There seems to be a lot of reverse pride in not being conformist and not going with what everyone else seems to find appealing, the latest gadget built around the premise of being a phone but is actually in effect a mini handheld computer. The fact is these new devices are only built around the concept of being a phone but they're so much more, communication is itself is increasingly based around the internet, the very concept of phone calls and texts is starting to become obsolete, if you have the Skype app for example you can message people eliminating the need to use the mobile companies text messaging, unfortunately they often block Skype voice calls over 3G Internet because quite simply if this took off, increasingly we wouldn't need to make an actual call which we have tarriffs for, it would fall within the cheaper by comparison data packages!
I'm not a conformist person either but the idea of having a handheld smartphone entertainment device that does most things we once needed seperate devices for such as an MP3 player, FM Radio with RDS, a handheld camera for still pictures and video, a GPS unit, internet browsing and not to mention portable games console and handheld personal video player is pretty appealing, in 2012 it's now possible to have all that in one high quality unit. I avoid Iphones and everything Apple as I believe that is pretty conformist, Apple lock people down and try to make it so that their phones and tablets can only use approved apps, so I back Android devices which I think are amongst the best thing to happen to consumer electronics for a long time.
Some people will say they don't need all these features which is fine, it could equally be said in the home, I just need a TV and Freeview box, I just want to watch TV simple, I don't need all these new fangled Blu-Ray players, games consoles, DVD recorders etc!
One thing I would say is that on the Android device I have (a Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc), sometimes it can be running slow like computers do! and that can admittedly go against the purpose of a phone, as it can make it groggy and take ages to get what is obviously the "phone" app within it up, as a result an earlier 2007 Sony Ericsson device (which is a nice compromise between a mini computer and a simple phone) which offers a basic camera and excellent FM radio, is extremely simple to use as a phone and so I would recommend this sort of phone to anyone who doesn't want anything too tech-heavy, they're now much cheaper of course!
~But Android isn't necessarily expensive, £60 will now get you a basic Android device, I had an Orange San Francisco (ZTE Blade) and in comparison to the LG Cookie (just before Android had a few nice MP3 playback features etc but was a closed affair!) it was like opening a door to a new world. Android is like a new Windows, almost anything you might want is available as an app, and in my case I wanted TuneIn to listen to internet radio stations with Walkman style.
