I Thought We Had More Time

It was my COVID phone.

I bought it in April of 2020, just a month into the global pandemic. My last smartphone was about three years old when the camera started going wonky, would take pictures where part of the image would either be a bunch of skewed lines or a portion of the photo would have a solid, grey bar.

I've been using Samsung Android phones for more than 10 years, starting with the Galaxy S4. My COVID phone has been the S10 and I have loved it. So sleek and yet it has a good weight to it. To look at it, today, it looks as good as when I first had it.

But lately, the screen sometimes flickers. That, in of itself, doesn't really bother me but lately, a grey rectangle with rounded corners sometimes appears on the screen and that spot becomes dead until the rectangle goes away.

Bixby (like Siri, but for Google) has stopped talking to me. When I used to say, "Hey, Bixby, set a 30-minute timer," for when I would take my daily nap, a female voice with a British accent would reply, "Okay, I've set your timer for 30 minutes."

Now, there's nothing. I have to look at my phone and verify that a timer has been set.

The same thing happens when I ask about the time of sunset on a particular day. Bixby used to tell me the answer. Now, she'll just display the time of the sunset instead of telling me.

Bixby, what have I done to receive this cold shoulder? Was it something I said?

Again, the flickering screen and Bixby's silence, alone, wouldn't be enough for me to replace my phone. But together, and with that grey rectangle, I'm beginning to sense that something bigger could go and I don't want to suddenly be without a phone.

After more than four years, it's time to upgrade. It's a crime that phones don't last longer, given the cost of a new one.

Over the weekend, when DW and I were shopping at Costco, I looked at the Samsung phones that were available. The latest and greatest, the Galaxy S24 Ultra, has great stats on its camera, with four back lenses (and up to 200 megapixels) and a great 12 MP front lens. With these lenses, I might leave my D-SLRs at home.

But I found the phone, with a 172.5 millimetre screensize, was a bit big for my liking. I find my S10 to be the perfect size that fits in any pocket and rests nicely on the cordless charger in our Niro. I don't want to go big.

Also, the price, which tops $1,700, is a little hard to swallow. Especially when I paid less than $1,000 for the S10.

Though they didn't have one in the store, DW and I went to Costco's online site and found the Galaxy S24 was available at a discounted price. Sure, it doesn't have four lenses and the screen resolution isn't as sharp, but it seems pretty damned good.

It's definitely a step up from my S10, which to this day, glitches aside, still impresses me. I mean, look at the photo quality...

I ordered the S24. It's due to arrive today. My COVID phone is being retired.

I actually have all of my Samsung phones. I even have my old Motorola flip phone—the last device before I moved up to a smartphone. I don't have my first and only iPhone: I sold it to a coworker when I switched to Android.

Maybe I should set up a display, like a museum, of my old phones?

Tomorrow, I'll be set up on my new phone and hopefully, this one lasts more than four years.

Photo Friday: Photos With Phones

I used to hate taking pictures with the camera on my cell phone. The first flip-phone I had came with a measly 1-megapixel camera. I barely used the feature: back then, I only wanted a device so that if I needed to contact my wife for an emergency or call for help, I wouldn't be stuck. I didn't want to record video, or access the Internet, or play games. I wasn't on Facebook and Twitter was years away: my blog was the only form of social media, and even to this day I have to be pretty desperate to want to write a post on a smartphone.

When my flip-phone died, I upgraded to a phone with an actual QWERTY keyboard that slid out from the back of the device. I had graduated to using a phone to send text messages, and a dial pad wasn't cutting it for me. As a writer, I don't like to abbreviate words if I don't have to. I like full, grammatically correct sentence structure. On my flip-phone, that took forever.

The camera on this newer phone was much better than my old phone: I had 2 megapixels at my disposal. Still, I rarely took pictures with it, would do so only if I needed to illustrate a text message with an actual image.

Only once, when I had absolutely no other camera, I took a photo and used it in a blog post. And I kept the image small.

When I decided that I wanted a smartphone (notice how I don't say "needed"), I was awed by the quality of photographs that I was able to come up with. In previous end-of-year blog posts, where I shared my favourite photos of that year^*, I would include some iPhone photos. Sometimes, I shot an image with both my smartphone and my D-SLR, and I'd actually prefer the outcome with the smartphone's 5-megapixel camera.

For a couple of months, I misplaced my battery charger for my Nikon. Because it is the only charger that I have that is dedicated to my D-SLR's batteries, I was beginning to panic: without the charger, once the two battery packs were dead, I wouldn't be able to shoot with this camera. So I've been sparing with this camera, using it only when I needed something more than what my Android camera could offer.

My Android has a 13.5-megapixel camera, but I wasn't about to use it for a model shoot, or night shots of the lights on Parliament Hill.

Still, it's handy to have and does let me get a little creative, as this Friday's photo shows. On my walk, Wednesday, from the office to my car, it was nice to pull my phone from my pocket and take this shot.

I found my Nikon charger. I can now resume carrying my camera bag around.

But it's nice to know that I'm covered.

Happy Friday!

^* No photos in this year's best-of photo picks were shot with a smartphone camera.