There's an old saying that I think is attributed to P.T. Barnum: “Never give a sucker an even break.”
For bargain-hunting cheapskates like myself, I think the desire to save some cash turns the judgment centers of our brain into “dough.” In short, we don't give ourselves an even break.
Case in point? I have lusted for an Apple iPhone since before the first one was released. The desire became more acute when my doctor let me borrow hers and try it: “Doctor, Doctor, gimme the news, I gotta bad case of the iPhone blues!”
For more than a year, I have been jonesin' for an iPhone. When Apple released its updated phone — and cut the price from “outrageous” to “overpriced,” I rejoiced. I could afford to buy one! But the devil is always in the details.
While the iPhone has all the cool features that I want, the cost of the AT&T iPhone monthly service package costs as much as the current montly cost of our 3-cell phone family deal. Yikes! For months now I have been trying to figure out how I could justify the high cost of the montly service.
As a longtime ham operator I have helped successfully elevate rationalizing irrational purchases of big ticket ham gear to the fine art that it is (look for my master's thesis on “Saving Money By Spending It” in 2010. Economists in the Obama Administration are promising to bail out — er, I mean fund my ongoing research.)
But in the case of the iPhone, even an old hand like this writer felt stymied when attempting to argue the need to nearly double our recurring cell phone charges with the iPhone.
Despondent, I sought solace in other high-tech whoosy-whatsy-gizmos: A Yaesu FT-2000 and DMU w/monitor. A new GPS for the car. A new MP3 player. An Alinco DJ-C7 micro HT that I fell in love with — and promptly lost (its around here somewhere); a cool digital voice recorder — that was stolen with my camera from my car.
But I still lusted after the iPhone. I fantasized about my family doctor giving me her phone to play with … “Take your blood pressure meds and lose weight on schedule and I'll let you surf the web on my iPhone” she would command.
But like any desire, my iPhone fetish faded with time … at least until I happen to search eBay for the terms “touchscreen phone.” My prayers were answered!
I should have known the Chinese are skilled enough to identify a market opportunity when they see one. I found eBay chock full of iPhone clones. These aren't Apple iPhones and don't use the same software and processors, but they are very good replicas — and not only are they fairly cheap (a keyword here), but they are “unlocked”, which means that all you need to do is to remove the SIM card from your exisiting cell phone and put it in the iPhone clone and you're ready to rock and roll. AT&T or whoever your carrier is doesn't need to know a thing. If your phonebook is on your SIM card (you DO save your numbers to your phone's SIM card, didn't you??), they show up too. What could be simpler?
And the phone I bought on eBay, the Sciphone i68, has a dual SIM card feature: The phone can handle incoming calls for two different phone numbers. We ditched our twisted pair landline service more than 2 years ago, and between my wife and I, we have 3 cell phones — one for each of us and the third as the “home” phone (we ported our old BellSouth phone number to that phone). I could move the home phone's SIM card to my new iClone, and only need to carry one phone (I often have to carry both the home phone and my personal cell).
So how does the phone work?
Honestly, I've only had it a couple of days, but I have been pleased with it. I'm still adding content (mp3 files, photos, etc) to it, so the jury is still out on my final ruling. So far its all the gadgety who-hah that I expected it to be.
One of the features that I liked so much on the iPhone is the calendar. While I'm not the busiest guy in the world, I have to carry around a datebook so I can check when I'm available to be at a club meeting, hamfest, etc. The iPhone has an excellent calendar/appointment book feature; my doctor uses it, as does an attorney friend of mine.
Unfortunately, the iClone falls short in this area. The datebook in my ancient Palm PDA runs circles around the calendar feature on my iClone. The calendar is barely a caledar, and yes, you can enter an appointment in it, but its 3 times faster to simply write down the date on my dead-tree pocket calendar.
Now don't think that this purchase of my iClone was a spur-of-the-wallet notion; I spent quite a bit of time comaring the various iClones (there are lots of video reviews available on YouTube). The phone has many of the cool features of the iPhone, which are shown in the videos. But the single feature that isn't demoed to any real extent is the calendar — and naturally, that's the feature of the phone for which I had fairly high hopes.
Go figure.
I will enjoy my iClone, and I'm already planning to fill it up with some MP3s and photos. But it appears that for the time being, I'll continue to keep my calendar on paper.
The moral of the story is this: Sometimes you pay a price for being cheap.
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