It's a bit tough these days if you just want a telephonic communication device with maybe a capacity for taking pictures and texting. Ooh, and a battery that lasts more than a couple of days. Though when I'm out on my bike I carry a quaint old fashioned thing called a c-a-m-e-r-a. You turn it on and it just works. No pratting about with its functions until you press the right screen icon, or accidentally turning it off by touching some part of the screen or edge by accident. It even has a hand hold and a viewfinder if you want. (And wireless, but I've never used it).
Why not a basic Nokia? I hear you all chorus.
Even though I try my worst, peer pressure ensures that you have to have something with internet connectivity and capacity to share stuff via Signal or some such. Even a technophobe such as Mrs T can't live without her Twitbook but that's a step too far for me. I'm not in the least interested in sending people pictures of my dinner, even less interested in theirs. I currently have a thing called a Motorola which was recommended to me as a least worst option. I can't remember what my previous smartphone was called, apart from the fact that I didn't like it very much. It's in a drawer somewhere. Maybe a basic Samsung. I dislike this current one a bit less than that one but they all share a similar drawback. Supposedly a communication device, they are so needy. Updates. Antivirus. You need to do this. Do that. You have not used this or that non Google app for xxx days. Do you wish to delete it? I generally use my laptop for internet stuff, but just rarely I would like it to be available on the phone. You cannot break wind without having to sign into Google for some totally unrelated function. Apparently I have a Gmail account which I was sucked into when setting up the first smartphone. It just gets used for phone related stuff. I use my main email account for real life stuff. It's a phone but it has a life of its own.
Good news! You've got a discount on the new all singing all dancing whizzbang Motorola mega wossname phone. Why would I be interested? This one still works. I don't use all its functions. I just put up with it because it's a necessary evil. I just wish I could send such a reply to these irritating promotions. For some people their lives are on their phones. I can see the relentless pull. Even though I try to resist there's more of my stuff than I would like on it.
The worst thing about it all is that just to be able to talk to someone you have to be invested in a device developed by some megabucks corporation whose main business is harvesting people's information and selling it on. No matter how anonymised it allegedly is, you can't escape that notion that some unaccountable entity knows where you are and what you are doing, what your interests are, your buying habits, and who your friends are. and are commercialising this information. Unless you go completely and eccentrically off grid, there's no escaping it.
No doubt you can turn off location, use Firefox and Duckduckgo maybe even a VPN on your internet but why should you have to? It's a PHONE for goodness' sake!
Well, I think that was a pretty good rant, even if a bit off topic.
Having said all that, it might be worth looking into a Google Pixel if it's "nice and simple" but its main drawback might be its very Googleness.
- app worked once, Samsung has steadily reinstalled all the stuff I uninstalled, presumably via auto-updates, tried to restart the app to re-clean, but it won't work. Suggests I email them. Which I do, to get a near-instant 'how to uninstall' message, and another offering me a 30% discount if I buy it again.
