Forget Smartphones - I Still Have a Plain, Old Flip Fhone

Smartphones are too expensive. Our carrier is AT&T. We have 5 lines on our account. Only 1 line is a Smartphone owned by my son in college. The other 4 lines are flip phones (conventional phones).

Cost for our 5 lines = $218.00/month

Son's smartphone eats up about 5-7 gig's of data per month. The flips phones barely used 0.1 gig of data. For each additional smartphone we would add it would cost an additional $25-30.00 more dollars a month per line. Now its easy to see that our 10 gig/month plan would not be sufficient to handle all those smartphones ....which means the cost of our data plan would also go up ....when you do the math .... AT&T would bleed us even more.

The phone companies will have to pry my flip phone out of my cold, dead hands. And all those fancy apps they are always touting - the more apps you toss around the more likely it becomes that you'll end up using more data i suspect. If true it's a great financial plan they have in mind !

"without GPS how am i going to find my way on the road ?"

not only does this generation spend their time looking at the screen they're holding in their hands but they also forgot how to read a travel map

Haggart, smartphones don't have to eat up that much of your data allocation. Setup the smartphone(s) to utilize WiFi when it is available. The wife and I share a 2 Gig per month allocation, and we hardly use any of that at all. WiFi at the house, and WiFi at our work places handle the vast bulk of our data transfers, and there are a lot of WiFi hot spots in public places, as well. We each run a tablet that can use the 4G/3G data plan as well.

Of course, from the lad's perspective, it probably seems like "free" to him, so why should he care about how much he uses? It's probably like your penchant for free sandwiches... it probably 'taste' better to him.

I've got an old Nokia that isn't even a flip-phone. I hate texting and refuse to text. If someone wants to text me, I have e-mail. If I want to take a photo, I have a camera. If I want to check something on the internet, I've got my computer. It's a telephone. You talk on it. At least, that's the way I see it.

And Haggart, I agree with you on road maps. Hardly anybody knows how to read a map or apparently even carries one anymore. Out here where I live, cellular reception is spotty. You wouldn't believe the number of people who get lost because they don't have a map. Even if they had one, I doubt they could find their way with it because it wouldn't give them step-by-step directions.

Still using a Nokia 6310i that I've been using for more than 10 years now.
2004:

I've never owned a smart anything and never will.My current mobile doesn't even have a camera and cost less than a tenner.

I wish I had kept my flip phone. I don't use the data stuff/smartphone stuff at all and the flip phone was a better PHONE.

What is he looking at? Reality? Head down and blinders on!

Crossed over to the darkside this past Sept. Bought Nokia Lumia Icon and just love it.
Can use it as a mobile hotspot for WiFi with my 4GLTE plan. And with 4gb/mo its great
when we go places with no WiFi. I am the hotspot then. It even gets better speed then
my cable modem.

Oooooh, very nice, ZT 260.Top man.

I avoided the whole smartphone thing too, for much the same reason as other folks mention in here. This year, my job moved me to a different project, and it became apparent to me that additional capabilities provided by a smartphone would make doing my job easier / more efficient.

A big, unplanned for benefit is that the wife is now typically head down on her phone playing some game instead of attempting to "help" me drive while we are traveling.

Flip phones / candy bar phones are still a good choice for many people, and if it fits ones needs, they are usually a lot less expensive to run. Different horses for different courses!

What a bunch of Luddites!

I rarely use my personal smart phone since I must carry my work phone 24/7. Nothing worse then
carrying 2 phones at once and they both ring at the same time. I only use my personal phone when
we go places together. Been having to carry a work phone for 18 years. Hate the damn thing even
though its a samsung heavy duty flip phone with rubberized edges.

LOL, we're all old, cranky men, aren't we. Damned kids with their smart phones and their GPS gadgets won't stay off my lawn!

However, I'm solidly in this camp. I never understood texting. If I really need to tell someone something I'll call them. Typing into a cellular phone so that it can send text to another cellular phone seems like an unnecessary step in the process.

The wife has a super duper smart phone that I can't seem to make work as a cell phone. Embarrassing, but it's a couple different steps using a touch screen to make a call on what is supposed to be a phone. And then the screen goes dark while one is talking on it, so then I have to figure out how to bring it back on to end the call. I own a little flip phone that doesn't do much other than make calls - though I carry it so rarely that I've misplaced it somewhere in the house.

Oh, and why is Alicatt's photo of his car mirrored? Really odd that he took a picture of his car and reversed it.

HELP I've dropped my flip phone and I can't get to it !

.

Son's data usage is fine - we're on a 10 gig plan and he knows how to check his usage and doesn't go over it. The reason he has Smartphone is because it helps him at the University especially with connecting with other students and TA's. Why would we go from AT&T to a family mobile plan from Walmart - I can envision the level of service and connection reliability of some Walmart plan

I have had the same flip phone for the past four years it was as cheap as I could find 20 euro
It has no camera/music you cant play games on it but it does what I want from it (make calls)
I use pay as you go spend about forty euro a year on top ups.
Charge it once a week. I reckon its better then the smart phone my kids use
Why, it has never let me down I always seem to have signal in areas my kids smart phones don't have
Had the same battery for the last for years dropped it a few times. and it just keeps going
My wife and kids change phones every year. I buy them for them wont pay anymore then two hundred euro for them
I can see a use for smart phones some features are excellent satnavs internet apps etc.
But for a lot of people there just a expensive fashion accessory.

Sounds like you got it all under control. It's your money, waste it how you want. FYI, Family Mobile is a T-Mobile network and works well. (edit - apologies for being rude)

My wife reminded me when I spoke to her earlier (on land lines, LOL) that I in fact own a smart phone and always know where it is.

She bought me this seven inch flat screen device that I installed iFly onto for navigation and instrumentation checks for the airplane, and apparently it has a slot for a SIM card. Humph, that's not going to happen. Who am I going to make a phone call to while flying an airplane?

Well we've got 4 lines that are flip phones so we're actually saving quite a bit of money actually brownbag and I get 15% discount on top of that because of who I work for

Haggart, I don't understand how you are saving anything. 1 smart phone and 4 flip phones for over $200 per month? That is HIGH. You are getting screwed with your plan.

I've checked prices with other co-workers and it doesn't matter if they're on Verizon or T-Mobile ..... they're in the same ball park prices here in Houston.

Then you did not check Family Mobile. It is through Walmart and is on a T-Mobile network.
The 1st line is $35. Additional lines are $20 each. So, for you that would be a total of $115 per month.
Haggart...$115 < $218. Sheesh you are stubborn.

Yeah Hag....I still have a flip phone, no smart phone here.

The only thing I would need is radar on the road.
Can't see paying that price for just that one use.

Might not be much money for some....but it is for me.
I'll get by, just checking the radar before I leave the house.

I'd hate to go without a smartphone at this point.

However next time around I'm going to strongly consider getting a ruggedized one {like the Sonim XP7} or a ruggedized regular phone and a mini tablet if I could only find a decent provider.

Murphy I too have a flip phone - that 218.00 price is for all 5 lines (1 of them is a Smartphone). I just checked also with Virgin Mobile and their prices are also high.

brownbag I'll check with Walmart's "Family Mobile" in a few minutes

Crane two of our regular phones are Samsung Rugby II or III phones ....very rugged phones !

Whatever happened to that modular phone ?

My wife and I have smartphones and go through less than 500mb (normally around 100mb combined) of total data a month. If your kid is going through 5-7gigs then you need to sit them down and have a discussion about data usage. They dont need to be downloading that much stuff outside of a wifi signal under any circumstance.

My guess is they are streaming video while just sitting around somewhere with no wifi signal. I'd come down hard on that bad habbit if I was you else make them pay for their own bandwidth.

We get 1gig of data and then it is 5 bucks for another 500mb. SO a 7gig bill for us would be another 60 bucks a month in data fees. :/

last month he only used 1 gig (they installed WiFi in the dorms) so we're good and I'm going to try and convince my wife to try out the Walmart Family plan - if she's happy with it then it would be safe for me to switch

I have to have unlimited, two of my kids did 35 gb just on christmas day alone.

WOW

man oh man, I couldn't go without my smart phone. I was a late texter, but when you have young kids you want the texting capability so they can let you know when they're home after school or what not with sports. With a smart phone they can text both me and his mom at the same time. Not sure if you can do that on a flip plan.

I've been with AT&T for years and have unlimited data, and for the "I already have a camera" people. I also have camera's, but it's so easy to shoot a pano with an iphone than stitch one together with your camera.

One of the best apps I have is a sunrise/sunset app which tells me where and when the sun will line up with certain objects. 8 different weather apps.

I use my iphone for reading simhq and listening to heavy metal from my streaming provider. To me that's worth a lot. I'm thinking about getting a backup phone which handles the cold a bit better though. The iPhone is a joke in the cold.

-C-

I'm not much of a phone conversationalist. Most of my phone calls serve a strictly utilitarian purpose and hence the vast majority of use with my iPhone is browsing the net, listening to music and email.

Were they downloading full movies in HD or something?

agreed, I bought a new stereo for my car that allows BT so I can stream my music or answer the phone through my car