Are you a mobile phone slave

[Old Nick]

To kill a bit of time I some times wander into a mobile phone shop, the thing Ive started to recently notice is that in many shops especially the larger ones , there seems to be some sort of strange silent atmosphere , which feels a bit spiritual or even spooky mystical, the punters , which by the way never seem to be older that twenty , just stand still holding a mobile phone like it was a rare sacred object, their glazed eyes hypnotically stair downwards at the extra large screen , and like a magic wand slide their finger across the extra tough glass , the library silence is normally only interrupted by a squeal of delight as the phone does its stuff .

So there they are , like faithful sheep at the mobile phone alter , credit cards whipped out faster than a wild west gun slinger , loan agreement paper work signed quicker than you can say Android . The last shop I wandered into I froze in amazement as the obvious husband and wife sat with a sales assistant , both having bought identical top of the range phones and matching cases value 44,000 Baht . As they walked out of the shop they appeared to be suffering from a bad case of , must have the best and latest mobile phone .

So whats going on , people buying mobile phones that they obviously can't afford , and the strange reverence that mobile phones now seem to have .

Are you a mobile phone slave , do you have to buy the latest phone , and whats the most you have ever paid for a mobile phone and did you regret it

[Davis Knowlton]

^I have a 12-year old Nokia. I think I paid about $100 for it. Every two years, my service provider gives me a free, new, supercool phone for customer loyalty, which I pass on to my wife or twins without looking at it. My old phone sends and receives calls and texts - that's all I want or need.

[klong toey]

Just switched mine off so work cannot contact me so no.

[Nokturnal]

Unfortunately yes I am.... Suppose I could do without my mobile devices.. For and hour or two a day

[nidhogg]

So there they are , like faithful sheep at the mobile phone alter , credit cards whipped out faster than a wild west gun slinger , loan agreement paper work signed quicker than you can say Android . The last shop I wandered into I froze in amazement as the obvious husband and wife sat with a sales assistant , both having bought identical top of the range phones and matching cases value 44,000 Baht . As they walked out of the shop they appeared to be suffering from a bad case of , must have the best and latest mobile phone .

I was on a work trip recently. In the minivan were a mixed group, including one of the building mantainance people, one of the other works drivers and the driver driving the van.

All three of them had top of the line smart phones.

I have a couple of years old Sony Xperia. Think it cost me 5,000 baht. Its quite a nice phone, I use it for sms and calls, only.

I do occassionally think about upgrading, but then I realize that:

a) I am completely lost in the technology and management - what phone, what can it do, what account do I need, what is the difference between G3 and G4 and most importantly, how do I ensure I don't eff up and end up with a 10,000 baht bill one month

and

b) I have absolutely no use for one apart from, well, calls and sms's.

[Old Nick]

This is from the Bangkok Post

Smartphone sales to rise by 70%

Thailand's smartphone market is set to surge by 70% in volume this year as Thailand migrates from second- to third-generation mobile broadband service, says the global research firm GfK.

Thailand is the third-largest smartphone market in Southeast Asia, after Indonesia and the Philippines. Sales of smartphones in Thailand in the first four months of this year reached 2.87 million units this year. Smartphones are expected to account for half of overall sales this year, up from 42% last year and 20% in 2011.


Sales of the devices will finally surpass those of feature phones for the first time this year, he said.

Smartphone sales in Thailand reached US$800 million in value last year.
Mr Sunthat said phonelets, a new generation of smartphone that is larger than a phone but smaller than a tablet, are set to become the next big growth segment.

Smartphone prices will become more affordable, ranging from 15,000 to 20,000 baht thanks to more offerings from handset makers, he said.

Mr Sunthat added that mobile operators are gearing up to launch their own house-brand handsets.

In the first half, Google's Android mobile operating system (OS) still dominated the Thai market with a 70% share, followed by Apple's iOS with 12%.

Nokia's S40 OS and Microsoft's Windows phones had an 8.5% market share each.
BlackBerry OS held only a 1% market share, a sharp decline from 15% in the same period last year, as Windows and Nokia provided fierce competition.

An industry source said Thailand will no longer be a market focus for BlackBerry despite the country being the second-largest Southeast Asian market for the Canadian handset maker.


The red part made me wonder , so 15,000 to 20,000 baht mobile phones are more
affordable


GfK: Smartphone sales to rise by 70% | Bangkok Post: breakingnews

[withnallstoke]

So whats going on , people buying mobile phones that they obviously can't afford , and the strange reverence that mobile phones now seem to have .

It is not a recent phenomena.

Mobile phones were getting on my tits just after the first brick was marketed.
Since then this fucking ever increasing pile of shit has grown exponentially.

I actually feel a certain amount of pity toward kids these days who know no different.
Adults who indulge should know better, and as such deserve to have their latest purchase shoved forcibly up their shitter, sideways.



Posted by withnallstoke, aged 93.

[misskit]

My dumb phone is a six year Samsung flip phone decorated with flower stickers. It does exactly what I want it to do, phone and SMS.

I've a group of women friends I meet up with every month or so. After our activities, we go sit down in a coffee shop where they pull out their smart phones. For the next hour, they take pictures, send the pictures to their friends, put us on Skype, text friends, show pictures their friends sent, etc. They are middle aged women but I feel like I'm sitting with a bunch of little girls.

[Dillinger]

The red part made me wonder , so 15,000 to 20,000 baht mobile phones are more affordable

You are getting a lot more bang for your buck nowadays for that price range.

If you go back a few years an iPhone 3GS was 28,500 baht in Thailand. A new iPhone 5 is 22,000 baht now with a lot more technology on board.

There are some great Androids out there at the moment , take my Sony ZL for instance, with quad core processor, 1920x1080p HD display which cost 17000 baht and came with a free 16gb memory card and Xperia T-shirt

Posted by John 14 and 3/4 years

[Smug Farang Bore]

30 years ago the number one thing on the want list was a car now it's a smart phone.

[withnallstoke]

take my Sony ZL for instance, with quad core processor, 1920x1080p HD display which cost 17000 baht and came with a free 16gb memory card and Xperia T-shirt Posted by John 14 and 3/4 years

Brace theesen.

[Necron99]

I have an IPhone 4 which is mostly used in the car for nav and music.
Missus has a cheap plastic job, fortunately she has a habit of dropping her phone at least once a day and has gone right off the idea of having to have the latest.

[aging one]

Going to be. My 9 year old Nokia is dying bit by bit. Now I can no longer access missed, received, or dialled numbers its time for a new one. Going for the Google Nexus 4. Best buy and most phone I can find. Bummer I really thought the Nokia would last forever.

[Dillinger]

^I wouldnt buy one of those in Thailand. They're 7000 baht cheaper in the US

[aging one]

I have a source here for 11,200 dill, thats about 2500 baht more than the states with sales tax. Gray market.

[harrybarracuda]

I have a company S4 and a personal S3. The personal one is mostly used for betting, Facebook and playing music in the car.

The work one is for email and on-call, but neither are particularly intrusive.

I don't know how much they cost, but they didn't cost me anything.

[afghanpicker]

i have a cheapest samsung you can buy no camera no internet.

i just want to be able to get a phone call if needed


i have a computer for internet...

use to have a camera so a camera phone would be nice.

i love walking down sidewalk in bkk and when someone is walking towards me typing on their cell. i accidentally bump into them and make it seem like their fault i love that.

[peterpan]

I was in thailand before mobiles, how did they exist? before pagers in fact. My wifes family was here, these cunts can hardly afford a roof over their head, but the all have the latest android stupid phone.
priorities.

[Thaimato]

Likewise - was in Thailand in the days before mobile- and smartphones. Life was decidely better then, as the gals would actually TALK to you and it was party time every fuggin day! With the arrival of mobiles, smartphones and whatnot, I noticed the gals were more intent on checking their screen every few seconds and ignoring BFs, punters or whoever they were with. Even saw (a few times!) a guy get up and walk away from his gal/whore cos she was far too interested in the fuggin phone. Happily, I'd already met my missus by then, so didn't give a fuk about others. She has a phone, too - an ancient thing from before we met. It still works - how about that ...

Seems the living-in-the-phone-world is a more common thing. Some people I see ALWAYS have a mobile glued to their head - don't think I'd recognize them if they didn't "wear" their phone on their head. All you get from them are short bursts of speech - probably in between breaths at the other end of the phone. As already said, don't understand how some people have a shiny new phone - but their house is a slum and almost falling down and they've never enough to eat. Weird world, innit...

[aging one]

I was in thailand before mobiles, how did they exist? before pagers in fact. My wifes family was here, these cunts can hardly afford a roof over their head, but the all have the latest android stupid phone. priorities.

no shit. Hookers were much better off without cell phones. I too remember that. Add to that families that could not contact kin without a telegram. Oh baby, those were the days in reality.

[Rural Surin]

30 years ago the number one thing on the want list was a car now it's a smart phone.

....what might be the obession 30 years from now?

[Old Nick]

There must be some serious bunce being made in these vast mobile phone temples , the hourly procession of the faithful going to worship seems endless . I wonder what the profit mark up is.

[baldrick]

you can choose to be proud that you do not carry a personal computer with you everywhere - up to you

but I am happy to have my note 2 - the ereader software probably gets the most use , but the browser and the messaging also gets a workout.

and having a good camera on hand , Music player and GPS nav device is quite useful

the data coms link is more used than the voice

[Dillinger]

^^ Nick, Did you forget to grab your change in the samsung shop ?

[Necron99]

^ with that number of staff, they probably only have to sell one phone a day to break even.