In short, we wanted a landline, so that we could not be reached when we were not in our "office," aka our living room. Business requires a lot of phone calls, yuck. I had my Samsung Galaxy Note and an iMac, and the bodybuddy/lifemate had an eleven-inch, Toshiba tablet that was about as thick as my laptop, ha, and some typa MSI laptop he custom-built ordered. At home, we had a landline-type phone. The JetPack gave us wifi on the go for our devices and the particular Verizon service that we were paying for at the time, also provided us with a "landline" number through that same wireless wifi device... phew. That was a long time ago.
My point is that we've been savvy and treading the various "mobile phone" loopholes ever since, surviving by our wits, living wifi-only. My further point being our use of VoIP.
The crackdown on VoIP is official and thorough. So, we've been resigned to opting back into the SIM-level of communication, which we both absolutely detest.
And so, I present, The Great Compromise.
The selfie of me and my "daily driver," à la Marques Brownlee, is my third smartphone, and it has never had a SIM card [04Nov24 i obviously took this pic down at some point for some reason, lol]. It is wifi-only (like the two others), and you can't call me on it (well, you technically can, but it's an internet call). I use a handful of various messaging apps to communicate via "text." The first smartphone was the Samsung Galaxy Note that was weak as shit (and that the bodybuddy/lifemate lost in transit when we moved to South Korea in 2013); the second was an LG something or rather that was the most awesome, and I had such a great time with that phone that I was quite pissed at it when I had to switch over to my current phone, and I even had my current phone for about three months before I finally got it out of the box and set it up *eyeroll* The bodybuddy/lifemate is about to inherit my current phone and upgrade his two current phones into one nice tablet, and he has a desktop. I will get a new smartphone—still wifi-only (yea yea, you get it)—and have my flip phone as a business line. I have a laptop that will soon be downgraded into a media laptop that's hooked up to our tv, and I'll get a new laptop by the end of this year. All of our devices have cost under $250, and we will buy all of our needed upgrades this year at the same price point.
Whatever. I can't even go over my first cell phones, cause I can't name them by name like we can our smartphones, these days. I had five of them, however, before my Blackberry. I know that there are some serious geeks out there that know that kinda shit, but I'm no geek; I'ma nerd, duh.
I will say, however, that this flip phone I have now is cool. It slaps nicely when it shuts, and it's gotta good weight to it. It's the flip phone I wish I could've had back when they were a thing.
