Smart Phone Tombola

This past fortnight seems to have been dominated by smart phones in our house.  Last week I got pissed off with Herself not being able to cut off from work with them ringing her mobile at all hours, whether she was on call on not.

I say to her "Why don't they ring someone else?" and she says "Because they turn off their phones, on call or not!"

That was it!  Herself was protesting that she didn't want to carry two phones round with her during the day, but enough was enough!  So I dragged her along to Tesco, where the very nice man in the phone shop there signed her up to a £12.50 per month contract for a Samsung Galaxy Ace.

A day or so later, Roids managed to snap the charging socket clean off his Blackberry Curve. Not an immediate problem, because I have a Blackberry for work and it was just a matter of using mine as a charging dock for his.

All was fine until a new Blackberry landed on my desk on Monday as an upgrade from the nice men at Orange.  It's still a curve, but is a bit more blinged up.

Houston, we have a problem!  I ring Herself straight away to let her know that my new works Blackberry has a different battery, and that Roids would be phone less this evening, which for a 16 year old hormonal young lad would be the equivalent of losing your lower leg to diabetes!

Herself finishes work early to drag him off in the general direction of Phones4U.  He had about 6 months left on his contract, but if he took out a new one (edit .... we took out a new one for him)  they would buy out the remainder of this one and they also offered him £35 for his knackered handset.  The deal was struck and he's now the delighted owner of a Motorola Lazr i which operates on the Android Ice Cream sandwich platform.

He comes home with it and Ronnie has green eyes! He now wants to upgrade.  There's nothing wrong with his phone, it's got 6 months left on the contract, but he's working and it's his money!

Herself goes along to see the nice man in Phones4U again on Thursday, and his eyes light up, Kerrchiing!  Ronnie always has to go one better and walked away from the shop as the proud owner of a Sony Eperia having traded in his old Samsung to offset the cost of buying out his contract.

I've had my trusty old I Phone 3gs now for just over 2 years.  The gits at Orange conned me when I upgraded last time around.  I was offered an early upgrade, but what they didn't tell me was that the 3 months left on that contract would be added to the 24 month contract to make it a 27 month contract!

I may have been stretching the word trusty above.  This time last year the phone took a bath and the electrics inside were fried.  Insurance covered the repair, but in all honesty the handset has never been the same since.  The processor was slower and the phone constantly played up a little.

I have also got very disheartened with Apple.  Their products aren't compatible with any other brand, I was paying for all that data allowance but could not use the handset as a hotspot for my tablet and Apple's newest operating system is simply too sophisticated for the 3gs, thereby forcing people into changing to the 4s or 5.  I will not be coerced into anything, so the two fingered salute was extended towards the Jobs' empire and the decision made to get a Google handset.

I tried in vain for 3 bastarding hours to get the i phone to merge contacts with Gmail, and failed miserably!!!  As a precaution, all  my contacts were jotted down on a piece (edit 4 pieces!!!) of paper .... didn't know I new so many people!  Where are they all when it's my birthday?

Buoyed on by the two RR's fantastic deals I braced myself for a trip to Phones4U.  Herself reluctantly agreed to accompany me as I'm hard of hearing.

The nice man at Phones4U clocks herself entering the shop (she had warned him earlier in the day that she'd be back with me) and almost ejaculates in his pants at the thought of more commission.

He's very keen, and I'm thinking to myself "You're going to work for this sunshine!"

So, I've set my tariff limit at £6 under what I was paying before, chosen the structure , 400mins talk time (I'm a man I do not talk on the phone), 600mg data and unlimited texts.  My must haves are text, talk, facebook, twitter, good camera and last but not least Sickipedia.

He has a handset in mind, and to be honest I don't really know enough about them to argue.  I'd quite fancied the Razr like Roids has, but two identical handsets in the house would be a recipe for disaster. The one Ronnie has picked up is both out of my price range and technical needs or capabilities.  I am pushed in the general direction of a Samsung Galaxy Nexus, on the promise that it's their flagship phone  no less!

Before I complete the business, I drop the bombshell.  "Can you transfer my contacts for me or show me how to do it?" I ask. I've done a bit of Internet research on this, and know it's ridiculously difficult.  He twitches before saying (none too convincingly) "I can do it, but can't show you how to do it." like it's some sort of trade secret.

Anyway, he sets about trying to complete the task. I look on, smirking, as he struggles with itunes and Gmail before downloading an app called bump.

This is now getting hilarious, as the transfer of data involves bumping the two handsets together.  He is failing miserably, and starting to sweat like a peado in a creche!

Herself goes off to do a bit of shopping and returns 20 mins later to see me still sat smiling at him dancing around the shop clapping the two handsets together like a set of maracas!

He admits defeat!  The smug smile is soon wiped off my face when he inputs the 3gs spec into his PC and lets me know that they will give me £40 for it.

"£40 ..... You're having a laugh mun", I say, "You gave Roids £35 for a broken Blackberry mun!"

The 3gs would only gather dust at home, and I have no faith in the antics of these 'We'll but any phone' people on the Internet, so am persuaded by herself to let it go.

As a bonus he throws in a cheapo normal handset that Herself bags to replace her knackered works handset, so all in all we walk out happy people.

He is straight over the road to book a break in Majorca on the commission he's had off us today, and I set off home to input the pages of contacts I have waiting.  I am pretty ruthless about this, so if you don't hear from me in the near future, I did not consider you important enough to bother to manually input you into my phone.

So in the last two weeks, the tombola has seen 4 new android handsets, a blackberry and a cheapo enter this house, whilst waving goodbye to 2 Blackberrys, an old Nokia, an ageing iphone and an Android handset with nothing wrong with it.