From Smart to Smarter with a Dumb Phone

This is a follow up to last week's Getting Smarter by ditching my smartphone. If you haven't done so already, you might want to check that one out first..

So I finally got my new 'old' phone, last Thursday, on Halloween eve.

@clareartista and I drove into the nearest village, here in the Portuguese countryside, to pick up the parcel in the local cafe/minimarket/parcel delivery and -pickup point. The place is run by the village's mayor and his wife, two friendly and hardworking people who I have known for about 4 years now, since I first set foot in this village, 4 houses ago.

Clare and I sat there, for half an hour or so, among the locals and plastic Halloween decoration, including a blow-up mummy, whilst I unboxed my phone.

The two of us mixed fizzy water with fruit juice and drank it slowly, meanwhile people in all kinds of states of sobriety or intoxication entered the place, including the occasional (face) painted kid.

It's now 5 days later and I am quite happy with my phone. That is, as a temporary solution. I must say that it's quite a big transition, after 11 years or so of smartphone usage, to now own a Nokia 8210 that is - apparently - modeled after a 1999 model with the same name but a bit modern and released in 2017.

The phone has the possibility to play good old MP3's. It also has an FM radio but - somewhat unfortunately - it does not seem to connect to my USB headphones, something I hoped it would do, even though it recognizes them.

The photo quality is super low ( as can be seen in the pictures included, all taken with this Nokia ) but I honestly don't care much about that, as I like the idea of actually using my phone as a phone ( for calling and texting ) and not much more than that.

Also, I actually do have a pretty good ( video ) camera, a Go Pro Hero 5 Black, that I bought back in 2016, for a film project on the Canary Islands ( Los Ojos Rojos, The Red Eyes ). This was supposed to be my very first feature film project as a director but - unfortunately - it was never finished, although I worked on it for 9 months and had actually started the filming/shoot. It's a long story that I spoke about, on my blog, 7 years ago.

Anyhow, I could make this a very long post but I basically wanted to share with you all that I am starting to feel a bit better about this (not so) dumb phone. A device that actually makes me feel smarter ( my brain capacity is increasing, day by day ), unlike a smartphone. It also makes me realize that nothing beats using separate devices for separate things and - as an added bonus - using my laptop ( on which I am typing this post ) suddenly feels quite a bit better too.

I am still seriously considering to get myself a smartphone, too, in the nearish future ( but this time I will do the actual research and seek out a very good device that won't be spied on by governments and big tech companies ). For the time being, though, this Nokia feels pretty good.

Gotta go! It's time to play a game of Snake!

Source

Before I forget... the first photo above this post shows a drawing made by my 8 year old niece Yumi, who also stars in @clareartista 's needlework post from 2 days ago Peace and Joy in Small Accumulative Actions, as she spent the weekend with us at our place. I recommend you check that one out :<)

And if you weren't already doing so, I suggest following my @diaryofacreative account. That is where I have been and will be sharing most of my stories from now on. Perhaps not daily but at least more often than once per week ;<)