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

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 aren't cheap, but have the stuff that makes talking on the phone not terrible. This model for example has an amplification option. You can see the "BOOST" button on the handset where you can crank up volume up to 40dB. That really works. You'll also notice another button, "SLOW". That feature literally slows the speed of speech you hear in real time. It also has noise reduction and can link up two smartphones.

Darned fine handset.

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.

Published 2021 Nov 9