THE SMART PHONE

Is it just my experience or have some of you also had a bad experience with a Samsung smart phone? Samsung presents itself as a true alternative to Apple. They use different software, but the quality of the phone is the same. There are those who prefer Apple and those who prefer Samsung: it is just a preference or a matter of taste.

Unfortunately, this has not been my experience with Samsung. My choice was based on practical needs. I couldn’t afford an iPhone. What I needed was a phone that could connect to the Internet, Whatsapp and other useful applications such as a dictionary and further basic utilities. When it comes to technology I’m not an expert, so I relied on public opinion and I opted for a Samsung — not even the cheapest one, it was more than $250.

“That will make the difference to me!” I thought as I evolved from Luddite to a person with a smart phone and found my place in a world where everybody had moved on away from basic technology a long time ago; a world where any time I took out my old phone from my pocket I receive strange reactions from those around me. People looked at my basic phone as if I had just purchased it from an  antique market. It was regarded as a resurrected relic, an oddity forgotten over time. They couldn’t believe I still really used it. So when I bought my Samsung Ace I felt pretty cool. What a difference it was going to make! It didn’t take too long to discover that my smart phone was not so clever. At the beginning, I thought that it was just me — that there was something about me that meant I could not cope with such technology. But eventually I came to the realization that I wasn’t the slow one, it was actually the phone. Not only was it slow but also it was crazy. It would send me messages to inform me  that I didn’t have enough memory to download an application. Then it would cancel all the numbers on my phonebook and this happened a few times causing much frustration as I tried to recover as many numbers as I could. Then there was the alarm clock: one day without warning, I could no longer  access. To make the matters worse now I cannot access Internet at all. 

“Sorry! The application Google Partner Setup... bla, bla, bla... has stopped unexpectedly. Please try again.” This is what my phone continues to display at anytime I try to use the Internet, or applications etc.

I have asked friends if they have ever had such problem, “No, never a problem with Samsung. Samsung is the best!” 

Perhaps it is me? Is it my Luddite personality that doesn’t want to abandon me, and sends me desperate messages inviting me to return to my old attitude toward technology? Or it is possible, just possible that is simply bad luck on my part that I happened to purchase the only bad Samsung! Who knows? Not me! Maybe I am just not intelligent enough for a Smart phone.