A Good Brand and A Good Family to the Rescue

My dad was looking forward to upgrade to a touchscreen phone when he found all around him in his age group, below and beyond, all looking smart tapping on theirs. His curiosity was not just about the taps and camera clicks on the device that he knew was meant only for calls, but also about all the talks about Facebook and Viber and the connectivity and information that they seemed to be exposing to a generation he was exposed to. I am not talking about the distant past when these apps and technology were at its infancy, but about the year 2014 when these tech lingos were common place. However, we still do have jungle dwellers and it should be no surprise if people advanced in their years are yet to get an exposure to all that is out there.

 

Coming back to his fantasy to learn about the new stuff, my father’s timing was perfect when I was looking forward to upgrading my phone as well. However, after been left with the experiences of ill-fated purchases of:

1. a Blackberry with a keypad that was damaged within months
2. an ad lured purchase of a spurious Sony Xperio
3. an obsessive-compulsive ad led purchase of a unworthy HTC Desire C, which had a touchscreen that shouldn’t have been called thus
4. the unfortunate second hand 3-month old iPhone 4
5. google nexus 7 on being lured to it by an Apple fan colleague who found the new product from google as the next best thing  
6. a mini iPad that was doom dropped from a first floor by the very hand it was purchased for

I, was not looking forward to big budget phone and wanted a brand that had reputation. Lenovo, seemed to be the best choice to make. The brand did have a reputation for manufacturing good laptops and also had taken up IBMs manufacturing. I got Rs. 2000 for my Desire C exchange and at Rs. 5000 Lenovo A536 seemed to be an appropriate choice, though the camera was disappointing.

 

I did not desire to spend much time with my phone and the new Lenovo seemed to serve my purpose. However, the office youngsters seemed to know all about new phones and a person’s need just by the brand names and the model numbers. They knew of the specifications and they knew feature comparison and my phone was looked down upon as inferior. It was unfair of them to compare my Lenovo with their HTC 826 or an unheard-of Motorola model. But how could youngsters know of my needs and my limits. I was happy until my father expressed his desire to have a touch screen.

 

The first thought was to be misled by the youngsters and to pass on my Lenovo to my dad, for whom at his stage of tech infancy, the phone could have been more than what he could have handled. But when I had my own thinking cap on, I decide to gift him a brand-new Lenovo A536, the phone was doing all that I wanted from it and it was a good one with a big screen for an old hand untrained on touchscreen. And so, I made a second purchase.

 

Now, three years later, I have used my phone excessively and have a battery that is showing signs signing off goodbye. My dad has not used his much and his battery is still strong. In my troubled times, he has offered to exchange batteries and with that done both of us are having a phone each that may remain with us for a little more longer.

 

A year ago my wife was gifted an HTC 826, however, the phone could barely pick network signals at the places we lived or moved around. Changing its sim slots at an authorized service center has not helped. Its screen broke at the first drop and the replacement screen is now broken too. My Lenovo pristine screen after several falls with just the accessories that were shipped with the phone. It has come to the rescue as a good brand and my good family came to the rescue where it could not. I hope Lenovo remains that way and a good family that appreciates a good phone without complains is invaluable. Thinks of a cranky situation where all that family members are left with to discuss is to complain about that bad brand purchase that they have. Have, we not drifted away from joyous discussion of family and family members to discussion of bad brands? Do thinks of brands that take consume our enjoyable time and do make good choices. Allow your experiences to teach you something.