On Tuesday, September 12, 2017 at 11:07:17 PM UTC-4, wrote:
trader_4 wrote:
On Tuesday, September 12, 2017 at 9:08:45 AM UTC-4, Frank wrote:
On 9/12/2017 1:21 AM, Andy wrote:
http://money.cnn.com/2017/09/11/inve...one/index.html
What do you thing ?
Andy
Smart phones are just computers with a phone ap. I have a Tracfone flip
phone costing me $150 for 2 years service. Just want a phone. For
computer I have desktop where work is easy and doesn't require little
bitty screen and typing.
The downside of course is that your desktop doesn't fit into a pocket
and therefor you don't have it with you. I use my smartphone when out
and about all the time.
Really? When I leave home I usually know where I'm going, how to get
there, what I'm going to do when I get there, and how to get home.
Sure, I *usually* do to. But usually doesn't mean that there still aren't
enough other times when a smartphone is very useful
From pulling up info on products when in a
store,
You don't know anything about the product beforehand? Maybe you're one
of those impulse buyers.
You;ve never come across another item you were not aware of, didn't know about?
It might take me six computer-hours spread
over a couple of weeks for any sizeable purchase.
Who says it has to be sizeable? If I need a fitting for example,
it turns out HD is out of it, I can check and see if Lowes does.
Or if I see something for $75 at HD, I can check and see if it's
available elsewhere for less to make it worthwhile getting it there.
It only takes a couple mins to check.
Not time I want to
spend staring at a itsy-bitsy screen in some store. Further don't the
store people have all the information on their product?
Obviously you haven't much experience with the knowledge of the typical
staff at stores today.
(They might
have to look up their website for you but at least it'll be on a
reasonably-sized screen.)
Are they going to look up and see if it's less money at Lowes for you?
What the lowest price is online?
to finding restaurant menus and hours for those near me,
Huh? Maybe if you're on vacation. How many of those do you take each
year?
I do that frequently, not just when on vacation. If I'm on a day trip,
errand an hour away, I frequently take a look at what new places there
are that I might be interested in. Just did that yesterday, just 15 miles
from home. I decided to look on Groupon, see what deals there were on
interesting places for lunch. Quickly found a $20 deal for $10 at a
Mexican place I'd been to. NExt stop, check it out on Yelp. The
reviews were all excellent, it's been open only 5 months. Bought
the Groupon deal on the phone, used Google Maps to get there. We had
a great $20 lunch for $10.
to getting directions either driving or walking, finding hotels near
me,
You just suddenly get the urge to spend the night in a hotel? Oh, I
see. That hooker doesn't already have a room g.
A recent example, we went down to see the eclipse. Didn't know whether
we wanted to stay after the eclipse, how far we wanted to drive, so
we just winged it. I was checking hotels on the phone while we were
driving back.
finding gas at the lowest prices nearby.
Maybe if you're in FL at the moment.
I use the GasGuru app here in NJ frequently. Why would I have to
be in FL?
I have Yelp to check
out restaurants, see if they are any good.
Oh, yeah. Yelp's really reliable. Again on vacation maybe.
I find it useful. If you don't, then don't use it. And it;s
not limited to vacations. I gave you an example above. Last
weekend we were in NYC, I used it there. Many times we're an
hour or so from home and interested in trying new restaurants.
I use Yelp to find all kinds of places, Thai, Indian, Pakistani,
Without the phone, I would not know they were there unless I
planned ahead and knew what kind of food I wanted. I can also
check on the fly and see if they are open on that day and time.
Plus I can get texts
wherever I am.
You mean text messages?
I see, so texts are of no use to you either.
Not useful text like the User Manual for the
Smooler-Cooler refrigerator that's making horrible grinding
noises...oops that's at home just near your Super-Duper printer
attached to your large sized Desktop monitor.
Then there are the other fun apps, like FlightRadar24, where I can
see aircraft in the air, what plane, where they came from and going
to, etc.
I can watch grass grow for the same thrill.
To each his own.
Has it replaced the desktop? No. But between tablets and smartphones,
the sales of desktops peaked 3 years ago and have been declining since.
Intel is lucky they are king of servers, that's where all the profits
are coming from. They badly missed the phone market, ignored it.
They should have bought Qualcomm back in the early days.
As for $1000 phone, I recently bought a ZTE Max XL, 6" high res screen,
4000 mah battery, USB C connector, fast charging, 2GB ram, 16GB Flash,
finger print sensor,
Android Nougat (scheduled for Oreo upgrade). It cost me $100. About
the only possible thing additional I might need would be more Flash
and I can add an SD card for not much cost. I'm sure that $1000 iphone
has some more bells and whistles, but the value proposition sure isn't
there for me.
I must admit that some of what you point out might be useful on
vacation including a GPS function.
I'll bet the majority of GPS mapping is being used by people who
are not on vacation. Sure, I know my way around the area here
and on the major roads. But if I'm in the middle of Jersey City
or Newark, having the GPS on the smartphone get me to the turnpike
in the middle of the night, well I find that useful.
I really hate my 10 year-old
(about) Garmin and much prefer Google maps. Of course this may be an
unfair conclusion biased by the size of my Desktop and on functions
that I'm not sure even exist. For example, (keeping it in your area)
I'd like to go from Princeton NJ to Richmond VA avoiding Washington DC
and only on non-expressway roads. Show me the route and then let me
change portions of it. Keep a changing total of time and mileage.
Yeah, I too might like Yelp or Trip Advisor on vacation and Google too
but most of these things I can do back at the hotel on my laptop.
Sure, if you plan ahead. But if you're out, don't have every min
planned, don't know where you're going to wind up, and now it's
9PM and you feel like Indian food, then what? Or you knew you
wanted Indian or Thai, now it's 9PM and you want to find directions
to one of them from where you are?
So I could pay for a phone to do all this but I'd only use it for
(say) a week a year. Can I rent the phone and any necessary software
for that week? OK, I'll spring for a month but that's it.
I'd say my phone partly pays for itself. Lunch at half price,
less money spent on gas, comparing hotel deals in the car...
Compared to the costs of other things, like internet access,
cable TV, even basic utilities, $45 a month for a smartphone
seems like a good value proposition to me. If it's not for you,
then don't try using it. And I'd say if you haven't tried it,
then you don't even know what it can or can't do for you.
For phone functions (talking) my wife and I have identical flip phones
which cost all of $200 a year for both (carrier cost) and they do text
messaging too..wow. I only found out about the latter when my son, the
proud owner of about 4 super-duper smart phones, borrowed one to send
a really urgent (!) text and they were all on charge or at home. I had
to suppress a giggle. Don't you people have spare fully-charged
batteries?
There is supposed to be a study on what people use their cell phones
for but I've never been able to find it. Maybe Apple paid to have it
suppressed? Any ideas?
I just gave you some good examples. Being able to reply to emails from
anywhere is another one.