I'm thinking of getting an iPhone 4S. And I cringe at the thought, primarily because my iPhone 4 isn't even a year old yet, and I certainly don't feel like I've gotten my money's worth out of it yet. Or...since I only paid $50 for it, perhaps I have.
I'd held off for a long time in getting a smart phone, but my old cell phone (which wasn't smart, but still very special since Will got it for me as a Christmas present, and it was pretty fancy at the time) was on its last legs, and there was the nice rebate that let me get the new phone for the aforementioned fifty bucks. I try not to be glued to my cell phone, and I think I do fairly well at it. I don't consider myself the type of person who has to run out and get every new thing the minute it comes out...but I'll admit...I am pretty smitten with this phone.
I don't have a million apps--actually I probably have ten, at the most. But Pandora is a must (what is life, without music?) and it is the coolest thing ever to be out hiking, or biking, on trails in the summertime, and hit an intersection with an unknown road, and instantly pull out my phone, bring up Google maps, and find out where I am. And it was the coolest thing, ever, to have a conversation with my dear Aunt Brenda via Facetime (video phone...remember when those were only something out of futuristic science fiction movies? It's pretty amazing, in my opinion!)
But while I was standing there in the Verizon store, looking at the phones, I wasn't all that well-educated when it came to smart phones. I did cast a sidelong glance at the kiosk with the international phones, but didn't even bring it up when talking to the salesperson, because I figured that I'd just keep on renting a global phone when I traveled abroad, just like I have been doing up until now. And that was pretty much the last I thought of it, at the time.
That was back in May of last year. Nine months later, while sitting here at my desk in my study planning our next adventure to Romania, using my phone while traveling abroad suddenly came to the forefront of my mind, and I suddenly realized that renting a "non" smart phone really wasn't appealing anymore, at all. Yes, that sounds a bit spoiled, but for better or worse, smart phones are much more than just something we use to make phone calls. And especially when traveling abroad, there are a lot of other things I'm going to want to do with my phone: consult a translation program, snap some decent photos when my camera isn't at the ready, check maps, etc etc.
Five minutes of research confirmed what I'd already suspected: my current phone does not work with the mobile singals found in Europe. However, the next model (4S) does. There's nothing wrong with my current phone; I'm actually pretty attached to it. It holds a lot of my music, and has several shorthand notes of story ideas that come to me in the middle of the day when I don't have paper and pen handy to jot them down, as well as some pretty cool photos. I don't really want to switch. But I also don't really want to rent a phone that won't have "my" stuff on it.
If I were go for the new iPhone 4S, my current phone wouldn't go to waste. William is still using one of those antiquated flip-top phones which can't connect to the internet and can't take a decent picture (I say that tongue-in-cheek and with no offense at all to those of you who still have phones like this...in the end, you're quite honestly probably better off!) so if I do get a new phone, Will will get my current phone, which will be a very nice upgrade for him. He'll be able to check his hockey and baseball scores while on the go, and who knows, maybe I'll even get him to make the jump from CDs to mp3s! Haha.
So it would be a win-win situation. Yet I still hesitate, because it feels like a waste, somehow. When I look at the facts, it isn't, but it still feels that way. William says, "If you're contemplating it this seriously, then in your subconscious you've already made up your mind, so stop acting like you might not get the new phone, because you will."
He knows me better than just about anyone else, so he's probably right.
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