Smartphones

In 2004, AT&T Wireless (the original, not the next generation), offered Nokia cell phones with a special plan in honor of the Olympics.  It was called the Olympic Gold Plan and was quite a good deal, with shared minutes, text messaging, and a limited amount of data access. The phones and plan served us well until this past week.

Then Mary found that the iphone 4 was in stock at Best Buy and got one.  I got a Samsung Captivate, an Android phone (one of the Galaxy S family).  We got them at Best Buy, because they gave us 18 months to pay them off.

Of course, we had to drop the good old Olympic Gold plan and sign up for a new 24 month commitment.  That's the part that hurts.  My monthly bill just jumped up $50 ($25 each).  Maybe we'll get tired of playing with them and can drop down to the $15 plan ($30 for two).

Right now, however, we're packing on the megabytes as we learn all that we can do.  It's a lot harder than the good old candy bar phone, but so much more fun (and frustration).

I had 200 text messages included in my old plan. Now I have none and have to pay 20 cents for each message, both incoming and outgoing.  That's not really a problem, just a fact.

One problem that I do have, is that the Captivate is so popular (and the demand so unexpected), that both Best Buy and AT&T have run out of screen protectors. I'm treating the screen very tenderly, until I can get one.