Stuff Mobiles!

[mishalak]

I don't care for mobile phones. This isn't a rant about people talking on them, this is just one of my many weird preferences. On most mobiles/cells there is a stuttering digitized quality. It is like the person I'm talking to is actually a computer with a voice synthesizer (which by the way would be a great excuse for an AI talking to someone on the phone). I don't have bad hearing, but I (apparently) don't hear things the same way other people do. So unlike many people I have a hard time understanding what a person is saying on a mobile than on a landline. No one else I know has this problem, they all seem to understand what is being said just fine from the way they converse.

Cell phones are totally useful, especially when trying to meet up with a person whether out on the town or at a convention. I would like to have one for just that purpose, but I can't justify the expense of that yet; not when I wouldn't want to talk on the thing more than 10 or 20 minutes a month.

So that's why I don't call people on their mobile phones very much.

Comments

[redbird]

This is part of why I got a pay-as-you-go phone: you pay only for the minutes you use. It requires you to feed it $20 every ninety days, which might still be more than you want to spend. (The price/minute is comparatively high, but if you use few minutes it's a better deal than paying for lots of time you aren't using.)

[armoire-man.livejournal.com]

That's probably because most mobile phones use about a 9600 baud modem to transmit digitized voice. It's not exactly hi-fi.

If you're going to an out of town convention, see if you can get a mobile for a weekend or a week - there are places in most major cities that will rent you a mobile phone.

I saw a mobile phone vending machine in the L.A. airport a few years ago, for instance.

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

Sniff. Is thay why you don't ever call me? ;-)

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Yeah that and I'm a cheap bastard. <grin>

[sraun]

I can hear a very distinct difference in quality between cell & land-line. They have a sound quality that I associate with long-distance from my youth. I consider a cell-phone to be a useful evil - I see them as good for a 1-5 minute 'connect, get critical info, disconnect' type thing.

I have to support people calling me from cell-phones - the only thing worse is the guys who call from speaker-phones. Spending 30 minutes on talking to someone on a cell-phone to trouble-shoot a laptop problem comes very close to giving me a head-ache.

[numbat.livejournal.com]

I've thought about having a mobile phone for work purposes but until my income improves I can't justify it. Other than that I really have no need for one or any interest.

Jobs and Mobiles

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't get a mobile and tell my company unless this benefited me somehow. I mean if I'm on call and needed to be by a phone at all times, yeah then I'd get the moblie so I could go out while waiting for them to call. But otherwise even if I had one I lie and said I didn't. I don't want my job to be able to call me while I'm on my own time.

"Oh I'm sorry you couldn't get ahold of me to call me away from my weekend of fun? Oh I missed out on pulling an extra day of work without overtime pay? I'm just heart broken."

Re: Jobs and Mobiles

[heck1701.livejournal.com]

Hehe, just you wait till you get the irate message from your boss of "why doesn't this application work right!?!?!?" after you'd spent 20 minutes explaining it's still in development to fix all the stuff he wants done yesterday, but forgot to mention until this morning :)...... Weee, and back to dynamic mapping with (shudder shudder) ASP.

Cell Phones

[iamcompubear.livejournal.com]

I have had a cell-phone pager most of my life. Then again I get paid the big bucks to answer calls on Christmas eve. "Our computer network just went down and we can't rent any videos and Christmas is our bussiest day." I once drove 650 miles two days before xmas got home xmas morning made $2000. Couldn't have done it without my cell phone.The kids had a nice xmas that year.

If your just looking for a few minutes check out 7-11. You pay for the minutes ahead of time if you use them in one day or 3 month doesn't matter and if you need to recharge your phone you pull into any 7-11. So if you need one for a con go to 7-11 first ( I think there is a one time 39.95 charge for the phone itself) I would do it just to keep it in my car in case of emergency.

[gorgeouswoman.livejournal.com]

I don't have a cell phone and I can see a million uses for it. Perhaps you just don't have as many ties or responsibilities. Lucky you, but for the average busy American, it's almost a necessity. I'd be reachable for emergencies with my son while I'm at school (such as if he falls off a swingset and breaks his arm, I may otherwise lose immediate information that his father "forgets" three hours later when I get home). If I'm in Denver at the doctor's, I could recieve a phone call from someplace I've applied saying I've got the job if I tell them right then that I'm still interested because they have another applicant. If it's snowing out or raining or extremely warm and I have a mile to walk uphill, I have a way to get ahold of my family and they have a way to get ahold of me and let me know if I can get a ride. If I have a paper due and can't find my study group in our usual area because they decided ten minutes before I got there to move to the computer lab, I can call and find that out (or they coulda called me to save the trouble of having someone look for me). If I'm planning to stay and do some homework at school, my family can call and say that they have something they weren't expecting and I need to be home for the kids.
It's early, so that's all I can think of. But yes, with family and responsibility, a cell phone is useful. Once I get a job, I'm getting something with unlimited minutes. Or the Sprint with 7:00 nights because that's when it tends to be fairly useful, when I'm out for the evening, when my friends are home and I need the long distance.
Meanwhile, I've considered a minutes plan, but it's just not that practical. Not when you consider minute and monthly charges and etc as compared to pay phone use. Depending how long you stay on the phone, I find it's not that expensive to use the payphone instead, just make sure you have change.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Oh there are all sorts of way I could use a mobile. I just would have a very hard time using one for all my phone needs and I cannot afford both a land line and a mobile. Hopefully if I get a response from a job aplication they can leave a message on my machine.