New family member

The small local cell phone company I've been using for 14 years or so was purchased by AT&T recently. Received friendly letter that I had till end of year to convert. No real choice for Cayucos and Cambria coverage. The small local company got the prime cell tower sites years ago and regardless of any other benefits of a particular carrier, if you can't get a signal you're screwed.

Should have gone in a couple weeks ago, but was busy and didn't really want to decide on a phone--of course my smart phone wouldn't work with AT&T. After some online research and asking friends for their opinion, I decided to get anApple iPhone 4. Went to local AT&T factory store in SLO late afternoon--jammed with customers like myself, but a storm was on the way, so I stuck out the wait. Staff was busy, but pleasant and competent (always a plus!). After about 45 minutes my name was called and the process only took about 15 minutes. Thanks to my old phone keeping contacts on the sim chip, they all migrated into the iPhone--all 200+ of them. That was a big relief.

Still far down on the learning curve, but the amazingly clear display and the interface very quickly convinced me that this is a small computer that happens to make phone calls. I got the 32GB version. 16GB was out of stock and I sorta wanted the 32GB anyhow. I have 2 manuals on the way from Amazon--about 1000 pages as I remember. Less than 24 hours after going active I can call, voice mail. email, web browse and see how wall street did. About as much as I did on my old phone and the display makes it all so much more appealing. Voice quality is better, signal reception a little better and the weight is about same--Nokia E75 is no lightweight. The clearer signal is important to me--hearing voice inflection is critical to quality communication. Just understanding the words isn't enough.

Typing is a work in progress. The Nokia had the biggest slide out keyboard out there. Touch screen on the Apple is an adjustment. The keypad is huge though and dialing is easier. Have not experienced the "death grip" thing so far--maybe they finally did a firmware fix? I got tired of reading Google matches after the first 3 pages.

Yeah, the phone cost a bunch and AT&T is about 2.5 time as expensive as the old carrier, but I got a nice signal in Cayucos (4-5 bars), plus plenty of head room in the technology learning arena. This is my 5th or 6th cell phone--going back to 1996--remember analog days--those were fine signals. I had an NEC that weighed close to a pound and looked like a rechargeable telephone. We've come a long way! I sold real estate for 10+ years without cell phones--gee how did we do it? LOL!

Cell phones allowed agents to leave the office and the office culture that allowed them to soak up the nuances that make the real estate business all that it can be. Communication technology has advanced, but the quality of communication? Not so much!