The Gizmo Conundrum: Choosing a Cell Phone

It all began with the Great Buttermilk spillage, an inadvertent spillage that completely drenched a naive and an almost-outdated piece of mobile phone. The resultant mad-cap dash to select the best breed – yes, that’s the word – amongst the available plethora of cell phones in the market, ultimately gave rise to a (seemingly) important point of contention: Windows, Android or Apple.

While a layperson would take all of the above-mentioned three references in the most literal manner possible, terms of technicality dictate that literalness doesn’t have any place when it comes to contemporary gadgets. Having inferred thus, it soon struck that the first had comparatively limited mobile phone editions – suitable within the budget, while the remaining two were the only best options serviceable. Which is where the whole problem of choice started. 

At the first glance, both android and apple phones looked similar. But such an observation, is never supposed to be revealed to technical experts. For the simple reason that, they scoff and scoff hard. The scoffing is then followed by a heady discussion about the technical and features’ specs of each of the two technical variants, which doesn’t clarify matters but instead perplexes the potential lay-buyer further. 

Armed with the only clarity that Android-based phones are a product of a South Korean giant while the Apple is a trademark of an American technological visionary; the relatively old-gen buyer doesn’t really realise where the world has come to. Isn’t it all about the calling and the messaging and considering the camera paradigm, about taking photos? There again the experts scoff. If a phone has to have so many features, then the display and the screen resolution matters the most, as does the ease of navigability within the phone by the user. Looking at the jargon thrown about, one wonders whether they are still discussing phones or discussing best residential locations to buy a house.   

And these queries and myriad availability of opinions only form the first half of the story, arising even before one actually ventures into a shop and chooses a phone model. And eventually as one enters the shop with the head buzzing with details, thanks to the guiding ministrations of the experts, the threat of forgetting to enquire about a few normatively required specification components looms large. 

Once the purchase is done, it’s about gratification and commendation. Not to oneself, but to others involved in the cell phone recommendation process as though, one were not satisfying oneself with the purchase but others, just like a medieval knight displaying tangibility after his marriage night. 

Not much separates expediency and redundancy. Both are relative to each other and whilst necessary, require individuals to draw the proverbial line between the two. Maybe it’s symbolic to have a hi-tech gizmo-infused cell phone in the contemporary lifestyle, but the point is if a potential user doesn’t understand most of the technical specifications, of what use is such a cell phone to him in the daily state of affairs?