I don't think the author is saying his old-fashioned phone is chic... just economic. As a college student, he doesn't have a lot of disposable income, and to hi

I don't think the author is saying his old-fashioned phone is chic... just economic. As a college student, he doesn't have a lot of disposable income, and to him the benefits of a smartphone don't justify the cost, even though he admits his feature phone is “not sexy” and “looks funny”. A lot of tech trends are really about fashion, but that couldn't be further from the case here. Edit: also worth noting, you can go the iPod Touch route and have all the wonderfully geeky benefits of a smartphone, but only when wifi is available. If you usually are in range of wifi, it could make sense... see my other comment about how a friend of mine does it.