R.I.P. Cat mobile phone. 2013 - 2021

[tyred]

Why do so many on here seem to take such pride in how basic their phone is?

I was a late convert to mobile phones in general as don't like speaking to people on the phone, I don't have a huge circle of friends to keep in touch with anyway. I rarely carried my phone with me.

With a smart phone however I do carry it. I still rarely make or receive calls on it (it's usually set to silent), do send the odd text message but if all it could co was make calls or send texts I still wouldn't bother carrying it most of the time.

However it has many uses, it is a camera, a pocket-sized PC on which I can browse the internet, I can play games, listen to music, use it as a GPS if I get lost, watch videos, read books. I subscribe to several magazines which I buy in digital format and I have them on my phone so always have reading material to hand if I find myself waiting around.somewhere. When I am touring around I can search decide where I plan on spending tonight and effortlessly look for accommodation. I can check bus, rail or ferry times if required and even book a ticket. I can set reminders if I'm concerned I might forget something. The other thing compared to a traditional phone is if I am texting or calling someone it will probably be using FB messenger or Whatsapp so doesn't cost me anything. I very, very rarely need to top up credit. I don't carry it as because I can use the phone but because of all the other things it can do.

 

[raleighnut]

If you try and use it you will probably find the Orange SIM no longer connects.

Nah it did that before I abandoned it, after the takeover, i spoke to someone about it and was told I had to make a chargeable call at least once a month to keep the phone active (costing nearly 40p to connect) as per my 'terms and conditions'.I told them I never signed up to those and was told I could get a 'contract' for £10 a month with so many texts and so many minutes, now bearing in mind I only used the phone for work and I can no longer do that the phone just went into the drawer and TBH I don't miss it.

 

[Drago]

Why do so many on here seem to take such pride in how basic their phone is?
View attachment 619122

I was a late convert to mobile phones in general as don't like speaking to people on the phone, I don't have a huge circle of friends to keep in touch with anyway. I rarely carried my phone with me.

With a smart phone however I do carry it. I still rarely make or receive calls on it (it's usually set to silent), do send the odd text message but if all it could co was make calls or send texts I still wouldn't bother carrying it most of the time.

However it has many uses, it is a camera, a pocket-sized PC on which I can browse the internet, I can play games, listen to music, use it as a GPS if I get lost, watch videos, read books. I subscribe to several magazines which I buy in digital format and I have them on my phone so always have reading material to hand if I find myself waiting around.somewhere. When I am touring around I can search decide where I plan on spending tonight and effortlessly look for accommodation. I can check bus, rail or ferry times if required and even book a ticket. I can set reminders if I'm concerned I might forget something. The other thing compared to a traditional phone is if I am texting or calling someone it will probably be using FB messenger or Whatsapp so doesn't cost me anything. I very, very rarely need to top up credit. I don't carry it as because I can use the phone but because of all the other things it can do.

Not me. I now take pride in not having one at all. I am ANALOGUE MAN!

Imagine the confusion if some thieving junkie holds me up at knifepoint for my phone!

 

[classic33]

If got my tablet for that. Its 4G so could even send txt mesaages if wanted to, not that I do. Aside from talking bollocks, which im disinclined to do (except on Cyclechat) it does everything a mobile does, but better and for longer.


Lamce O'Classic is right, my memory is faulty. The Cat was a replacement for a similar Thamthung tough phone, so not as old as I had wrongfully recalled.

Thought you'd killed a second one.

 

[Drago]

I did buy a second Cat off ebay for a spare, but having had it for donkeys and finally deciding to try it out I discovered that doesn't f#$%&@g work either.

 

[Cycleops]

I had PAYG phones on Orange for years but since they got bought out and are now part of British Telecom the charges are astronomical so it sits in the drawer uncharged and unused for the past year or so.

Gumtree? Could be a classic by now.

 

[palinurus]

I held out quite a while with a basic Nokia. Was with a carful of colleagues in Hungary and got stuck in a snowdrift for 24 hours- still had a fully working phone with loads of battery life left at the end of that little crisis. Now I have a smartphone & of course I never make calls and if the farking thing rings I'm horrified.

 

[Archie_tect]

Has anyone put their heating on yet?

Heating?

[@Drago, I predict you'll last until Christmas... no way of being on standby when needed by Mrs D, no photos of Bruce for Mrs D to look at, no way of finding Mrs D in M+S when you've disappeared... you poor deluded fool].

 

[wheresthetorch]

Heating?

Yeah, like cooling but not.

 

[postman]

I like the bit I have risen and stand erect,so does Mrs P.I can go up to £17-99 a month after that it will be a strain,when can my contract begin.

 

[oldwheels]

I had PAYG phones on Orange for years but since they got bought out and are now part of British Telecom the charges are astronomical so it sits in the drawer uncharged and unused for the past year or so.

I have a spare old Motorola on BT and it costs £5 per month since I am already on Bt for broadband. I prefer to have a phone with me everywhere in case I fall over out of public view. This has happened with no injury but gave me a bit of a fright.
It gets used for routine calls to my local surgery just to make sure it still works.

 

[gavroche]

My elderly non smart phone switches on, but audio quality is so bad that I sound like im going over Niagara Falls in a biscuit tin full of broken crockery, and it has reached the point where it has become unusable. The dustmen (sorry, enviro--recycling reclamation specialists) take electric gear if bagged up separately, so off it goes to be stripped of its precious plastics to live on as the autopilot on a Tesla.

So unless you count the one built into my car, I no longer have a mobile phone and won't be bothering with another. Yep, I will be one of the few percent with no government mandated tracking device, no glass hypno box to keep me zombie-like (or more zombie like than normal) in the street. My eyesight will return to normal and the arthritis in my thumbs will magically clear up, and the hunch in my posture will quickly improve until I am soon proudly erect.

Anyone else mobile phoneless?

How are you going to use Strava when cycling then? You can't be the only serious cyclist not using Strava or the gods of cycling will make sure it rains heavily on you when you go out for ride.

 

[Archie_tect]

I have an old BT brick you can have Drago, though it defaulted its settings to Italian-should still have £20 of calls on it if I can find the charger.

 

[swee'pea99]

I don't have a Strava.

 

[tyred]

I don't have a unicycle.