OT but still techy: Stupid Cell Phone Features

I went to buy a new cell phone.

I asked the ~phone guy~, "I would gladly pay $100.00 extra for a phone where I can enter my monthly minute allowance (350 daytime Mon to Fri.) and see a minutes used countdown on the display.."

There was about 15 phones on display.. "I'm sorry sir...there are no phones with that feature.."

Fkn!! ..fkn!! @$@#@....10 zillion nearly useless features on these phones but a "save you money" feature.. Unbelievable.. Fk the camera Fk the bluetooth fk the mp3 player piss on the phone cell browser piss on the fancy ringtones

I WANT MY "SAVE YOU MONEY" MINUTE TRACKING FEATURE.

Those sneaky cell phone providers..

What can I do?? :( D from BC

Reply to
D from BC
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Either bow to their demands and just pay more money every month, or, switch to a phone that is capable of third party software options. Either the some Treo flavour, or one of the WM5 types.

I wouldn't wait for the manufacturers to do it, because the larger buyers (especially in the US) are the carriers who on-sell the phones with long-term contracts aren't going to like it very much.

I had a quick look on Palmgear, they have "MinuteHawk" which counts incoming and outgoing calls, with over-time warnings and such. I'm sure there would be some options available for the WM5 phones.

Only other option I can think of is Symbian, but whichever way you go, it's going to be an up-market PDA/Phone, thus not cheap to start with.

It's viable for me, because I use the PDA features of my Treo quite heavily, and the phone quite lightly. But if you're one of the many that just need a plain-jane phone, then you're stuck with the limited feature set.. In fact, the current Nokia trend is to use the same/similar hardware base, add a bucketload more useless "features", paint it a different colour, charge a bucket load more money for it, And you've got yourself another brand new model.

The cynic in me says the bottom-end phones are the ones LEAST likely to ever get your feature, mainly because they're not making any money on the phone, and try to make their money through contracts and tightly controlled talk times.

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Linux Registered User # 302622
Reply to
John Tserkezis

model.

Thanks I'll Google WM5 phone and see what's around + minutes tracking software..

Currently, I kinda feel like I'm being forced to buy a car with no gas gauge..

#$#$ *(*@ ^$$%#$!!! cell phone providers.. It's a trick. D from BC

Reply to
D from BC

Here in New Zealand we can call a free phone number and a robot tells us how much time we have left. I would be surprised if you didn't have a similar service available.

Cheers, Nicholas Sherlock

Reply to
Nicholas Sherlock

We have that here, but it's limited to some pre-paid plans. and then they'll only tell you how much money you have left, not how many minutes that translates to.

Most plans don't have that option at all. Most notably the ones that give you X minutes per month. The bastards.

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Reply to
John Tserkezis

On a sunny day (Sat, 30 Jun 2007 02:48:27 GMT) it happened D from BC wrote in :

Get a pre-payed, any pre-paid shows cost last call, and money left. If you go past that, then it is 'no connect'.

Safest thing. Get a Nokia 1600 prepaid :-) No camera, no bluetooth, no mp3, no internet, no downloadable ringtones.

Reply to
Jan Panteltje

One of the early GSM cell phones I had was equipped with a register that displayed the accumulated number of minutes, but it was deep within the menu system and you would have had to reset it every month.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

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"it's the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
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Spehro Pefhany

I automatically get charged extra on my monthly bill for anything over

350 daytime minutes per month. (Mon to Fri) I still want the hassle free automatic option of using extra minutes and getting charged for it... However, I want to see my minute burn rate displayed so I can control my call lengths..

I almost suspect a pile of cell phone features are a pacifier to detract people into not thinking about minute tracking features that could help save money..

I think cell phone providers are acting like gangsters with this set up. "We won't help you save money, but here's a free toaster." D from BC

Reply to
D from BC

D from BC wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

my Moto C139 TracFone counts down the minutes I use. It also displays the date they expire.

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Jim Yanik
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Jim Yanik

Agreed, they are baubles to entertain and distract the feeble minded and under 30s They have learnt that if they pack enough baubles in there, folk forget to ask for the important things, instead they simply chant "way cool".

What, and probably minimise our profits, are you mad?

When I HAVE to use a cellphone, I use the smallest cheapest Motorola one, a C155, it has a "network-connected timer" that is useful, but does not necessarily agree with the billing time, ie, it also counts ringing and busy signals, and 0800 free calls,

Or, Throw it away, there was life BC

Reply to
Barry Lennox

Why does this remind me of the 9/10ths of a cent they charge for each gallon of gasoline...??

I knew we were screwed the minute they tried to pawn off 6-second billing increments on us!! Like that was somehow a savings by not charging the whole minute.

-mpm

Reply to
mpm

I could not agree more! I want a cell phone to communicate, that's all. If I want to take a picture, I'll go get my Nikon.

That said, some marriages might make sense. Like a cellphone / glucose monitor (for diebetics). ...especially if the phone could transmit the readings direct to your physician.

-mpm

Reply to
mpm

Vodaphone here in Australia (at least on some plans) charge to the nearest second.

"Pay for only the time you use" they say in their sales blurb.

Till I actually sat down with a friend who was under their wonder plan and spewing their sales BS. I said you NEVER talk for only a second, and once you average out your "normal" use, it ends up costing more than the 30 second blocks that a lot of the other carriers normally charge.

The people who fall for this crap, in my experience, NEVER know what the single second charge rate is. At least none of the ones I've asked never knew.

It's like they just don't care about how much the basics cost. They "say" it's cheaper, but have never actually worked it out.

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Linux Registered User # 302622
Reply to
John Tserkezis

The main customers of the handset makers are really not you and me, but the service providers, so anything that helps rack up the online minutes is a good thing. Like the stupid button that conveniently turns on the useless web browser (with additional charges) on my old phone.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

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"it's the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
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Spehro Pefhany

mpm wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@n2g2000hse.googlegroups.com:

a cellphone camera is useful if you get into an auto accident;chances are you will usually have your CP with you,but not your Nikon.

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Jim Yanik
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Jim Yanik

Here's the minute tracking feature I'm looking for..

I enter this information on the cell phone. Mon to Fri 8a.m. to 7pm

350 minutes allotted minutes Free weekends.

So.... It's July 1st..Sunday I get a phone call.. I answer my phone and can immediately see I have 350minutes. My weekends are free There is no change to the counter during the call.

July 2nd..Monday I get a phone call at 11am.. I answer my phone and at any time I can look at my phone see my allotted time dropping..350,349,348, etc..

I get another phone call at 8pm.. (At this time my phone is free) I look at my phone at during the call the counter remains the same.

Does the Moto C139 act like that?

If so that'll be great... During the month I can shorten my call times when I see I'm getting closer to running out of my allotted minutes and I'm at risk of getting charged for extra minutes.

D from BC

Reply to
D from BC

I could Photoshop some extra dents.. :)

I mostly use a digital camera to document electronic projects.. That's the most use my digital camera gets.. I can't imagine making good use of a cellphone camera.. because I never carried around a small film camera for "just in case".

I haven't looked ..(don't want to) but I wouldn't be surprised if there's a website devoted to UFO cellphone camera pictures. :) D from BC

Reply to
D from BC

D from BC hath wroth:

Oh. I'm not familiar with Canadian offerings. Sorry.

Well, if you can't have respect, honor, pride, and a feeling of accomplishment, you can probably settle for gadget envy. If you don't like the iPhone, perhaps one of these might be sufficiently weird, err... cool.

Hmmm... Swiss Army cell phone?

Rugged Handsets.

Motorola i580.

Verizon Casio G'zOne W42CA:

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
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Jeff Liebermann

A cell phone camera is "perceived" to be useful. I'm not sure the insurance companies give a damn... They won't pay even if you have 8" x 10" signed color glossys shot by Ansel Adams himself!

Besides, it's just aggrevating to real photographers to try to use that crap cell phone companies call a camera. I think this was D/ CB's point all along.

Instead of focusing on what really matters in a cell phone (i..e, the ability to place a call), they cram in all this unnecessary extraneous stuff. Sire, it would be nice to have an all-in-one so you have less gear to carry around, but not if doing so causes all of them to be inferior.

There was an article in Electronic Products recently that asked the question whether the rush to minituraization was a result of all this feature-packing, which most people don't use anyway. It tried to make the point that smaller and smaller is not always "better".

-mpm

Reply to
mpm

D from BC wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

no,I get a display of the minutes before and after a call,not during a call.Being a *prepaid TracFone*,minutes are counted no matter what time of day or day of the week. It seems to me that with the data space allotted for games and ringtones,there's enough room to put the program you want in a phone.

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Jim Yanik
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Jim Yanik

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