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Managing without a Cell Phone

Funny how tech priorities change.

In the first 30 years I lived from one PC to another. Starting with a Radio Shack Model I, then an IBM PC, then a long, long succession of PC compatibles; each faster than the last with ever increasing hard drives.

The change from one PC to a new one was a sea change. Each so much faster and smoother.

Now, I've been content with a laptop built in 2013. It has an i7 processor and 12 gigabytes of memory, so performance wise it is fine. I admire my foresight then to go big.  I do not game play or do high end video processing.

I rarely use it as a laptop. Its hooked to two monitors and Bluetooth keyboard and mouse.  My sole tweak to my home setup when quarantine and working from home started in March was a docking station so I could switch easily from work laptop to personal laptop.

If I covet anything, its more and larger monitors. You can't go too large, or too many.

After the fever of wanting a new PC passed from a every two year event, to three four, and now, apparently, over 7 years, fever for new smart phones overtook me.

I could barely tolerate going two years between phones. And for the same reason I got feverish over new computers in the 80s and 90s. Each generation of phone increased its speed, its camera quality, its features as Android and IOS bounded forward.

Lately, I've gotten 3 years out of my phone and been content.

I've been running on the Google's Pixel XL, the original one. It's run fine and the two, three and four haven't seemed worthy of buying unless I needed it.

I did sense my phone was nearing its end of life when it reached three years. The rumored specs for the Pixel 4a looked awesome, so I planned to order one as soon as announced on the rumored May announcement date.

And then the date got moved, and moved again, and again. And then my Pixel succumbed to the dreaded and documented boot loop issue on July 10.

I cast about about for affordable, palatable choices. I'd have gone with a Pixel 3a, all the while ranting at the tech Gods, but they had recently disappeared from the market.

I considered a Pixel 4 but they too were getting hard to find. These tea leaves were saying the 4a had to be imminent, didn't they?

I did what everyone does these days when faced with adversity. I whined to my friends on Facebook.

One couple offered me their bag of old phones to look through. Maybe I could get something going for the interim period.

One of the phones was okay. A two year old mid-range phone, the Samsung Galaxy J7 Star.

Their carrier was willing to unlock it. It did take herculean efforts on the part of their tech support to get that done, then more by my provider to get it on the network. I had to wait while my friends returned from a trip, and more while my provider mailed a SIM card their local stores didn't seem to have.  None of the process was easy. Everyone had given up on the unlocking, including me, but every couple days I'd try again and was finally successful.

Alas, I never get it on the cell network.

But. I've been a user of Google Voice since Grand Central days circa 2005. Its the only phone number I give out. I can receive and make phone calls with it on Wifi.  For some reason, I don't leave the house much these days, so it has been fine.

And the phone runs my most used apps.  I'm fine.

And finally, the Pixel 4a was announced on August 3. I started the order process as soon as I saw it popup in the Google Store. It arrives in a week (come on Google, would it kill you to ship a few days early?).

Android Authority buttresses my decision to jump to the 4a, even if my Pixel XL OG (original generation) was still working. 

This has been quite the stream of consciousness. One intent of this blog has been to be a personal journal of sorts of my tech journey. That will bore many, but maybe help others moving along the same paths as I am.

I'm already looking down the road at what comes after the Pixel 4a, and what comes after my laptop.  

Amazingly, they might be one device. The next few years will be interesting in tech.

It has been so since this began for me in 1979.




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