Why NOT to Ditch Your Crappy Old Smart Phone


Like many people out there, I was pumped when I got my first flashy, sleek, touch-screen-having smartphone.  A Samsung Acclaim was my entry level purchase.  The "new phone" haze soon wore off as I realized this was a bulky, slow, laggy beast of a device.  The UI was so laggy, there were times I almost missed calls from not being able to swipe the answer button.  I pity the soul who would need to use this phone for an emergency call.  Imagine my glee when my cell phone carrier accidentaly put me in the system for a new phone 6 months early.

Rather than sell the old phone on ebay or craigslist, I put the battery vampire back in its little coffin-box where it could torture me no more. The only reason I let it lurk in storage was incase I took my shiny new phone for a swim, or accidently gave it a good cement bashing.  Usually the phone would sit there for a few years until I retired my current phone, then I'd throw it away.  This all changed a few weeks ago.

I was asked by my mother-in-law to fix up an old Dell.  She wanted a laptop for her new coffee shop to play Pandora.  After a few hours of messing with DSL, and trying to configure wireless drivers, I decided ressurecting the dinosaur of a laptop was just not worth the effort.  As I went to skip the song I was listening to on Pandora (on my shiny new phone), I was hit with a brilliant idea.  Why not let her use my the old Acclaim for a Pandora / Slacker Radio / Twitter device?  It has wifi capability, so no service plan needed!  I loaded up her account on the old phone.  The UI was even more slugishly painful to use now that I was used to my new phone.  After downloading Pandora, Slacker Radio, and Twitter, I was rocking away to "Alan Parsons Radio" in no time (take that Gotye).

Since I have two of these monsters (my wife had one too), I gave one to my mother-in-law, and decided to put the other to work for me.  Now I can listen to Pandora without being interupted by emails and phone calls, and  I don't use up bandwidth on my dataplan.  There also does not appear to be a "Yes I'm still listening." feature on the version of Pandora the old phone uses (bonus!). I could use the Roku, but then I'd have to go through my TV (I don't have a receiver.)



Here are some new devices your old phone can become:
-Awesome Internet Radio Device
-Good Roku Remote (Many free apps for this).
-Crappy Storage Device
-Crappy Camera (Transfering by bluetooth is nice though.)
-IPod Wannabe (Not as good, but it does the job.)

So, now I send you on a quest:
-Send me an email detailing your recycled uses for an old smart phone. (At least 1 pic needed.)
-I'll do a follow up post in 2 weeks with the best submissions!

Comments

  1. Geek GirlApril 26, 2012 at 4:34 AM

    I think this is great! For me, though, I donate my unwanted phones to either the troops defending our country or the women's shelter. Found you via our bloggers group for Blogger Effect. :)

    ReplyDelete

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