Be Nice To Customer Service Agents; Or, How I Got Myself a Smartphone

Last summer, when we moved to Ottawa, my mom decided that we should all have our own cell phones. My dad already had his own, so she got a 3-year contract family plan for herself, my brother, and I. Her phone, the main line, cost $35/month + $20/month for countrywide My5 call/text. The other two lines were each $30/month. Total: $115/month. We got the most basic crap phones you could get, because hey, we never needed fancy cell phones before. I started itching for an upgrade after a few months, but the reality was that all I needed to do was making one call per month and send text messages, so anything would do.

        BUT THEN DISASTER STRUCK. About a month ago, after being crushed and scratched by 30 kg (66 lb) bags of concrete mix, my phone’s signal quality went down drastically. To the point where I would have no signal anywhere in my house, for days at a time. My mom and brother had identical phones, and when placed beside each other, I would have no signal and they would have a perfect one. This was the excuse I was waiting for! The phone either needed to be repaired/replaced, or I’d get an upgrade. However, I can’t afford a data plan, so I needed to see if I could upgrade the phone without paying for wireless data. When Lifehacker posted about Geekaphone, a site that would suggest the perfect phone for your needs, I made a list and set off for the phone store.

        I asked after a handful of phones, and the only way I avoid a data plan would be to buy the phone off-contract for $400+, with the phones at the top of my list being $600. If I got a data plan, I’d get the “with a 2-year contract” price. However, I needed to pay a $35 administration fee for changing phones (offset by a $50 mail-in rebate), and a $120 “early upgrade fee” for not waiting out the contract. But again, this requires me to sign up for a $30/month data plan. I certainly can’t afford a $600 phone, and I definitely can’t afford to spend $700 on a data plan over the next two years. Well, I probably could in the long term, but with no income during the school year, it might be tough. And so, I resigned myself to finding out my options for an out-of-warranty replacement.

        Returning home, we dialed up our wireless provider and made our way to a customer service agent. It would cost $20 to replace my phone with an identical model, but for $40 I could get a Samsung A886 (meh), and for $80 I could get a Sony Ericson Xperia X1 (meh-ish). No matter what I got, I’d keep the same contract and not need to shell out for a data plan. To give me time to research the phones, my mom (who is nice and polite pretty much all the time) asked if we could change our plan to match the current offerings. Eventually, we came out of the deal paying $65/month for the main line and $15/month for the two additional lines, with 500 extra monthly daytime minutes and countrywide My5 for all three phones. Total: $95/month, for a better plan. Not bad, and we didn’t even have to yell and scream and talk to customer retention!

        I had grudgingly decided to go with the X1, if only for its sliding keyboard. However, since we’d earned a lot of goodwill from the customer service lady, I asked what kind of phone I could get for more than $80. The next step up was the Motorola Quench (known as the Cliq XT in the US) for $130. Officially, it’s stuck at Android 1.5 because there was no way to get 2.1 to perform adequately on the mediocre hardware. But recent updates to CyanogenMod have added support for the phone, so the decision was made: get the Quench, root it the day I get it, and optimize everything for performance. Since I spend most of my time either at home or on campus, I’ll have access to secure-ish WiFi most of the time. Why bother spending $30/month just so I can check Facebook while I’m on the bus?

        The only potential downside here is that the phone might just suck so much that nothing runs well on it, but with all the customization options, I’m hoping I can manage. As long as I keep in mind that it doesn’t have gigabytes of RAM, I should be able to run things pretty smoothly… one at a time, anyway.

        Until I get a hold of it around Friday, you’re safe from me talking about all the stuff I’m doing with it. But when I get it, expect to be inundated with an absolute nerdfest of Android-love.