Cell Phones/ I Pad

[sheepdog 10]

Hopefully this is the place for somebody who is totally in the dark about this subject to have someone show them the light!I got this wild idea that maybe I really did need an ipod, after my road trip this week and trying to keep a cd player working on bumpy highways. If I lay the cd player on the car seat it skips like nuts, I have to lay it on my leg and then it works, but every time I go around a corner or slam on the breaks it ends up in the floorboard. But thinking about that made me think that some cell phones have the ability to hold tunes too, so maybe I should just get a better cell phone. But I have many questions since I know absolutly nothing about cell phones, or Ipods either for that matter. First off. I very rarely even use a cell. The cell phone I have is one of those little cheap jobs, a Walmart $10 special. If I buy $25 worth of minutes they are good for 90 days, and then they don't cancel out the phone for another 60 days, so basicly I can keep it for 5 months for $25. I can't actually use the phone for the last 60 days because they take away the unused minutes, but that's not really a big deal, I very seldom use the silly thing anyway. So for starters, I'm not even sure if I buy my own better phone, can I keep it on this program, or are you forced to use whatever plan goes with the phone you buy? I was thinking I could take the sim card (I think that's what it's called) out of the cheap phone and put in a better one, or is that even possible? On to music storage. I need to be able to download the music I already have on cd to the phone, is that possible? I could of course, download the songs back to my computer and put them on the phone from the computer. I do not want to buy music. No way, I have tons of it now. Do cell phones have head sets that you listen to music on? Or do they play outloud?Keep in mind I DO NOT want to spend any more money than I have to. What are my options?

[Iniyila 2]

hmm well 3 or 4 years before now, the cell phones audio quality for playing musics were not comparable to an ipod but now i can even say there is some major improvements meaning that now there is many phones with comparable audio qualities and very nice headphones too. but you have mentioned that you rarely use your phone so maybe an ipod is better for you because most of the phones with great sound qualities have other capabilities like a camera and big touch screen and wifi connection for surfing the web and GPS tracking hardware and software and many other things. so buying a phone that can be comparable to ipod will cost you at least two times more than an regular ipod and most of the times, headphones that come with cellphones that you buy are not as good as default ipod headphones, but cellphones with operating systems are completely customizable meaning that you can do everything with your phone and if you don't like the current music player you can install another and see if its better.i didn't see any of those 10$ cell phones but if the sim card is removable then probably you can use it with any other phone that you buy from local stores but for more information call the Walmart support. i think in your situation if you don't need extra things like camera or gps or websurfing ,... then its better for you to go for an ipod. having a music player separated from your phone is nice too and you don't have to carry a bigger phone always with yourself.

[sheepdog 10]

Thanks for the input. I sure need it.My thinking was that since I carry the cell with me all the time anyway, it might be handier to have it all in one device. I would never use the wi fi and wireless internet stuff, when you consider the price tag that comes with those conviences. However, the camara might come in handy at times. Occasionlly people don't have a way to recieve a puppy picture threw a computer email attatchment, so it would be handy to have a back up system for sending pictures. As far as the size of the cell phone, it can't be as big and bulky as my cd player, so that isn't really a concern. I suppose for long trips I would also need a charger type that could be plugged into a cigerette lighter. Do those exist for cell phones? I have a deal that I can actually run my cd player off the sic lighter and not use batteries, which is pretty handy for long trips.

[Iniyila 2]

So if existence of camera is important then you can go for a cell phone. a favorite one for me that has a good audio quality and nice dedicated buttons for music playback (play/pause forward reverse) is nokia 5132 xpress music which comes for 70-80 $ and the battery can play music up to 20hours. of course any phone that you buy you can find the cigerette lighter charger for it but this thing is optional meaning that it is not available in the package of your phone in most of the times and you have to pay for it and get it separately. i suggest you to buy a phone with 3.5mm audio jack because you can stick your cd player headphone to it, if you buy a phone with 2.5mm audio jack or special connector then you always need a converter for connecting any popular headphones to it.you can also search to see if walmart has any special offer, they sometimes provide some cell phones with a 1 yr free simcard or some simcards with discount for some phones. you can try them if you find any interesting one.

[q9c9p 0]

Pardon me, but what wrong in getting a simple mp3 player and using the phone for just 2 things, calling and messaging? maybe one that support sd cards so you can upgrade storage easily? I'm sure there some cheap stuff out there..Ciao,q9c9p

[Parubilla 0]

I think for what you are explaining it would be easier to buy an mp3 player, if you just use the phone to talk, then you don't need an expensive phone that comes with an expensive service plan, just buy the mp3 player that are getting cheaper by the day, you can connect them to your car and play music while the battery is charging at the same time, so it will work out for long trips.

[sheepdog 10]

Well, the main problem with getting 2 seperate devices is that when getting ready to take a trip, that would give me 2 more things to have to remember to load up. I will admit, I am scatter brained. I have to load the pups, paperwork, directions, feed, water, dishes for the feed and water, snacks, my big thermos jug of ice tea, and by the time I try to remember all that my brain is pretty much taxed to it's limit. If I had in all in one device, it would be stuck in my purse and I won't have to worry about it. To Parubilla, we have an older model car, I'm not sure there is any way to hook up to it? In our last car we had a cassette deck, and I had an adapter on my cd player I could hook up and play it threw the car's radio speakers, but this car doesn't even have a cassette deck. Wish it did, I find head phones rather annoying. Not to mention the wires getting tangled up in the gear shift and the emergency brake handle. True enough, I don't use the phone much for calling, I probably use it more for an alarm clock than I do as a telephone.

[q9c9p 0]

Well, the main problem with getting 2 seperate devices is that when getting ready to take a trip, that would give me 2 more things to have to remember to load up. I will admit, I am scatter brained. I have to load the pups, paperwork, directions, feed, water, dishes for the feed and water, snacks, my big thermos jug of ice tea, and by the time I try to remember all that my brain is pretty much taxed to it's limit. If I had in all in one device, it would be stuck in my purse and I won't have to worry about it.

 

To Parubilla, we have an older model car, I'm not sure there is any way to hook up to it? In our last car we had a cassette deck, and I had an adapter on my cd player I could hook up and play it threw the car's radio speakers, but this car doesn't even have a cassette deck. Wish it did, I find head phones rather annoying. Not to mention the wires getting tangled up in the gear shift and the emergency brake handle.

 

True enough, I don't use the phone much for calling, I probably use it more for an alarm clock than I do as a telephone.

 

Now I understand what you mean, then I would suggest you to look up the "openmoko freerunner" but is kind of expensive, it has space for mini sd cards, so you can have your music on cards, it has external standard minijack plugs so you can put a tape2jack adapter into your tape player, its a smart phone, it has a gps, well take a look at it but I warn you that is expensive.

 

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

 

Specifications

    * High resolution touch screen 2.84 (43mm x 58mm) 480x640 pixels    * 128MB SDRAM memory    * 256 MB integrated flash memory (expandable with microSD or microSDHC card)    * microSD slot supporting up to 16GB SDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity) cards (Supported microSD cards)    * Internal GPS module    * Bluetooth    * 802.11 b/g WiFi    * 400Mhz ARM processor    * 2 3D accelerometers    * 2 LEDs illuminating the two buttons on the rim of the case (one bicolor [blue|orange] behind the power button, 1 unicolor [red] behind the aux button)    * Tri-band GSM and GPRS    * USB Host function with 500mA power, allowing you to power USB devices for short periods (will drain the FreeRunner battery faster)

Taken from:

 

http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Neo_FreeRunner

 

I'd like to believe that there would be a cheap device with all that features, but I know a bit of how marketing works and also that a device that fullfill all needs is counter producing for marketeers if you know what I mean...

Else, well is a bit drastic approach, but you could tape the mp3 player and the phone together so you won't forget it .

 

For the adapter I mean something like this:

 

 

Ciao,

 

q9c9p

[sheepdog 10]

Wow, that sounds pretty cool. Only problem there I see is that GPS thing. Call me old fashion, but I find it pretty creepy to know big brother is watching me. And right now the cassette adapter isn't going to work for me, the cassette deck is in the old car.(the one with nearly 300,000 miles on it, I don't think it's going much farther) Iniyila, thanks for the recomendation, that one sounds interesting too. And I'm glad to know that most phones have chargers at least available. I got a charger with my cheap phone, but it is for the house current only, not much help when you are on the road. And ok, in reality, taping the 2 devices together isn't that bad of an idea either!