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Candybar phone with wifi7/25/2023 ![]() ![]() The answer was yes, for $10 a month and a $25 sim card. I called my carrier and asked if there was a way I could put my number on two devices. But what if I could have a smartphone for when it was really needed but used a low-tech phone for less-essential tasks and times? Could that work? In today’s workplace, unless you’re Christopher Walken, you need a smart device.įine. I’m a freelance producer, so if I’m out in the field and miss some key correspondence, an excuse of “well, you see, my phone usage, it became a bit much” would merely be an efficient way to make sure I am never hired again. That felt good too but it didn’t work either: I kept on bouncing between my apps, checking the damned New York Post.Ĭould I just chuck the damn thing in the ocean? Or just leave it at home? Alas, that really is the stuff of fantasy. It felt really good but it didn’t last long. In the midst of the all-consuming, politics-driven death spiral that is the US today, I shut down all notifications. And maybe knees that tweet.Īnd so I began looking for balance. Maybe future humans will have legs that ring. I have found myself wondering if this is a matter of evolution. More troubling is a sporadic buzzing I feel in my leg, which feels like a phone ringing, when the phone isn’t actually in my pocket. I’m with my kids and I’m still touching the phone. I’m crossing the street, I’ll stop and look at the phone and have no idea what’s going on. Where’s the phone? Is it charged? Should I charge it now, or later? At work or at home, notifications buzz me like low-flying planes. A bulbous chunk of my brain, sucked up by phonethink. The reach for the phone had become involuntary. Of course it should have been obvious long ago, but on that revelatory night, I realised I had lost control. All it takes is a slim distraction and my thumb turns turbo. Baseball stats, flight status, email check, text, random article, who knows what. My usage is heavy, best described as a zigzag, across apps. When they made it really fast and put it on a phone, it was pretty much game over. “Is this what we’ll do for the rest of our lives?” ![]() Enough that we hope the real Nokia (not the Microsoft-flavored version) breaks its own promise to make more phones once it's contractually allowed to.“Is this how it all ends?” I wondered out loud. We suspect the "select markets" that the Nokia 222 (or its dual-SIM variant) are headed to don't include the US, not least because of the 900/1800 MHz radios, still, we're weirdly taken by its design. Nokia fans may have spotted it's very similar to the even more affordable ($29) Nokia 215, but with a much improved camera and a few aesthetic improvements. There's also a flashlight, that the PR kindly explains what you might use for. Likewise, the 2-megapixel camera may be modest, but the handset is still good for Skype or Facebook, plus direct phone-to-phone sharing ( via SLAM). While we're joking about it being an MP3 player with a phone attached, it does support SD cards (up to 32GB) that you could stuff with media. Despite the obvious limitations of a "2.5G" candybar running a bespoke OS (Nokia Series 30+), there are some features - like month-long battery life - that remind us that fancy-pants flagships can have their drawbacks. Of course, this isn't really a media player, it's a feature phone aimed at developing markets. Today, in 2015, that's called the Nokia 222. ![]() There was a time when, if you'd told me I could buy a connected MP3 player with a camera that makes calls, for $37, I'd have suggested a little less "jazz" in your cigarettes. ![]()
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