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I have a friend who used the starTac until AT&T forced him into something else. He fought for months trying to keep his old phone working. He moved to an iPhone
by asimuvPR 10y ago
I have a friend who used the starTac until AT&T forced him into something else. He fought for months trying to keep his old phone working. He moved to an iPhone but says it doesn't compare.
- StavrosK 10y agoPlus you can keep the StarTAC in your bikini.
- GFischer 10y agoIt's been several years since I moved to a touchscreen phone, and I still hate them for the "making calls and answering" workflow - I used to be able to make calls and answer without having to physically look at the phone - the StarTac's flick to open would be a good example of that. Of course, touchscreen phones make great computing devices, which makes their inadequacy as phones irrelevant.
- marssaxman 10y agoHmm, I actually find them to be pretty lousy computing devices, since it's so difficult to type on them. You can poke around and read email or news articles, and take or look at pictures, but actually doing anything with a touchscreen phone is... well, I generally don't spend more than a couple of minutes trying, because it rarely works and it's less frustrating to just wait until I have a real computer at hand. They have some decent hardware in there; shame it's so difficult to make it do anything interesting!
- kej 10y agoI had a Samsung i760 [1] before iOS/Android took over, and it was the perfect combination of phone and smart device. When you needed a phone you could dial or answer without looking, but when you needed a smart device it did that, too. [1] http://i-cdn.phonearena.com/images/phones/9018-large/Samsung-SCH-i760-1z.jpg http://i-cdn.phonearena.com/images/phones/9018-large/Samsung...
- loup-vaillant 10y agoIf only we stopped calling them "phones"… They're palmtops after all.
- floordaemon 10y agoI use a tiny disposable Tracfone and a new iPod Touch. Sure I could combine them in an iPhone, but I don't think they need to be tied together.
- asimuvPR 10y agoI also did that for a while, but then people in my social circle moved on to whatsapp and would never answer their phone or texts... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- saalweachter 10y agoI use a separate music player just because I like non-singular points of failure. The idea of carrying a single object that is your means of communication / music player / camera / train ticket / monetary instrument / entertainment center is neat, until you think about your battery dying / losing it / dropping it and having it crack in half when you're a hundred miles from home. I guess it is less bad if you tend to travel in packs, and would always have a backup in that way.
- asimuvPR 10y agoFour or five years ago I used a cheap-o flip phone and loved it. Been thinking about going back to it but don't want to lose the ability to take really nice pictures at any moment. :/
- Piskvorrr 10y agoMy current phone finally worked around the "answering" workflow with "push Home button to pick up, push Power to reject". Not perfect, but okay.
- anexprogrammer 10y agoSame. I used to be able to text without ever looking at the screen I seem to have passed peak-smartphone, I check it much less often, and phone more. I've been tempted a few times by the flip-smartphones that exist in the Far East - I wish they were available here so I could trial one in a store. Don't want to buy until I decide if they're best of both worlds, or worst...
- dkersten 10y agoI used to be able to text without ever looking at the screen Not exactly the same, but I've noticed that if I type with my eyes closed, I'm both faster and make fewer errors than when I look at the screen. I guess its because I can just let my muscle memory do its thing without distraction.
- yellowbeard 10y agoUsing swipe I can write on a smart phone without looking at the screen. Problem is some auto corrects will be wrong. Not perfect, but close. Longer words do better.
- romaniv 10y agoI would buy a Japanese flip/smart phone in a second if it was properly supported outside of Japan. From what I heard, they have weird rules about warranty and even software updates outside of the country. It's really annoying to be forced in the direction of fake technological "progress" that's mostly a result of extensive marketing. There is no fundamental reason why a smart phone can't have proper keys for calling. There are couple of Android flip phones on the market, but since Android UI is designed 100% for touchscreens, I am pretty sure the experience of using them will be horrible.
- icebraining 10y agoThat's why I use a cheap featurephone with a keyboard and a touchscreen tablet. Smartphones are a poor hybrid, in my opinion.
- nojvek 10y agoI had higher satisfaction with my 3310 than any phone I've ever had. It just worked. Nokia really knew what they were doing back then.
- Guildpact 10y agoThe StarTac was a legend of a phone. It was good at calling, getting reception, volume, and quality. My dad held onto his for as long as possible before being forced to switch to a smart phone. Smart phones compensate for lower call quality and reception with their processors and apps, there is always going to be a tradeoff, to most it is worth it but if your business relies on a lot of phone calls and being able to take those calls wherever you are then having something like the StarTac is great.
- bshimmin 10y agoI have had an iPhone since they came out in the UK in 2007, and I love being able to check my email and idly browse the web on it (I don't much care about apps, I'll be honest). But, to be honest, I quite miss my Nokia 3210 which had fantastic battery life, never dropped calls, got reception in places my iPhone never does, and never, ever spent ages trying to send an iMessage instead of an SMS when there's a really bad 3G or 2.5G signal (which frustrates me almost to the point of violence).
- asimuvPR 10y agoTrue. My friend is a VP of some construction big-co and relies heavily on his phone. The StarTac would survive the most hostile environments without much issue. iPhones? Well, he has gone through about a dozen in spite of him using the expensive covers (otter).
- trop 10y agoMy StarTac did actually detach at the flip sometime in 2001. Still usable for months after, though. If I recall, there was just some sort of bus cable between the two pieces. I would have to hold them next to each other to make calls.
- codemac 10y agoIt is truly depressing how the idea of a SIM card holding storage as well (your contacts!) didn't get bigger. It'd be awesome if my sim card ( or something the size of the old simcards ) had as much storage as it could manage. With today's microSD densities, you can realistically hold everything and more than what's on your phone (though the storage medium itself is less resilient..). Then you go to work, pop it in your hardcore resilient phone. Go home, pop it in your tablet. This however empowers users almost exclusively, there isn't much advantage to a consortium of companies implementing this.