I hate a lot of things: coconuts, things that taste like coconut, Subway commercials, emotional intimacy. But my relationship with my cell phone makes those things look as appealing as curling (I love curling.)
I once had a cool phone, but it broke. I didn't mind because it still kinda worked if I held it just so. But I was going on a trip to Boston and New York last fall and I figured I needed a reliable phone. I bought the cheapest one I could find (a Samsung A645). I figured I didn't need any fancy cameras or anything. How bad could a cheap phone be?
Turns out, astoundingly bad.
My phone, which I've affectionately dubbed "fuck you, you piece of shit," was designed to be awful on purpose. There's no other explanation for how one thing can be so flawed. Some examples:
5) Keypad designed by sadistic halfwits. Buttons have but one function: to be pressed. If you design a pressable button, you've succeeded. Apparently this was out of Samsung's grasp. The keys are so close together the human thumb can't possibly hit one without smacking three or four others in the process. Cruelly, the "correct" button is wedged next to Send, so if you misdial a number, be prepared to call that person whether you want to or not.
4) Inexplicably bad reception. Apparently one side of my living room is harder to get through to than the other side of my living room. I blame the couch.
3) Text messaging also designed by sadistic halfwits. Question: What do the symbols . - ' ! @ # % & * < > _ + = : " ( ) / and \ have in common? They're all used more commonly than the question mark according to my phone.
Yes, to type a simple message like "Sup?" you need to scroll through three screens of symbols to find the question mark. But if you're into triangle brackets you're in luck. Come on, Samsung, plus and equals signs? How lame are your friends if they're text messaging you math equations? That said, I suppose this does help explain Samsung's motto of "We're too busy making our buttons smaller to question our decisions."
2) Mysterious echo effect. I didn't even know about this for a long time until people started complaining about hating talking to me on my cell phone. Apparently when my voice is sent out it's given this strange Twighlight Zoney echo that's both creepy and "annoying as fuck." This is especially terrible because my phone was making an ass of me and I had no idea.
1) Won't shut the fuck up. I keep my phone on vibrate so as not to disturb people around me. I'd hate to have my phone go off in a theatre or lecture or something. Why - why?? - then would Samsung put a "make a bunch of noise" button and put it on the outside of the phone where it can be turned on by, oh I dunno, my goddamn leg?
I don't know what this button is actually supposed to do. All I know is every so often I'll hear this female voice pleading "say a command" coming from my jeans pocket. It then keeps repeating "say a command" over and over, no matter how loudly I command it to leave me alone and die.
Everyone hates the sound of other people's cell phones. To design a phone that is designed to yell out randomly without any way to stop it, Samsung and Telus are either evil or disturbingly inept. I honestly don't know which.
The moral of the story? If you try to be cheap, our capitalist society will punish you for it mercilessly.
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