So yeah... my old cellphone is pretty old.

My first cell phone came into my life in the spring of 1992, after The Buick From Hell left me stranded across various states out west on a weekly basis during 1991. Out there it was a looooong walk to a payphone and visions of roadside serial killers always danced in my head during those treks, between murderous thoughts toward GM for sticking me with the Lemon-Mobile.



It was a Panasonic bag phone, the kind that came in its own little suitcase and was "portable"limited only by how much baggage you could schlep at one time. I think it weighed 10 pounds. It was black. I signed on with GTE Mobilnet.

Somewhere in early 1995 I got a brick-shaped OKI that was roughly the size and weight of just the handset of Ye Olde Bag Phone which had suffered a dead battery (and which were no longer in production). This was much more portable, though not terribly exciting design-wise, so I stuck a Schwa alien-head sticker on it, which really freaked out some people at work to the point where they didn't want to touch it. Again: black.

Then romance entered the picture: Motorola made their lovely little (black, of course) StarTAC phones and I was smitten at first sight. It weighed *nothing*. It fit in my pocket! In spring of 1996 love was in the air and I claimed one as my own. The still-working-but-clumsy OKI was given to Mom, minus the alien head, in an attempt to get her on the cell phone bandwagon. After using (or rather, not using it)for the one-year contract she gave it back and I sold it. My romance with the StarTAC continued hot-n-heavy through my 2-year contract. I told it all my secrets. It whispered in my ear. We went everywhere together, literally attached at the hip thanks to a clip that held it to my waistband when I wore tights instead of jeans.

In 1998 I went in to renew and was told my phone was no longer compatible with the new nationwide plan and I'd have to get a new one (some mumbo jumbo about tri-band). I was horrified until they pointed me toward the new tri-band StarTAC. The only difference was that my former beau was a green-eyed model, and this one had a blue eye. I pocketed my new sweetie and we cuddled and coo'd, jetted glamourously around the country often accompanied by the equally lust-a-licious love-object known as the Wallstreet Powerbook, until one day in 2002 that lovely blue screen began to develop lines that made reading it increasingly impossible. I was sad, but confident I could just pop into my local shop and get another, newer StarTAC. I was horrified to learn there were no StarTACs. I inquired about paying for a repair. It would've been more expensive than a new phone, and ultimately proved impossible due to lack of parts. I was crushed. A glance around the store showed a sea of silver and grey phones. I felt a chill. I asked the perky salesdude to show me whatever they had in black.

"We don't have anything in black."

Wha? I though black was the default for most technology. Where did all this depressing grey come from? My brain was freaking out. Perky salesdude kept his infospiel going with chatter about color screens, phones, texting, email, blah-da-de-da and it was all lost on me. I could only say one thing:

"Show me whatever you have that is NOT silver."

That stumped him for a bit. Everything was silver. Then he wandered over to the accessories and found replacement housings in 2 colors: shiny black plastic and a deep metallic British racing green. The black plastic looked cheesy (unlike the pretty matte blacks of my previous phones). The green was intriguing. It was classic and took the phone out of flying space ship mode and into "hi I look like I escaped from 1940" mode. It felt similar to a StarTAC in my hand, though obnoxiously smaller (as was the screen). Still, it was this or be phone-less so I took it (the new housing cost more than the phone) and until a couple of years ago we got along fine. It wasn't love; he was more of a cute little guy pal. I'm afraid that techlove may be gone with the StarTACs, but it was companionable until the battery didn't want to hold a charge any more.

I couldn't complain - it was going on 5 years old, which is the longest I'd had any one phone (mostly out of desperation due to the unfortunate designs of the others). I had a trial date with a pink RAZR, and while I could love the pink, it happily was of a width similar to a StarTAC (odd things you notice when your fingers have issues), and the screen was larger (again like the StarTAC), the user interface was downright ugly and who puts *white* nubmers on a silver keyboard? Hello! Design department! It looked like a hooker with a bad makeup job. Any screen space I'd gained for readability was obliterated by blinkies and logos and unnecessary frippery. Plus it seemed to require extensive education to learn to use. I can appreciate a prettified dandy, even a fop, but I just didn't want a cheap drag queen* who didn't speak my language on my arm. Back it went after 2 days.

I bemoaned the lack of a suitable phone suitor to a long-time friend who had nearly identical taste in phones, sans the aversion to grey. He also apparently didn't mind drag queens (phonewise anyway, definitely not the human variety) since he was sporting a RAZR. His unused V60 was gathering dust in a drawer - with a perfectly functional battery. He volunteered to send it to me and I happily accepted. It was a bigger capacity battery, and thus fatter, so I had to quake-wax the back housing on the phone. Still, this gave me 2 more years with my little green pal (note the lack of technolust in this relationship) which brings me to now, as fat battery starts to fade away like its predecessor. We're now approaching seven years together, which may be some kind of cell phone record.

Fortunately, around the time of the initial battery issue, iPhone had been announced and it looked nice: the ultimate in Mac-friendly, insanely large screen, good width**, and dirt-simple to use. No whorish interface. Granted it had that gaudy chrome back, but a skin would fix that. Unfortunately it was AT&T and I had a long-standing happy relationship with Verizon (formerly GTE Mobilnet) which gave me a signal even in remote areas. I'd often hand it over to friends who couldn't get signal with other services. Even a friend who got a free iPhone wasn't jumping ship: he kept his old phone and Verizon. Plus it was version One. I've been around the Early Adopter block a few times and wasn't going to run off with the first attractive Apple phone that looked my way. I flirted with those of friends, but still didn't want to commit.

AT&T! The network of dubious reputation, comes as part of the iPhone package. Woe! It's like finding a nice guy and bad in-laws. What's a girl to do?

If you're me, you angst a lot and write too-long LJ entries about something that won't matter in 50 years. You also research obsessively and pepper your friends with questions about their cell services. You freak out over the leaps telephony has made in just the last year and realize that it's become almost a foreign language. SMS, MMS, text, web, voice, data... what's free? What costs your-firstborn-plus-change per minute? What happened to having a phone that just had AAA on speed dial? Aaaugh!!!

Anyway. I'm about 90% sure it's going to be iPhoneville. When I visited the AT&T store and they learned I was currently dating Verizon both the sales reps lit up like Christmas trees and said "we looooove to hear that". I felt a bit queasy for my old beau, but then again maybe we've grown apart: the lobotomized phone offerings, gaudy interface that is difficult to figure out, the mostly Windows-centric software and proprietary doodads. Oh sure, I could probably get a signal on Mars but if I can't figure out the phone what good does that do me?

I stood in the Apple Store today and fondled a (black!!) iPhone. There was no manual written in 4pt type in 6 languages on tissue thin paper required to figure it out. Granted, I watched the videos on Apple's site, but overall you look at it and it's easy to figure out. The interface is not cluttered. What really scored points with me was the way it knew exactly where I was when I pushed the button that offered restaurant suggestions. I didn't have to know my nearest intersection, zipcode or anything. It knew where I was. The salesrep said a simple playlist in my iTunes would solve my "I have a bazillon gigs of songs and only a few gigs of space on this gadget". And it would automatically organize an iTunes library on itself to make my life easier. Verizon's VCast? Puh-leeze. Pay again for stuff I already have? WTF? Good gods... I could finally have that T.Rex ringtone I've always wanted!

More bonus points: after repeatedly throwing myself into learning all the ins-and-outs of various phones over the years (knowledge which became useless after an upgrade) I could have a no-brainer device that isn't feature-starved.

OK.... 99% sure.

*Not to be confused with the really attractive ones and pros who know their stuff - and I've dressed more than a few

**If your fingers have problems due to tendonitis or arthritis or any kind of general crankiness, the tighter you must grip something the more painful it often is. Wider phones - for me, anyway - are easier to grip





And if you don't want to read all that behind the cut: I'm still trying to wrap my head around their claim I can call anyone else on the AT&T network anytime and it doesn't count against my minutes. Anyone know for sure? Oh! And rollover minutes - what a concept!