fflo: (Default)
fflo ([personal profile] fflo) wrote2006-02-28 02:51 pm

laughable Lisa

Closing in on a cell phone decision. (Just have to decide how much rural reception means to me.) (I mean, so what if I can't get a signal at Steve & E.J.'s crabbing cottage? Or in my brother's driveway? Or in parts of western Michigan, or pretty much anywhere in Georgia except Hotlanta? It's only a one-year contract, and I think I like the phone better, and it's free.)

It's these left-to-my-own-(cellular-and-noncellular-)devices contexts in which I am so hard-pressed to pick something and go with it. Malcolm Gladwell would hate to know that I read his book & am still this way.

Maybe I'll make March "rash March." Though it's not nicely alliterative, like "frugal February," it has some cool sound stuff of a fancier sort going for it. And it's hard to say three times fast, so I won't even say it---I'll just do it.

Maybe. But maybe I'll come up with something better for March.

I'll have to think about it.

[identity profile] aabassplayer.livejournal.com 2006-02-28 08:15 pm (UTC)(link)
I can dig wanting a free phone, and sometimes being necessarily pressed into such by available finances when one wants to aquire said device, but let me tell you, reception and sound quality suffer greatly on low-end models...I only have two occurances a month of "huh, I can't hear you *garble garble*" on my mpx220 and my old motorola T720 which were both in the $200-250 price range after rebates and all...even the $99 phones after rebates are better than the freebies normally for this...Now what confuses most consumers are that they also make them more barebones like less display, less color, cheaper plastic shell, whatnot so that it seems like you're paying for less because you get less features, but really, you get less transmitter/receiver/sound quality too.

That being said...Cingular has given me more rural and urban coverage even in the middle of Absolutely Nowhere when I've learned that there are many others that have had trouble. Cingular sucks because it's a baby bell, but I like being able to go to the local cingular store at Main and Monroe in A2 and getting them to resolve any problems I have.

So, if you're thinking, Tmobile or Cingular, and you don't care about things like wireless web or the like, go Cingular...but if you like the wireless web and cool devices like the sidekick II, then go tmobile.

russians are the answer!

[identity profile] shmizla.livejournal.com 2006-03-01 03:59 am (UTC)(link)
we could go see the russians together -- they have both tmobile and cingular and they'll give you phones for cheap on both.

it's true that free phones are crap -- i've had two from tmobile and both were hideous.

Re: russians are the answer!

[identity profile] fflo.livejournal.com 2006-03-01 02:45 pm (UTC)(link)
One can get your phone free in several places now, actually. As one can fancier ones, with some hunting. The Russians are my last stop---maybe even today. I go armed with a wealth of deals available Out There; if they can compete, I'm theirs.

Frugal February me invoked her inner comparison shopper ad ridiculum. Rash March me will be perhaps a tad less than fully rash in benefitting from her research.

Ah, but the month is young...

[identity profile] onstar.livejournal.com 2006-03-01 03:15 pm (UTC)(link)
Granted, I've only had my free phone for a couple of months, but it's done me well so far. Forgetting which company made it, but we got a sprint plan from the wireless toys place on main and stadium. Being un-tech savvy, I chose the smallest of the free phones so that I could fit it into my tiny purse:)

freebies

[identity profile] shmizla.livejournal.com 2006-03-01 03:58 pm (UTC)(link)
it's actually quite possible that tmobile gives out crap while others give out perfectly decent phones. i've heard that before.

the leg up with russians is that they'll give you almost for free what tmobile website will give you for almost $100.