Crappy-ass phones

I’ve been back in the ‘States for about 3 weeks. I’ve been shirking plenty of responsibilities and accomplishing very little.

One thing I have accomplished is the acquisition of my very first American cellphone. I got a Nokia 3220 on T-Mobile, and I have a very simple message for my fellow Americans: We are all getting fucked in the ass. The phones here are absolute garbage compared to Japanese phones. Even the free phones in Japan have huge VGA screens, megapixel cameras, better connectivity with PCs, and infinitely more usable interfaces. I had to pay US$40 for my piece of crap with a tiny screen, a joke of a camera, and unusable software.

On top of that, the rates for au are so much cheaper than the scam artists offer here. With the student discount you can get a very decent plan for ¥2500 per month, including free roaming over the whole country. Text messaging is so cheap I don’t even remember how much it was. Cancellation fee? A mere ¥3000. Compare that to at least US$30 for a halfway decent plan that still doesn’t include roaming or text messaging. Cancellation fee? US$250.

I could go on and on about this, but the main point is that having a phone in America absolutely sucks. I hope the mobile carriers pull their heads out of their asses and actually start innovating at some point.

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