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Friday, May 25, 2012

My Samsung Convoy II is a horrible phone

My Convoy I was an awesome phone.
What changed?
They messed with it!
I don't know who "They" are but I would really like to punch them in the nose. Or better yet, make them use the phone they screwed up.
The Convoy has a niche market. People who do not not want complicated phones and people who want a phone they can operate with one hand.
Key words would be "simple, compact, rugged."
All my phone needs to do is:
1. Place and receive calls
2. Get me the weather without going online
3. Not getting on the internet
4. Fairly waterproof
5. Fit in my shirt pocket
6. Not butt dial
7. Be easy to use

The Convoy II pretty well meets the standards of 1, 4, and 5 but then so do any number of other phones.
What really makes me angry is that you can't get the weather within two steps of opening the phone.
In fact opening the phone is where the problems start.
The buttons are flush with the keypad so it is hard to feel them in the dark or when you are slightly damp or have oil on your fingers.
It has a pretty good camera but because the buttons are hard to feel it is easy to erase photos after taking them.
It appears the only way to get the weather is through an app like Weatherbug which requires you to get online which requires you to type with the keypad which is a total joke.
Here is the bottom line.
I could be wrong, this could be a great phone, if I just knew how to use it... But... And this is a big Butt as in pain in the Butt... Cell phones have been designed and sold for a number of years now. Many of the commands are pretty much standard. Why make it needlessly complicated? Why even build a phone that sends text messages when you scratch your bottom? Or has buttons you can't actually feel? Or has internet with a screen and keyboard that can be read only by Lilliputions?
Which brings me to a whole discussion of software upgrades.
Software upgrades never address real problems with the previous edition of the software. Instead they add idiotic look and feel upgrades and addition features that you don't like or need and they screw up some basic service that you came to depend on.
For example, my MacBook continually loses the passwords to frequently joined networks and often won't let you click on "view password." Sure I used that feature to steal people's passwords in the past but if they would not have wanted their password stolen they would not have left the stupid computer signed in permanently...
Or more to the point... The convoy 1 had one annoying feature. Anytime you hit a key on the front panel you got a music program that I never used. However, you could use the camera, get the weather, and send text messages with one hand.
The convoy II replaces the music with a very handy flashlight but then it also butt texts, "I'm in a meeting," as a reply to the last person who texted me. I am thinking there are folks who wonder why I am in so many meetings.
Perhaps I can blame the phone for the various cryptic messages and strange photos I sent to Orin. Honestly, do you really want to spend your data minutes receiving photos of someone running over a Barbra Streisand 8-track tape with a forklift and then setting it on fire?
That is what blogs are for!

3 comments:

  1. I'd ditch my phone entirely if it wasn't for my wife wanting to be able to "reach out and touch me" 24-7.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The older I get, the more I appreciate simplicity. My LG cell is probably 7 years old. Makes and receives calls when I want it to and a lot of the time it is turned off. Does that make me anti-social?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Mine usually only goes on when my vehicle breaks down or when I'm about home & I think I can convince the wife to open the gate up at the house for me. In my defense there is a grade & the emergency brake on the IH is weak.

    ReplyDelete

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