Make-Do Mondays (on Tuesday): Free Phone

For years I’ve made-do with this Sanyo flip phone, which I wrote about back when I hosted Make-Do Mondays. It has no bells or whistles, though we did add texting at some point so that I can communicate with my daughters, who bought their own phones a few months ago.

But it has no data plan for e-mail or Web access.

It’s just a phone.

For years it’s worked just fine, even with a broken antenna. One major drawback: I have to sit on the porch (or in the winter, sit in the car) to finish conversations, because as soon as I step inside the house, the reception cuts in and out.

When the phone rings at home, I rush to the window, pull out the antenna, and stick it against the windowpane. Sometimes that helps.

A few weeks before Christmas, however, the battery stopped holding a charge.

After plugging it in overnight, I could text a few times; but as soon as I made a call, it would power down after about two minutes. This is not a particularly good feature for a mobile phone.

It was time to shop for a replacement.

Should I get another basic phone, or upgrade to something fancy?

The Belgian Wonder and I talked it over. Is a smartphone worth the cost? Would it truly enhance my life and work or end up being an expensive toy? If we get one, which would best suit my needs?

We pored over Consumer Reports’ comparison charts, studied reviews online, and went into the Sprint store to try some out.

Some options under consideration that were interesting to me for various reasons (ranging from the feel of the keyboard and touch-screen navigation of some units, to the look of the text or a sense of familiarity with Microsoft Office products displayed front-and-center on some screens):

• Palm Pre
• Palm Treo Pro
• BlackBerry Tour
• BlackBerry Curve
• Samsung Intrepid

The Belgian Wonder arrived at the store armed with a list of questions, but after lengthy conversations with the sales staff, it became clear that none of the available phones was a perfect fit.

Each had items on both the pro and con list.

We’d just have to choose one and embrace that phone’s “pros” while tolerating its “cons.”

I felt too overwhelmed to finalize the decision in the store.

We came home and read more reviews.

Talked some more.

Finally I estimated how many hours I’d been reading and talking and thinking it through. It added up to a lot. “This is crazy,” I said. “I don’t know which one would be best, and it’s so expensive that I can’t bring myself to make a quick decision. I’m sick of the whole process. Can we just order a cheap-o free phone so that I can make calls again and put this decision off until later?”

“We can,” the Belgian Wonder assured me.

“So I can get any old phone and use it indefinitely … but if at some point I want to get something nicer, I can upgrade without incurring a penalty?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s just do it. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I don’t want to look at another review. Just pick one that you think will work.”

I assumed I would end up with a black flip phone with giant buttons, since that was the bottom-of-the-line free phone on display in the Sprint store.

The Belgian Wonder logged onto Sprint.com and thanks to an “upgrade discount,” found several options far more attractive than the black flip phone. One was a groovy, eco-friendly smartphone called “Reclaim.”

It was free.

Here it is straight out of the box. The only decision I had to make was whether to order it in “earth green” or “ocean blue.”

I chose “ocean blue,” obviously. For those of you who know my hankering for the beach, it was a no-brainer. But the green would have been fine. I like grass and trees and other green things like this tree frog, for example.

I digress.

It’s got a qwerty keyboard. Texting should be a lot faster.

The cnet Reclaim review explained, “The Samsung Reclaim SPH-M560 also is made from recycled plastic and it comes in a box that’s also made from recycled paper. What’s more, the ink on the user manual is soy-based. Yet, the Reclaim goes a step further by offering more features than the Renew and a full QWERTY keyboard.”

In other words, as cnet pointed out in summary, it’s not only a green gimmick; it actually has some fairly well-designed, useful features.

The only cost we incurred was this carrying case. The Belgian Wonder thought I should have one, since I’ll be tossing it in my purse, backpack or coat pocket.

It took a while to charge, but here it is with its grass-blade-theme background design lit up.

We didn’t upgrade to data plan yet, so it’s simply a fancy-looking mobile phone with an easy keyboard for texting.

But it’s kind of cute and lightweight.

It’s no iPhone.

But it was free.

I love it when making-do surprises me with more than I expected.

Tree frog and phone photos by Ann Kroeker.

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