Joining the cell phone brigade

Date published: June 14, 2006

It's probably been about 3 weeks now, but I thought I'd make a post mentioning that I bought my first cell phone. It's a Motorala E815 (pictured above) and the service provider is Verizon. I moved to a different apartment so I thought instead of transferring the land line that I'd just cancel the land line and go cell phone only.

In the few weeks that I've had it, a few things have struck me. The first thing is that no cell phone will ever have the clarity of a land line. I've talked with a couple people who claim that their cell phone sounds just as good as their land line, but frankly I think they just don't have good ears.

The next thing I noticed is that I have no where to actually put my phone when I'm walking around. I carry my wallet in my front left pocket, and my keys in my front right. Now I wouldn't want to put my cell phone in my back pocket where I'd be sitting on it, so I had just been putting it in the same pocket as my wallet... of course that makes for quite a full pocket! And I refuse to use one of those belt clip phone holders... I'm not a fan of the look/style.

That's when I just randomly happened upon someones blog where he was asking people for suggestions for wallets that aren't very bulky. A ton of the comments suggested the "junior" wallet from ALL-ETT. I got one, and I kid you not, the new wallet with all the contents of my old wallet is smaller than my empty old wallet! It's made of this thin material they use for sails or something. The good news is that I can now carry my wallet in my back pocket without even noticing it's there. So now I keep my phone in my front pocket.

The final observation was that unlike land lines, one doesn't hear their own voice in their cell phone. I think this is the biggest reason why people talk SO loudly on their cell phones; they can't hear their own voice, so they can't tell that they are shouting. I'd think that it would be a simple thing to do, just send the persons voice through the speaker. Maybe this isn't done because someone thought "well there will be a delay if we send the person's voice over the network and have it bounce back, so it would have annoyed people more than help control their volume. Still though, don't send it over the network then, just literally play back the persons voice through the speaker.

I'm FAR from any knowledgeable source on cell phones, but I really do think people talk so loud because they can't hear their own voice.