1. Battery life has not improved, and in fact has become worse with many newer models

The entire reason why newer phones do not have battery life like the older ones did is because of feature demands.

For example, newer phones have brighter displays; that eats battery life. Newer phones can run more apps; that eats battery life. Newer phones have louder speakers; that eats battery life (as it usually requires a few more tenths of a watt to do it). And, of course, touchscreen phones don’t have nearly the same battery life as featurephones a.k.a. "dumbphones" do.

Battery life is a big deal with your mobile handset. If on average you talk on the phone for maybe 10 to 30 minutes a day and have to charge the thing every 2 days, that’s not good at all.

2. Certain features were removed on newer phones

The best example of this is the lack of ability for newer phones to give you a preview of a text message that’s worth anything.

Many older handsets would show you half of the message as a preview in your message list. If for example the text message was 50 characters in length, you would see 25 characters of the message and who it was from. Many newer phones won’t show you more than 10 characters at the most, and some won’t even show who sent it unless you actually read the full message.

The advantage of the older handsets was that you had enough of a message preview to determine whether you wanted to read the message or discard it. If you discarded it, most of the time you weren’t charged for the message because you never technically read it.

Newer phones purposely made the text preview function extremely limited to force you to read the whole message so that you spend more money on texting.

Busting the myths

Refurbished phones

Most people equate refurbished (or "refurb" for short) as "used". That’s not entirely true. Any electronic that’s been refurbished simply means renovated or renewed.

Used literally means "not new, all original, has wear, no warranty".

Refurbished means "not new, has had parts replaced to fix worn components, has short-term warranty (usually)".

This is more or less the same as when comparing new car to recertified car. "Recertified" for all intents and purposes means "refurbished".

In other words, it is completely OK to buy a refurbished cell phone, as long as the dealer is willing to offer some kind of warranty, even if it’s only 30 days (which is better than nothing).

Antenna range

Some people believe older phones don’t have as much antenna range as newer phones do. This used to be true (when comparing analog to digital mobile handsets), but not any longer.

The range of your mobile handset is more dependent on your location and wireless carrier rather than the actual phone itself. This isn’t always the case as it’s true some phones do simply have poor antenna range, but most of the time the phone is the last thing to blame for any range/signal quality issues.

Lack of feature compatibility on the wireless network

This is something which is both true and not true at the same time.

As far as the ability to talk is concerned, as long as the mobile handset isn’t some ancient 3-watt analog bag phone thing, it will connect to the network and you can place calls as you normally would.

Concerning texting, the only incompatibility you may run into is if someone texts you using MMS, and your particular handset has no MMS capability. But even in that instance, your handset should still be able to retrieve the message and show the text-only portions of it.

Concerning "the G’s" of your phone, be it 2G, 3G, 4G or 4G LTE compatible, the general rule of thumb is that if the handset’s guide states it’s compatible with xG type of network, it is.

The only features of older handsets that absolutely will not work are carrier-specific things that the carrier no longer supports. For example, on certain older Motorola RAZR handsets, there were carrier-specific multimedia features that when new the carrier supported but are now no longer available. You obviously wouldn’t be using those features, so it’s no loss to you not to have them.

Does the carrier care which phone you use as long as it’s compatible with their network?

I’ve never known one that really cared either way what handset you use as long as it’s a compatible-with-their-network phone and you pay the service bill each month.

Some people get confused as to what network compatibility means concerning handsets, so here it is in a nutshell:

You basically have two options with used/refurbished mobile phone handsets. Either you buy one that’s "unlocked", or buy one that’s carrier-specific.

"Unlocked" simply means the phone is compatible with several – but not all – wireless phone networks.

A carrier-specific handset means the phone only works with a specific carrier.

If you go on eBay and search for used handsets, say for Nokia brand, you’ll notice the carrier compatibility list on the left:

How do you activate a used or refurbished phone with your existing phone plan?

It’s literally the luck of the draw whether you’re able to do this hassle-free or not, but I have a few tips that should make the process go a whole lot smoother.

If calling your wireless carrier’s customer service, have pertinent info ready

Turn on the phone, go into the settings menu, get the serial number and any other information that looks like it would need to be required in order to activate the handset BEFORE calling. Having that info at-the-ready will make the activation process go a whole lot faster. In addition, know the make and model of your phone.

The key thing to do while on the phone with customer service is to not ramble and keep it all-business. If you say something like, "Yeah, I just got this great deal on this used phone from eBay…", that is enough of a reason for the customer service rep to discontinue the call for attempting to activate an "unsupported phone" (when in reality it would work just fine). In other words, only say what needs to be said and nothing more. Be pleasant, but don’t be a blabbermouth.

If you have a wireless store for your carrier brand near you, use them instead, but bring relevant paperwork

This is the easier option, as a representative in-person can get the activation done a whole lot faster than you trying it on your own.

However, this process doesn’t come without its own quirks, so to speak. The rep you speak to could go under the assumption you stole the phone even though you bought it, and refuse to support it. The workaround for this is to simply bring along the receipt that proves you paid for it, such as a printed eBay receipt.

Does your carrier offer a self-activation option?

If you’re lucky, your carrier may offer a self-activation option – however I’m going to note up front that this is usually restricted to prepaid phones and not ones with post-paid wireless plans. As to why carriers work that way, I couldn’t tell you because I don’t know.

The way to find out if your carrier has a self-activation option or not is to go to your carrier’s web site and specifically search for "self activate" or "self activation". If your carrier’s web site turns out to be a complete mess that’s difficult to perform a search on, try Google instead. Search for "[your carrier here] self activate" and "[your carrier here] self activation", and you should find the info you were looking for.

Should you purposely buy used or refurbished phones over new?

Ultimately this is dependent on how disgusted you are with the current offerings that are out there for mobile handsets.

If what’s currently being offered bothers you, and I mean really bothers you, older handsets would suit you better for the way you use a mobile phone.

If on the other hand you have an attitude of, "Eh, what’s out there now isn’t, like, great.. but it’s not too bad", stick with what you have.

Or if you have an attitude of, "My phone works fine. It may not have all the features I’d like, but it does the job and I like it", going with an older handset would most likely be a step backwards for you.

"What if I wanted to test a handset, say, for a month? Then I could decide if I wanted to go back to my other handset or not."

This generally isn’t a good idea. Technically, it shouldn’t be a problem to jump to another handset whenever you wanted, but your roadblock here is the wireless carrier itself. If you can deal with the buffoonery that is wireless customer service, then by all means, go for it. If not, stick with what you have.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

The Truth About Buying Used Cell Phones

It’s basically a surrogate Blackberry Messenger that works on all cell phones. It lets you send one another text, audio, and video messages. On top of that, it also features group chat. And it gets better.

The site makes the rather tall claim that it’s completely free, basically throwing the cost of SMS out the window and replacing in favor of something that’s both more advanced and faster. That last bit sounds a touch curious, doesn’t it? After all, why would phone companies allow an app like this to siphon away all that valuable income they extort from their customers? And why would such a service be provided free of charge?

Turns out, it isn’t.

Upon downloading the app, it makes it clear that there’ll be a year-long, free subscription. After that point, the cost will increase to $1.99/year. Peanuts, I know, but still not entirely free. Plus, there’s the fact of how it gets around avoiding text messaging charges. From what I understand, it uses your smartphone’s already existing internet data plan. The one you use for web browsing.

Which, in many cases, isn’t going to be unlimited.

Sure, it’ll be free if you connect your phone to a WiFi connection. If you do that, you’ll be able to chat to your hearts content. Otherwise, I could foresee Whatsapp slowly eating away at your data allowance for a month, eventually nickle-and-diming you into a rather considerable cell phone bill, depending on how much you use it.

As we all know, data plans are rather abhorrently overpriced depending where you live.

Still, it’s a pretty awesome idea, and it definitely beats text messaging, a technology which is, more and more, seeming altogether archaic in today’s cloud-driven world.

You can learn more about Whatsapp by visiting their website.

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Free Texting On Your Smartphone With Whatsapp Messenger

New touchscreen smartphones these days are really cheap and in some instances well under 50 bucks new. Okay, you’ve got a smartphone but it’s not Android or iOS-based, so… where do you get apps for the thing? And where do you get them for free?

The answer is UMnet – but before you go there, a disclaimer: You may see stuff there that’s not family-friendly from time to time. UMnet is so huge that it contains just about every type of phone app imaginable, including the not-safe-for-kids stuff.

Some of you may see the above link and think, "UMnet? I’ve known about that place forever!" True enough. But many people haven’t and this is their first time hearing about it.

Things to know to get the apps you want

1. Your phone’s screen resolution

If you don’t know what this is, break out the user manual. If you don’t have that, look up the information for any one of the stock wallpaper images you have (usually any image on your phone has a feature to see details that includes dimensions); these are made to exactly fit your screen. Whatever the properties of the image are, that’s your phone’s screen resolution.

You need to pick apps that fit your screen. If you don’t, they won’t look right when you run them.

2. If the app looks sketchy, trust your instinct and don’t download it

Not all apps are spyware/malware-free no matter the mobile platform you have. And yes you can get malware/spyware on your phone. If your instincts tell you that a certain app looks a bit fishy, trust them and don’t download it, because you probably don’t have a virus scanner on your phone.

3. Some apps aren’t the fastest things in the world

Unless you have a super-ritzy brand new Android phone or iPhone, what you have is on the slow side, so don’t expect app launching to be quick.

4. If you don’t have a microSD card for your phone, you should really, really get one

Just about any smartphone these days comes with optional microSD card storage, and the bay for it is usually under the battery. Once you start getting apps, especially free ones, you will get all app-happy and download a whole bunch of stuff. Without additional storage, you’ll run out of space real quick, so get a microSD card.

"I don’t know what kind of microSD card I should get."

Safe territory is a 4GB microSD of the class 4 variety. If you want to know if you can fit more, search for "8GB [your phone model here]" on the internet, because your manual probably won’t state how much extra storage your phone can handle.

All lower-end recent (as in the last 3 years or so) smartphones can handle 4GB easily. For 8GB and above, the smart thing to do is search as instructed above. If it can handle 8GB, go for it. If it can handle more, stuff as much storage into your phone as you can. Better to have too much than too little.

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Cheap (As In Free) Cell Phone Apps For The Rest Of Us

Smartphone haters hate two things primarily:

• Wireless plan contracts of any kind
• The ridiculous prices of the phones themselves

It’s never the actual phone that these people hate, because if it did sell for a fair price, and the wireless plan was no-contract and priced fairly, they would buy it.

In the United States there are only two ways I know of to get a no-contract smartphone that in my personal opinion is fairly priced.

To note: If you have an alternative, please feel free to leave a comment. But remember, it has to be no-contract and the phone has to be priced fairly.

Tracfone with triple-minutes-for-life

This is yet again another one of those instances where I will mention Tracfone, as they do offer a few true smartphone models all for $50 or less.

The 3x-minutes-for-life is a fair deal. Buy a 60-minute card either in person or online and that instantly turns into 180 minutes. Buy 90, that turns into 270, and so on. No guesswork involved, no promo codes needed, no special things you have to do. If the phone says it’s 3x minutes for life, it really is 3x minutes for life out-of-the-box for the life of the phone (meaning the 3x doesn’t expire) and is applied the moment you add minutes to the phone.

MetroPCS

Technically this is a contract-based phone, but it’s only month-to-month. What this means is that the contract is active for 30 days, and you renew it each month. If after a particular month you want to drop the service, you do and there’s no ETFs (early termination fees) involved.

MetroPCS does have unlimited-everything for almost everything you could think of, and they have Android phone choices and they have 4G LTE-capable options to boot.

Prices of phones vary and you get a lot of choices with MetroPCS, starting at around $40 for a phone and it goes up from there depending on what features you want.

Got another prepaid smartphone option?

If there’s anything you know of that matches or beats what Tracfone or MetroPCS offers, again, feel free to post a comment and let everyone know.

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What’s The Best Deal For Those Who Hate Smartphones?

The workaround to this is that if someone sends you a message via SMS text to your email address is to first switch to plain-text-only, remove the quoted reply (not necessary with texting), write your reply and then send.

The video below shows how to do this with the Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail email systems.

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How To Reply Properly To A Text Message With Your Email

The question however is this: What possible benefits are there to having internet connectivity while driving?

Here are 5 of them. I’ll be breaking this up into solo (you’re the only one driving) and family.

1. (Solo) Traffic updates that actually work the way they’re supposed to

We’ve had traffic updates via PND (like a Garmin nüvi) for a while now via the FM band (the service doesn’t use satellite), but as anyone who uses that service realizes, it’s not exactly timely. You’ll be driving along and see a notice pop up on the screen that says there’s an accident ahead, only to drive by where it was supposed to be and quickly discover the accident had been cleared two hours ago.

Traffic updates listed on web sites have always been more timely than the ones through updates on the FM band, so hopefully (keyword there) internet-based updates will be a whole lot more accurate.

Obviously, this would especially useful to list portions of roads that are under construction. If a lane is closed off on a particular exit ramp, a driver would definitely want to know about it that day. Not in a few days, not next week. The day it happens. And to be very specific, the notice that something is under construction should be sent out the moment a construction worker lays down an orange barrel or cone.

2. (Solo) Timelier updates of business closures

Use a PND long enough and you’ll instruct it to tell you where a gas station is only to go there and find it closed shop a year ago – and you’re still out of gas. Not good.

Internet-based maps such as Google Maps have the ability to leave comments and also the ability to report whether the business is still there or not – and people do use this often. A tie-in of this to the map software in the car would provide a world of good.

3. (Family) Watch movies or television without having to bring along anything

The behind-the-headrest or flip-down screen for rear passengers in my opinion is one of the best things ever put into a car to keep kids occupied during long trips. With proper 4G LTE connectivity, you could bring in a feed of Netflix for example so the kids can watch the shows/movies they want – and you don’t have to bring along any DVDs to make that happen.

4. (Solo or Family) Texting

Using a smartphone while driving is just plain dumb. However if you get a text message on a screen in the center stack of your console, all that takes is a quick glance so you can keep your eyes on the road. Basically put, it’s not much different than checking a gauge.

To make this perfect, it should be mandatory that you cannot reply to the message while the vehicle is in motion. You’ll get the SMS notification and the option to hit a button that will auto-reply with, "I’m currently driving and will reply back later", but until the car stops, that’s your only option.

Rear passengers will have the option to text back and forth whether the vehicle is stopped or in motion.

5. (Solo or Family) Posting photos

You just carted your whole family to check out the Grand Canyon and took a bunch of photos. Do you have to wait until you get back to the hotel to upload those and share them out? Nope. Do it right from the car.

What other benefits of in-car fast internet could you think of?

Post a comment or two with your thoughts.

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5 Benefits Of Having Internet In Your Car

Cited reasons for the closure of the app were, "…absolute anonymity made it very challenging to permanently remove determined users with malicious intent", and "Bad content caused users to complain to me, Apple and the FBI. I was contacted by law enforcement about bad content on the App. Threats were made against users, moderators and my family."

The problem here wasn’t the trolls but rather the app administration itself. Even though the submissions were moderated, the sheer number of them made it basically impossible for the volunteer moderators to weed out all the "bad" content.

What this basically proves is that the mobile market at this point isn’t ready for anonymous posters, and I don’t think it ever will be.

On the "regular" non-mobile internet, anonymous and real-name posting systems can coexist, and there are community-driven automated moderation tools like Akismet to assist with that. On mobile however it’s a different story. Apps specifically designed for mobile platforms don’t have the same moderation options as traditional web site message systems do.

"If it’s all the internet, it’s all the same, right?"

No, it’s not. Dealing with content systems where content is published through mobile means is still largely a very new thing at present; app developers across the globe are fighting with this on a daily basis.

Maybe one day we’ll have proper moderation systems on mobile, but at present? Not a chance.

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Death Of PostSecret iPhone App Proves 100% Anonymous Posting Sometimes Just Don’t Work

Even though it happens rarely, cold snaps causing freezing temperatures do happen in Florida.

In a truly cold area for this time of year, like Boston, Massachusetts, that’s where you see the Fahrenheit numbers really take a dive:

It’s not your PC you have to worry about, it’s your phone

PCs operate best when cold. And as for the question "How cold is too cold?", the answer is that if there’s frost, meaning condensation, appearing on your PC’s inner components.. yeah, that’s too cold. Any cooler temperature above that however is safe territory, so if from a cooling system the inside of your PC feels like an ice bucket and there’s no frost, your PC will happily hum along without complaint. When you see condensation however, that’s very bad because water and electronics don’t mix. The statement of "When my file server has a frosty dew on the board, I’m doing something right" is obviously not literal advice; that’s meant as a joke. Keep your PCs condensation-free at all times.

As I mentioned back in November, there are some mobile phones that won’t operate properly at below-freezing temperatures. The phones particularly susceptible to this are the touchscreen variant, as many will list their absolute minimum operating temperature at 32F/0C.

General advice that will keep your phone working in the cold

1. Don’t leave the phone in the car if you park outside

With the car off and the phone sitting in the glove box, on a day like today the phone will fall below its minimum operating temperature. Take the phone with you when you leave the car.

2. Plugging in an ice-cold car charger plug into a phone’s power port is a bad idea

In extreme situations this can actually cause condensation (ruining the port) and/or warping of the port and/or the charger’s pins. Fortunately there’s an easy solution. This will sound kooky but it works. Unplug the charger and place in your coat pocket for a few minutes. Your body heat through the coat will bring up the temperature of the charger enough to where it won’t cause any damage.

"Couldn’t I do the same by holding the charger plug in front of a heater fan in my car?"

Yes, but that will most likely heat it up too quickly. Tiny little charger pins react badly to sudden temperature changes and may fail because of that. The goal here is to warm up the charger slowly, and the safest way to do that is just to place in a coat pocket for a few minutes. You’ll know it’s ready to plug into the phone when the tip of the charger plug doesn’t feel cold anymore to the touch.

3. When in doubt, use a earbud/earpiece

Unless your coat is lined with lead, your phone will have the same reception in the pocket as it will in the open cold and remain at operating temperatures. Also remember it’s a lot cheaper to replace and earpiece than it is to replace a phone.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

Aw, Snap! Will Your Electronics Survive The Cold?

In the past years The Salvation Army has seen the times change. With most shoppers carrying credit cards instead of cash, there has been a decline in funds collected during the holidays. To help increase donations, The Salvation Army has decided to turn to tech and the growing popularity of mobile payment systems. They are testing the use of Square, a mobile payment company, to allow shoppers to swipe their credit cards and give a donation.

The Android phones have been donated by Nextel and will have the small postage stamp-sized card readers from Square. There will be two apps involved, one for Square and one for The Salvation Army. After the bell ringer gets the attention of the shoppers, the only thing they need to do is swipe their card and sign. The donation will automatically deposit into The Salvation Army’s bank account. The Salvation Army is confident the new method will increase the amount of donation due to the tech appeal and convenience. It will also reduce the amount of theft involved with collecting cash in small amounts.

This is not the first time The Salvation Army attempted to collect donations via credit cards. A few years ago the organization launched donation kiosks which allowed people to use credit cards. However, with cold weather conditions and the amount of time it took to process payments, it was not a big success.

Though The Salvation Army will be the largest non-profit organization to integrate this technology, it won’t be the first. Advertising Age reported on a Girl Scout troop in California that used a mobile payment system to sell around 400 boxes of cookies at Facebook’s headquarters earlier this year.

The Salvation Army plans to have the Android powered bell ringers at 10 locations each in Dallas, San Francisco, Chicago, and New York. This year will still be a testing phase to see how the public reacts to the new donation method and whether it will increase donations. If all goes well, the sound of coins dropping in the bucket may be a faded memory in the oncoming years.

Square launched in 2010 and hit the ground running. Their small credit card reader has interested many investors, allowing Square to raise $100M in financing to get their company started. With the growing popularity in smartphones as a business solution, it was only a matter of time before they included point of sales. Now your phone can do it all.

About the Author: Author Scott Parker writes for an Australian comparison website, which gives side-by-side rates for all the popular credit cards as well as listing savings accounts with high interest offered by online banks.

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Android Powered Bell Ringers for Salvation Army

And yes, it is all crap. When you have too much of any one specific type of electronics item on the market, people do literally say, "I want nothing to do with that crap." The end result is that they, meaning you, don’t buy it. Either that or you purposely will seek out something simplified that just works.

Simplification is what makes things like John’s and Just5 phones sell well. People eventually get to the point of being really sick of whiz-bang features when it comes to mobile and just want something that places calls easily.

What do you think?

Is the rapid-fire release nature of the mobile market leaving you with the feeling that nothing is really improving?

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Confirmed: There’s Too Much Mobile Stuff Out There