How I feel about the phone these days as a Gen-X in the 20s

Phones are good for everything except talking on them.

I'll first that that yes, I'm calling this decade the '20s. We're over 20 years into it now, nobody confuses the 2020s with the 1920s, so it's okay.

Do I call the 2010s the tens? Yes. But for years 2000-2009, I do call those the two-thousands (or 2000s in written form for short) because referring to them as "oughts" is just weird.

Also, small complaint: It annoys me whenever anybody says "year two thousand" when referring to that year specifically. Just say 2000.

We're never getting back how awesome phone conversations were in the late '90s

I'm not referring to what people talked about in the '90s but rather the feel and the sound of the conversations.

Landline phone tech for the home had its peak in the late '90s and early 2000s. This was a time when the sound quality was as good as it ever got on the old style systems. Absolutely no lag from when you spoke to when the other person heard you and vice versa. The phone designs were amazing, and the handsets had great battery life. Speakerphones even on cheap home systems were great too.

For the cordless systems, gone were the retracting antennas, replaced with small stubby ones. And the wireless frequency that worked best was 2.4GHz. There was a short period where 5.6GHz was promoted as an "upgrade", but it was terrible compared to 2.4. The range you got on 2.4GHz was incredible. Talk anywhere in the house, outside in the yard, basement, wherever. It always worked.

In addition to that, it was not uncommon to keep a phone for 5 to 10 years before replacing it. There was simply nothing to break on them.

The modern smartphone: Very usable with data OFF

I use a prepaid smartphone service that allows me to receive normal calls and texts using no data. Whenever I need data for some internet thing when not at the house, I can enable it temporarily. When at the house, I just use Wi-Fi when needed.

The reason I mention this is because there are some carriers out there that require data to be on all the time just for phone service to work. I hope it's a good long while before I ever have to deal with a phone that requires always-on data, as I would find that genuinely annoying.

I like texting, taking photos and making videos

These are the 3 things I like best about the smartphone. I use the Textra app for my texts (it's amazing). It's easy to make high quality videos. Where photos are concerned, I really like that I can geotag them.

Before the smartphone, I had been searching for a point-and-shoot digital camera that had GPS specifically to geotag photos. I never bought one because they were way too expensive and still are. For whatever stupid reason, getting a point-and-shoot camera with geotagging is a big ask. On the phone however, it's built right in.

Granted, a camera like a Canon PowerShot or a Panasonic LUMIX takes far superior photos when compared to a phone... but the phone makes geotagging, storing and sharing of photos stupidly easy.

I don't like talking on the phone anymore

It's been years since I've had any sort of long conversation on the phone. Once you go smartphone, long voice conversations just isn't a doable thing for several reasons.

There's no way to comfortably hold a plastic brick (the phone) for a long period of time.

The sound quality is terrible.

I refuse to use an ear bud because it makes my ear sore quickly, and I don't like having a speaker physically in my ear. Yes, I've tried several different types of buds. All terrible.

All smartphones have "overtalking" problems where if you use the microphone and speaker on the handset itself, you're guaranteed to talk over the person you're conversing with and them talk over you. This is because the mic and speaker on smartphones, including expensive ones, are just cheap tinny little things. The phone tries to smooth it out with audio processing, but nope, it's bad. That's just the way it is.

Use the speakerphone? Forget it. Same overtalking problem, only louder.

Because of all this crap, I can only stand to talk on a smartphone for maybe 5 minutes.

Is there a way to use an old style cordless phone with a smartphone when home?

Yes.

Panasonic, as far as I'm concerned, does make the best cordless phones. Back in the day I spent over $100 on a set from them, and wow, was that phone glorious. Loved it.

They're still making great cordless phones now with the addition of linking it to a smartphone. When you search Panasonic Link2Cell, that's when you find their BlueTooth handsets.

These things have the stuff that makes talking on the phone not terrible. Some have an amplification option. Some also have a "SLOW" mode that literally slows the speed of speech you hear in real time.

Is this the same as talking on the phone at home in the late '90s? Not exactly, but it's the closest thing to it.

Do I prefer text over talk?

I'm not one of those guys who believes things were oh-so much better when people actually talked on the phone.

From years ago before the smartphone era, I can distinctly remember having certain friends at that time who did the extremely annoying thing of calling me while loud things were going on around them. Or worse yet, doing that, talking to me and other people in the room at the same time.

Yeah, I don't miss that. At all.

Another thing I don't miss are people that don't know how to end a phone conversation. You know the type. They seem to enjoy long awkward moments of silence. After enough of that crap, you say, "WELL OKAY THEN I guess I'll talk to ya later" and suddenly then they have a bunch to say, then stop... and the awkward silence happens again.

I don't miss that either.

It's safe to say yes, I do prefer text.

I wouldn't want to go back to cordless phones

If I really wanted better voice calling, I'd get that Panasonic set. But the fact I'm so used to not talking on the phone makes it not worth the bother.

I'm also not hot on the idea of using a separate camera from my phone, which would not have geotagging.

Right now, as things stand, I'm okay with my smartphone. It's not perfect (what phone is?), but it does get the job done.

Some people "live on their phone". I don't. But at the same time, I've come to realize that in this modern era, the smartphone is required. Not just for communications but also because there are some services where if you don't have a smartphone, it's not only inconvenient but outright prevents access to certain stuff.

It's fun to look back on what I used to use in the late '90s for phone tech, but it's definitely something that should stay there.

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Published 2021 Nov 9