Downgrade

Yes I know, I have been rubbish over the last two months but this is the holiday season so I have refrained from bashing the keys in hope that my brain might seep out something worthwhile. It has not of late so I gave it a break and exposed it to the usual cult cultural pulp that seems to stimulate it to the same levels as a teenager watching a porno movie. However, now it is time to awaken it and start tapping again.

You may recall an entry I posted last year babbling how I managed to blag a great deal on a new mobile phone with luck, a sprinkle of hard nose attitude and some nous that was bequeathed to me by someone I met once. So eleven months later I am now able to upgrade whilst sitting on my chair pondering about what to get I realised that there is not much out there. The iPhone looks gorgeous and the fact tech geeks and the layman both salivate at the mere mentioning of the name lets us all know Apple are on to a winner. And I am tempted but their camera is utter pants considering the cheapest tariff going is £30 a month not to mention the £99 for the handset. The N96 is the behemoth of phones packed with more gizmos at hand than Data from the Goonies but it is a slide phone and does not compete with the sleekness and smoothness of the iphone where surfing the internet is actually a pleasant experience on a mobile device. So, I ditched that phone. There is a Samsung out which is supposed to be good but upon inspection it was not even an improvement on my current phone. I was pretty annoyed with the conclusion that mobile technology has not really progressed in the last twelve months leaving me with little choice but to downgrade. Yep, I decided that I want to fall downwards because to get a top of the range phone you need to be on a £30 tariff, which to me is quite pricey, for a phone that has not really improved over the last year. Not even the mouthiest telecommuniocations salesman could hide the fact that if you own the N95 then there is nothing out there to really beat it. So instead I wanted to reduce my tariff even further to less than £20, regardless of the handset they chucked at me.

It must have been an odd experience for the salesperson to hear someone go 'I want to downgrade, what pretty standard handsets have you got?' He did stumble on his words a bit, and tried to persuade me that a £30 tariff was the way forward. 'Nope, I want a tariff less than £20 a month, don't care how pants the phone is.' There was a bit of silence then an admission that they could do a £20 tariff but it was for something like 75 mins free a month. Now way, I thought and told them I want to quit, I'd rather try my luck on the pay-as-you-go gravy train than pay £240 a year for about thirteen hours worth of free talking. Finally he said I could revert to the sim only scheme for £15 a month for 200 free mins and texts per month. 'Hmm' I replied whilst pondering the offer. I almost went to that scheme last year but managed to wrangle a better package to stay contracted, it felt a bit like I was going backwards but I said 'Ok, lets do that'. I do not get a new handset but that does not bother me, in fact I am going to sell my current phone on ebay and hopefully get £150 for it. I recently bought a phone from the site for £15 and will use that. This means I will have made £135 profit which I plan to reinvest in my bills meaning I will only need to spend £45 on phone bills for the year while I wait for the Apple dudes to bring out a new iPhone with a decent camera on it.

P.S. Anyone want to go see Shed 7 with me? I don't care where.