could make steam! Rep[laced the whoel phone and it was fine until about 2 months ago and then it just would not charge. Bought a new battery from Vertizon and it still would not charge. So they sent me a new phone. So far this one charges OK but it does better if I shut it off on the car Charger. Hmmm When I actually want it on? DOH! 

A friend got the Storm 2 which is slightly better. I'll be seeing him sometime soon to see how he likes it now that he's had it for a few months. 

The wife got the Curve I think and she loves it. Satidsfies ehr Facebook addiction. 

Chas


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## TonyWalsham (Jan 2, 2008)

No land-line for me. 
I use a VOIP service over my cable Internet connection. 
A$20 a month (as well as the Internet access charges) gives me *FREE* unlimited untimed calls everywhere in Australia and most places around the World. At least 8 hours a month to the UK and USA all free. 

I have had my 3G (early model) I phone for about one year now. Love it. Too small to use for the Internet although I do have Internet tethering enabled for my lap top. 

I understand about portable phones and power outages. Jennifer has a land-line just in case.


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## Dwayne (Jun 10, 2010)

I have no plans of having a landline in my cabin when I build it. I do have a very handy little 12v accessory charger I use in vehicles. It's no bigger than a car cigarette burner and has a USB port that allows charging of my iPhone. A few minutes sitting in a car gives a charged phone without the need to pay for a landline.


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## Randy Stone (Jan 2, 2008)

No land line for us. We've been totally cellular for well over 5 years. 

The only calls I got on the land line was sales and beggers 

Right now I have a Blackberry with Sprint. Biggest pc of crap. The cheaper Samsung the wife has will do more things. 

I would like an Iphone, but I'm not crazy about AT&T


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## Madman (Jan 5, 2008)

Bring back Ma Bell..........PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! New fangled land line phones fall off the hook unless you carefully place them there. Sound is not what the old Western Electric phones were. Don't drop one on a hard surface. You can slam the old phones into the concrete floor, pick them up and continue talking, I know from personal experience. Comcast's Triple Play gives you phone service. But don't wait too long after the power goes out to make any calls. The battery backup doesn't last long.

So this is progress? With Ma Bell, you had one choice, regulated fair pricing, repairs any time by calling one phone number and talking to a live person. Even when you get a live human being on the line these days, they sound like those dolls that had a pull string in the back of their neck. One or two scripted answers. You wanted a phone installed? Ma Bell came to your hose, did all of the wiring, checked to see that it worked, and repaired the damed things when needed, which was almost never. 

Please, somebody stop me.


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## markoles (Jan 2, 2008)

Dan,

I've never had Ma Bell and was born after the monopoly was broken up. I can't imagine how bad it would be now with the way companies are run. I think it would be worse, not better. The phones would still be the same now. 

My wife works for the cell phone company and we still have a landline!! We have a spare plug-in phone with a cord that we use if the power is out for extended periods. 

Interesting topic..


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## Pete Thornton (Jan 2, 2008)

How many of you have an actual landline in your house 
I still have a device that needs to "phone home" every night - my 10-year-old ReplayTV DVR gets its program guide over the phone. I'm wondering how long the service will continue, as Replay has been out of business for years. I guess someone is taking the subscription money and keeping the updates coming. I suppose it would work over a VoIP line if I wanted. 

So this is progress? 
If we still had Ma Bell, your phone line would cost $250/month. 

LD rates went down after the breakup to the point where it is cheaper to call the UK than to call in the 48 states from my condo! 

The local phone co will still come to your house, check the wiring, install your phone, and charge you the going rate for labor: $80/hr-ish


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## Dwayne (Jun 10, 2010)

Speaking of phones... if you are an iPhone 3G user thinking of upgrading to the new OS4 upgrade... DON'T! Also don't upgrade your iTunes to this platform. Keep OS3. 

Seems that there is a problem with OS4 running on the 3G. It will slow it down considerably. Apple is aware of the problem but isn't commenting. 

If you have upgraded (as I did) and notice the slow down there is a fix that helps to speed it back up. 

First is to go into Settings/General/Home Button/Spotlight Search... and uncheck all the different options. Doing just this frees up RAM. 

Second is to do a hard reset. Hold the power button and home button simultaneously for about ten seconds. The Apple icon will appear but keep pressing down on those two buttons until the screen goes blank. You can release the keys then to reboot. 

Hopefully none of my fellow iPhone 3G forum members upgraded as I did. After dealing with the slowness of the phone for the past four days since doing the upgrade some researching on various iPhone forums provided these two fixes. Whether they'll be the permanent cure for my iPhone remains to be seen. 

As an aside, my new Accucraft Ida delivered to my buddy's place today. Unlike my first live steamer, a Ruby in kit form still waiting to be thrown together, the Ida is RTR. Now to swing down through OKC to pick it up.


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## TonyWalsham (Jan 2, 2008)

I don't even connect the I Phone to my laptop anymore. 
Every time I did, both the contact lists got screwed up from the way I like them. 
The Apple shop then disabled all that switcheroo crap for me. 
The phone works just fine as it is and I don't want music anyway. 

I'll regard that new program just like my computer. 

XP with service pack 3 works just fine too.


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## Tom Lapointe (Jan 2, 2008)

Been a happy *iPhone 3G user *







for over 2 years, even bought a second one for my lady friend!







Dwane, I'll second your comments - I kept having trouble trying to upgrade mine to iOS4, read some of the Apple boards regarding people having similar problems (& the the slower operation you mentioned), decided to stick to the version 3 software for the time being. I may upgrade to the iPhone 4







in the next few months.

I *still *have conventional landline as well (mainly for the sake of my elderly parents living upstairs), but have started *seriously *thinking of dumping it.







Working second shift, I get home between *12:20 & 2:30 AM *(depending on whether I'm working an 8 - hour or 10 - hour work day - my company started an optional 4-day, 10 hour / day workweek back when gas hit over *$4 / gallon *







- I alternate between the normal 5 day / 8 hr.-a day workweek schedule & the "4 X 10"). As a result, I typically hit the sack between *4:30 ~ 5 AM *local time







, sleeping during the morning hours. My landline phone is a nice Panasonic 5-handset cordless system with integral answering machine in the base unit. *I keep the ringer in the handset next to the bed shut off - *I can easily hear one of the other phones ring - & even though I was an *early sign on *to the national *"Do Not Call List" *I *still get bothered *







by charities, poilticians, wrong numbers, *(even a fax machine *







a few days ago!). *I absolutely refuse *







*to answer the regular landline *before the time I normally get up (@ 11:30 AM most weekdays) - even though the answering machine is at the other end of the house, I can often hear it well enough (even when I'm half asleep!) to often tell who's calling. *Problem is, even if I don't answer it, the damn thing STILL wakes me up! *







I'm lately increasingly asking myself *"Why am I paying for what amounts to an "annoyance" *







*service*







*"* 

(Rant over - back to drooling over the iPhone 4!).
















*Tom*


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## John J (Dec 29, 2007)

YIKES

I have a huge bundles service.

I have two land lines. one for fax and internet

The other is for regular phone service.

I have DSL for the net.

I have a Verizon cell phone.

My vrizon phone fell into my cup of coffee. ( its a long story dont ask) 

The coffee took out the battery.

The phone was intact .

What I dicovered then was I have no sim card.

If the phone had died I would have lost all my contacts list.

I am looking to up grade.

I would like to surf the net but on my laptop not on my phone

If I could conect my phone to my lap top I would be happy

If it is not too expensive of course 

JJ


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## Madman (Jan 5, 2008)

John, What is a sim card?


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## John J (Dec 29, 2007)

Posted By Madman on 20 Aug 2010 08:10 PM 
John, What is a sim card?


A sim card is a little memory card on your phone. It containes all the information for that phone number.

If you removed the sim card and insert it into another phone it transsfers all you contacts and phone information to the new phone.

JJ


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## Madman (Jan 5, 2008)

Thanks John. The reason I asked, first because I know very little about cell phones other than making calls. Second, when we were in Italy we purchased cell phones for our use while there. It was a good thing that my son, who was a cell phone saleman at the time for Verizon, was with us. He and the saleman were talking about how many sims, I believe, we wanted in the phones. By the way, those phones were great. The quality of sound was far better than anything I have seen here.


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## Ward H (Jan 5, 2008)

JJ, Verizon has a Contacts Back Up software program. Download it onto your phone from your Verizon internet account. Backs up all your contact information to the internet. Then if you get a new phone you just download the software onto the new phone and synch your contacts. I just switched the wife's phone and moved her contacts over this way. Saved me some work. 

Mark, my concern over losing the land line is E911 service. If you are too ill or injured to speak, 911 still gets your house number. If you dial 911 and accidently hang up, the local PD investigates all 911 hang up calls in my town. E911 saved my sisters life when she had a severe ashma attack and passed out after dialing 911. 
I don't believe E911 works with cell phones. They can only find the general location, not the house number. 
I only switched to Comcast Triple Play when they assured me E911 worked with their service. 

As far as power outages, I have battery back up for modem and wireless router. Generator for longer outages.


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## JackM (Jul 29, 2008)

Why do I still have a land line? 

1 - I don't have to carry a telephone in my pants 24/7. I don't have to take it in the shower with me - the answering machine will take the call. 

2 - I don't want to inflict lousy quality, drop-outs, watery-sounding voice, non full-duplex conversation. (Full-duplex means both ends can speak at the same time and be heard at the same time. Cell phones often give half-duplex. That's when you clear your throat or just agree with a simple "Yuh" and the other person's next few words are lost. You say "what?" and he says "what?" and nobody commumicates. 

3 - For five bucks a month I get a second phone number with different ring, so I can answer my business calls properly. 

4- No batteries to charge every few days. 

5 - I'm not important enough that anyone needs to talk to me IMMEDIATELY. 

6 - No one is important enough that the world will come to an end if I don't talk to them IMMEDIATELY. 

7 - No contracts with massive early-cancellation fees, and all that other BS that comes with this week's gotta-have junk. 

8 - I can pay attention to my driving. 

Revision: put #8 at the top of the list.


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## John J (Dec 29, 2007)

I agree with Jack M for the reasons to have a land line.


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## Totalwrecker (Feb 26, 2009)

My landline vote; is not carrying a leash! I can't be reeeled in when I'm doing what I want to do. 

John


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## TonyWalsham (Jan 2, 2008)

I have a cell phone mainly so customers can reach me at any time. ...and they do. Bluetooth hands free in my cars works just fine. 
I use a lowish cost plan. Other than the allowed $ value of calls in the plan, I pay for all my calls, so do not make many. 
As far as I know our telcos don't offer so many minutes. 

All I can say is you lot must have some very expensive crappy cell phone services. 
I have never had poor quality calls.


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## jgallaway81 (Jan 5, 2009)

I find this conversation amusing.

I just built a brand new computer using a 4-core cpu.. if I'd known the 6-cores were coming I'd have waited. 


I dropped my landline use in.... 04? Haven't had once since... at least not that I used. We have VoIP... Modem, Router, VoIP adapter, and cordless phone plugged into a standard computer UPS. 


My cell phone: an ancient Samsung flip-phone I've had more than five years now. And when it dies, I intend to get another one off eBay. That phone has been dropped so many times its not funny. And the fact that five years later my only problem was that the battery was down to about 20min talk time wasn't the phone's fault. A new battery solved that in short order.


So.... whats this iPhone you people speak of?  j/k

I have never understood the need to carry a phone that tries to do the things I use my computer for... Don't know how people can read the things. Me? I love my high-res screen on my desktop, and the mobile screen on my WinXP tablet that's 10years old. The phone does its job... it makes calls. Though I admit i do use the text messaging capability... its quicker than firing up the computer to send an email.


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## TonyWalsham (Jan 2, 2008)

I don't use the I Phone for general Internet access. But, it does come in handy if I need to find out stuff like synonyms when doing cryptic crosswords. The problem is I can't read standard size (small) text size on the I Phone screen either. 
Then I discovered that it has the ability to "zoom" in on the page by placing two fingers on the screen and spreading them rapidly. Neat. 
I do like the I Phone Internet tethering service option. It allows me Radio Internet connectivity by simply plugging the I Phone into the laptop when I am traveling. Not as fast as my cable Internet connection at home, but not bad nonetheless. 
Next time I get a new phone it will have a proper QWERTY key pad instead of the pseudo one the I Phone has. Probably will be a Palm. I have friends in the country on the edge of signal reception range. Their phones work and mine doesn't. Same Telco carrier.


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## George Schreyer (Jan 16, 2009)

I dropped my land line 3 years ago. It cost about $35/mo. I use a TracFone (prepaid) phone now that costs $100/year. This works because we don't actually use the phone very much anyway. If I used 500 minutes/mo, then a monthly plan would be cheaper, but we use about 100 min/month. 

For redundancy, I have the TracFone (which is on the AT&T network). I have another TracFone in my truck (CDMA on Verizon) and my wife has her GSM T-Mobile phone ($20/mo). One of those networks ought to be working. If the disaster was so great that all of them are down, I'll have much bigger and more immediate problems to deal with.


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## George Schreyer (Jan 16, 2009)

BTW, a SIM card provides a GSM phone personality. You can elect to store your contacts on the SIM card or in the phone's memory. 

If you have a CDMA phone (Verizon or Sprint), it won't have a SIM card.


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## Madman (Jan 5, 2008)

You gotta love Jack's 8 point list. My daughter just broke up with her boyfriend, and they are still communicating via text messages????????????







. My wife and I can't seem to get through to her about not communicating. I know you have heard it before, but when we were dating we talked







maybe two or three times a week. If her line was busy, I called later







. If we made a date for Saturday, on Wednesday, we communicated twice that week, on Wednesday and Saturday. It's amazing that we were able to get anything done or find our way around in those days without cell phones and GPS devices.


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## rmcintir (Apr 24, 2009)

My son's phone screen is half dead because he pinched it in a car door. I refuse to buy him another so he will appreciate taking care of them in the future. His pain at texting has converted him to actually talk to people again. I think he is slowly becoming more human. Perhaps human for the first time since he is still a teenager and they don't really have a fully developed brain until about 25!


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## Madman (Jan 5, 2008)

25 ? You think its developed by twenty five? Maybe you should add a few years to that number.







Todays twenty five is like our fifteen.


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## Jerrys RR (Jun 28, 2010)

Posted By markoles on 18 Aug 2010 12:51 PM 
Here's a question: How many of you have an actual land line in your house. If so, why? We still have ours, and I don't think we'll ever get rid of it. But, then again, I am a track powered guy anyway. 


Hi Mark,

Maybe you hit on something. As another track powered guy I still use a land line. JJ hit many of the reasons:

I have a huge bundles service. 
Same here. After years of almost no extras the phone company offered such a deal that I now have pretty much everything for just a few bucks extra per month.


I have two land lines. one for fax and internet

Two land lines plus Smart Ring to activate the fax machine 

The other is for regular phone service.

The other one is my wife's and we use the two phone lines as an intercom 

I have DSL for the net.

The new package was so cheap I ended up getting a 2nd DSL line as it was getting too complicated to run a single DSL line everywhere.

I have a Verizon cell phone.

My wife pays for all the cell phones. I only have one because she wants me to and it is turned off whenever I am at home. It is an old plain Jane Motorola Razor which is all i need or want.

My Verizon phone fell into my cup of coffee. ( its a long story dont ask) 

Our son goes through so many cell phones my wife buys them on eBay for about $25 each.

The coffee took out the battery.

A new phone on eBay is often cheaper than a new battery.

If I could conect my phone to my lap top I would be happy

I bought a couple of Magic Jacks - one for the house computer and one for the laptops. At $19.95 a year including free local and long distance they are hard to beat. We have a lot of land line phone problems yet the Magic Jack is so clear I prefer it over the land line yet the land line phones are everywhere (more than a dozen of them - they are cheap and a dozen cost no more per month than one). Strangely when the land lines go out in a storm the Magic Jacks keep on working. Another thing with the MJ is that they do not have a local number so I picked Little Rock numbers and use MJ's call forwarding to send all calls to my home phone so Little Rock friends can call us toll free. 

The phone always rings when I am in the most inconvenient place to answer it so I just put phones everywhere including bathrooms, bedrooms, train rooms, even in the outside gazebos so I can just reach over and pick one up. A cell phone would drive me nuts. I was a slave to them when I worked and now I hate them. My wife pays double or triple for her (and our kids) cell phones than I pay for my land lines and all my phones connected to them. - Then there is the fact that a land line is listed in the phone book so people can find us - not so with cell phones.

If it is not too expensive of course 

I too miss Ma Bell. The phones were expensive but I expect they would have become less so as technology improved. Their phones worked forever and there were very few problems with the phone lines. Today's phones are pretty much junk and there is always noise on the lines. On the other hand I still remember phoning my wife (then girl friend) in England (45 years ago) and a 13 minute call cost me $53.00 (in 1965 money).

A few months ago my wife was in England to take care of her cousin who had to go to the hospital. My calls to her with the Magic Jack cost me 2 cents per minute. A week ago I tried to phone my cousin in Chicago and got "circuits busy" over and over. Then I tried the Magic Jack and the call went straight through.

Its pretty much like this hobby. Some like apples and some like oranges.

Jerry


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