A smartphone plan can vary in costs, but 1-2 dollars a day over the cost of a feature phone plan seems like a fair range of prices. For instance, my carrier’s base data plan is 30 dollars a month, which is about 1 dollar a day, but this does vary depending on country. (Speed can also vary between country, with differences like 3G and 4G coverage.) If your time is worth 4 dollars an hour, and a smartphone can give you back even 15-30 minutes of time during a day, on average, then it is an approximately even trade. If your time is worth more, than a smart phone will need to give you back proportionately less time.
I find that my smartphone easily feels like it gives me back an average of 30 minutes a day, and baseline smartphones of the previous model, which from reviews is still quite good, appear to be available in my area(Maryland) at a cost of 1 dollar if you sign a two year contract. So it seems like unless you value your time very little, or live in an area with horrible data coverage, or live in an area with extortionate cell phone providers, it is worth it to get a smartphone. This was particularly notable to me because a large portion of the people who I knew had a smartphone and I had a very low grade feature phone, so I have some evidence this may be late adopter advice which a lot of other people have already taken.
But if for some reason you have a steady job, and have a phone upgrade/phone purchase coming up, and are planning on NOT getting a smartphone, I feel I should urge you to reconsider. They really do have a great deal of potential at a relatively low cost.
I also strongly recommend doing the following three things when you get home, to help keep costs low:
Turn off In-app purchasing immediately.
Installing some sort of data watching app immediately.
Setting up your smartphone to use your Home Wifi (also set it for your Work Wifi, if your work has Wifi)
If you don’t, you may have gotten rid of the surplus value in either data overages or in app purchases you did not fully consider. I thankfully avoided this. (Although it was close. I delayed somewhat on setting up Home Wifi for my wife, only to find out she had used two thirds of her data on her second day of having it, thinking “Oh look, a large assortment of free apps I can download.”)
I really do feel a bit silly suggesting this since I feel I was a relatively late adopter to the technology, but I do still know some people who do not yet have smart phones, so I recommend doing this, keeping in mind the caveats above.
First and foremost, it saves me time and mental energy by allowing me to leave the house without worrying about making sure I have all of the information I need. I often get in the car with just an idea of where I am going, and then find the address while driving and use the phone as a nav system. I use voice recognition so it generally only takes a few seconds and minimal distraction. Along the same lines, if I am out driving and I suddenly think of something I need to do, I can find the place I’m trying to go without having to return home. Finally, if I’m idle at any time I can use the phone to write and send e-mails (or other basic tasks) that I would have otherwise had to do at another time.
This is just one subset of time-savers, but I would say that it saves me about 15 minutes of time a day by itself.
A lot of the time you waste doing those things was already wasted. For instance I am posting this while waiting in a drive through for breakfast, but this is exactly when I would be playing random game if I was not posting here.
Edit: And well designed smartphone games (which is not all of them) load shockingly fast. I have actually played smartphone games while waiting for other slower games to load on my computer.
Also, since smartphone internet browsing is a bit uncomfortable, it might prevent you from booting up your computer as often and ending up spending an hour.
A smartphone plan can vary in costs, but 1-2 dollars a day over the cost of a feature phone plan seems like a fair range of prices. For instance, my carrier’s base data plan is 30 dollars a month, which is about 1 dollar a day, but this does vary depending on country. (Speed can also vary between country, with differences like 3G and 4G coverage.) If your time is worth 4 dollars an hour, and a smartphone can give you back even 15-30 minutes of time during a day, on average, then it is an approximately even trade. If your time is worth more, than a smart phone will need to give you back proportionately less time.
I find that my smartphone easily feels like it gives me back an average of 30 minutes a day, and baseline smartphones of the previous model, which from reviews is still quite good, appear to be available in my area(Maryland) at a cost of 1 dollar if you sign a two year contract. So it seems like unless you value your time very little, or live in an area with horrible data coverage, or live in an area with extortionate cell phone providers, it is worth it to get a smartphone. This was particularly notable to me because a large portion of the people who I knew had a smartphone and I had a very low grade feature phone, so I have some evidence this may be late adopter advice which a lot of other people have already taken.
But if for some reason you have a steady job, and have a phone upgrade/phone purchase coming up, and are planning on NOT getting a smartphone, I feel I should urge you to reconsider. They really do have a great deal of potential at a relatively low cost.
I also strongly recommend doing the following three things when you get home, to help keep costs low: Turn off In-app purchasing immediately. Installing some sort of data watching app immediately. Setting up your smartphone to use your Home Wifi (also set it for your Work Wifi, if your work has Wifi)
If you don’t, you may have gotten rid of the surplus value in either data overages or in app purchases you did not fully consider. I thankfully avoided this. (Although it was close. I delayed somewhat on setting up Home Wifi for my wife, only to find out she had used two thirds of her data on her second day of having it, thinking “Oh look, a large assortment of free apps I can download.”)
I really do feel a bit silly suggesting this since I feel I was a relatively late adopter to the technology, but I do still know some people who do not yet have smart phones, so I recommend doing this, keeping in mind the caveats above.
How does a smartphone save you time?
First and foremost, it saves me time and mental energy by allowing me to leave the house without worrying about making sure I have all of the information I need. I often get in the car with just an idea of where I am going, and then find the address while driving and use the phone as a nav system. I use voice recognition so it generally only takes a few seconds and minimal distraction. Along the same lines, if I am out driving and I suddenly think of something I need to do, I can find the place I’m trying to go without having to return home. Finally, if I’m idle at any time I can use the phone to write and send e-mails (or other basic tasks) that I would have otherwise had to do at another time.
This is just one subset of time-savers, but I would say that it saves me about 15 minutes of time a day by itself.
Doesn’t it tempt you to waste more time than it saves? E.g., websurfing and gameplaying?
A lot of the time you waste doing those things was already wasted. For instance I am posting this while waiting in a drive through for breakfast, but this is exactly when I would be playing random game if I was not posting here.
Edit: And well designed smartphone games (which is not all of them) load shockingly fast. I have actually played smartphone games while waiting for other slower games to load on my computer.
Also, since smartphone internet browsing is a bit uncomfortable, it might prevent you from booting up your computer as often and ending up spending an hour.