From the S8+ to the S24+...

 ... Is a long way!

I mentioned needing to get a new phone - after almost 7 years and 3 months mileage on the old one. Talk about "ride it til the wheels fall off", I wish I had as a good a relationship with any person as I did with that phone!

My biggest concerns when looking for a new phone were the usual: cost and features. Well, I chose the S24+ and it's only adding around 20-some dollars to my phone bill for a while. However, 20 dollars to someone on my budget is more than it is to someone else...

Now that I actually have the new phone, I am having to learn how to use all the new Android features. A lot of things have developed over 7 years. My brother joked that I must feel like someone going from using a  horse and buggy to learning how to drive a stick shift. That's funny but kind of true.

Back in the old days, whenever I upgraded a phone, all I needed to do was insert the SIM card into the new phone and power down the old phone. That's changed. I had to actually go online and go through a deactivation-activation process.

Another thing that upsets me is that my poor old Gear S2 watch won't work with the new phone. It won't work with any 2024 device. So now I have no smart watch. That's not a big loss since I took it off my phone plan at least 4 years ago. Since then, I'd only been using it on the home wi-fi and for the Samsung Health features. I don't really have any other watch except one I got from one of my brothers but the battery on that died. 

My cellphone carrier was really annoying when I was buying the phone. I couldn't get to the check-out page until I'd gone through several "do-ya-wanna" pages. I was ready to scream as I skipped past the offers for adding another line, getting a deal on a smart watch, temptations of fancy phone cases and other accessories. I just wanted to get checked out and get the financial hit over with as quickly as possible.

I have to tell you that I was really tempted to go for the S24 Ultra - only because it has the S-pen and I haven't had a pen for my phone since my Note died... But I noped right past that more expensive phone and I'm pretty happy with the one I got. I'm still learning how to use some of the features, but I am happy with it. After all, I'm still going to need food and medicines every month more than I need a pen.

One of my online acquaintances ragged on me about picking the Cobalt Violet color over the Amber one they like so much. It really doesn't matter what color my phone is and it never has. When I get a phone, it immediately goes into a protective case and I never see the color of the phone again. I did pick out a case in a pretty shade of red. I'll be looking at the case from now on.

By the way, this is one phone that needs to be in a case. It's so slippery... 

Hilariously, when I first unboxed the phone, I was ready to make an irate call to someone in customer service. That's because when I thought the included cord had a defect. Both ends are USB-C type and it's called a "reversible" connection. I never saw that before and all my charging bricks are for cords with a different connection. My brother (when he got through making another horse-and-buggy joke about me) explained that this is the way things are now - "in modern times". So I had to order a brick for the "modern" cable.

Anyway, after I get up to speed with the phone, I have some iPhone humor to throw at my brother. 

When I want to really irritate him, I refer to iPhone users as "iPhonies". Yeah, he hates that one.

I will never tell my brother (and a nephew iPhoner) that, for 2 seconds, I thought about joining their cult this time. The price gave me pause and, really, I don't like change and going from Android to iPhone (or the opposite) is too much change for me.

Peace

--Free