[hibiscus_horz_sbtp]

On Mobile Phones and Gadgets Online

I don’t pretend to know very much about technology, other than for the fact that it should work. Indeed as a basically disinterested observer I note with some amusement that it is now a far more complicated business trying to switch on a television set than it was in the days of my childhood, when the object itself was a big, heavy wooden box with a small screen and a dial with some 30 or more numbers on but only three channels from which to choose.

Back in the early 1990s I was the proud owner of a mobile telephone, long before most other people even knew that such a thing existed. It was around the size, and the shape, of a house brick and sported an aerial of around 10 inches in length which was essential to its successful operation. I transported it from place to place by clipping it to my belt. Failure to remember it was there whenever I bent to tie my shoelaces resulted in a sharp pain between my ribs as the aerial dug in.

And yet today there is so much about my now thankfully far smaller appliance that I haven’t got around to trying to fathom out. Without the help of my 13-year-old- twins I doubt I would have mastered the art of sending a text. It was not a little confusion that I received my latest gadget from the courier, devoid as it was of a keypad. Thanks to said twins I am now familiar with the basic concept of a touchscreen.

What I do understand though is that today’s market boasts a range of phones, PCs, digital cameras, laptops and sundry other gizmos like never before. A glance at what is on offer from any eShop tells me I can now purchase not only mobile phones, but unlocked mobile phones, SIM-free mobile phones and indeed all kind of adornments and add-ons that will enable me to listen to music, access the Internet, set my alarm clock or play games to my heart’s desire.

The new technology that emerges onto the market so relentlessly is truly phenomenal. The mobile phone today is more of a portable computer than a simple means of making and receiving calls. And I have flash drives with more memory on them than the first desktop computer I owned possessed.


TOP