Me in the 21st century

As Smart Phones have become common place over the years it has been of much amusement/bemusement to friends and colleagues that I have resisted the urge to have one.There were many reasons for this, not least because I get really irritated of people walking along like zombies staring at them.

Still I have to concede they are useful. For instance many people download their boarding pass to their phone! Not something I'll be doing but I expect it is a matter of time before I am forced. And yesterday someone paid for their food at Lavenham Guildhall tea room contactless with their phone (a first at Lavenham I believe). It will be sometime before you ever see me do that!

But as I say they are useful. You can look things up far from home (providing you get 4g or a decent 3g signal). So for a couple of years I have toyed with the idea of getting one. Toyed with but resisted. Much to my friend Jan's amusement "you'll get one".

I admit I like simplicity and am nervous of change. I was however broken in to this smart phone thing by getting one at work...... I barely use it as a smart phone but I have gotten used to the thing.

I looked and I looked, I read reviews and then I baulked at prices etc etc..... and then and then and then.

Anyhow I asked Trish the other day if I owed her anything for holidays and she looked puzzled and said she owed me £xxx and I had said oh keep it and knock it off of the next holiday.... so I had money I hadn't thought of.... so I said well buy me a phone and stick a memory card in it..... I even gave her my short list. I think she was a bit taken aback but enjoyed the prospect of bringing me into the 21st century!

So I found myself with a Motorola G 3rd Gen......  it had no sim card so I needed to get one. I had elected to not transfer my number and use the old phone as backup and I was going with a new network. The logic of this is that I can sling the old phone in bag (it is tiny) and have two networks if necessary. I headed off and got my FIRST EVER contract! (I've always been pay as you go). I was hardly commital as I went for a rolling one month contract as if the new supplier was pants I could switch!

So I have a smart phone......

Has it changed my life? Uh well no!! I have downloaded a few free apps and other than test the classic FM one works i've not used them!!  Well the anti virus one I have ;)

I don't think I have even browsed the internet more than a handful of times and then it was testing.There will be times I want to find out a football or cricket score or check opening times for a national trust property etc that it will be useful.

But I know that my cameras all have wifi. I know this because I had customised the wifi button to something more useful! So I set the wifi up and linked the cameras to the phone. Why did I do this? Well it means I can now transfer photos from the camera to the phone and then up to facebook or twitter whilst out. Hang on a minute I hear you say, why not use the camera on the phone? Well yes but I'm taking photos for the blog etc so it makes sense to take a picture once. Ok it is a little bit more long winded but it works. 

(NB Pete you did to test HOW to take a picture with the camera on the phone!) 

I have to admit that it was a bit odd to be sat in a national trust cafe and uploading a photo of a scone to twitter via the NT's free wifi.

From my brief forays on to the web the 4g works quickly and if I can't get 4g then the 3g works pretty well. I uploaded a photo of dad at Burnham on Crouch to facebook via 3g.

Now for those of you who have never used a smart phone (which is probably VERY few of you) or on apple on an android phone you link it to your google account. Now this is the scary bit...... yesterday I found that I could get BT fon wifi at Melford Hall, now as a BT broadband customer I went to sign in and found that it was prefilled with ALL Tricia's details! Now I know that once at Tricia's 2 years ago her broadband failed and she signed me on via her account to fon but geez that was clever! Like a numpty I didn't change it to my details but hit enter sorry Trish! Still it worked.

So far I have 4 numbers on the phone which tells you how much I use it and have given the number to 3 people! Dad still uses the old one!, Some of that was because I was waiting to see how good the provider was, I'll see how it gets on abroad and if fine will swap to a 12 month contract (cheaper!).

Looks at phone suspiciously.....