My cell phone died — again. This one lasted six months. It was a replacement for one that lasted barely more than a year. This time, the phone will no longer hold a charge, even with a new battery. On the previous phone, the front display screen stopped working.

It’s not just me, either. The SIM cards on my daughters’ phones have had to be replaced several times because their particular model (same one) tends to fry the little card. My wife has had to replace her SIM card a few times. (We’ll discount the time she washed her phone in the laundry.) Our four phones are from three makers, so it’s not a unique problem. This is all within the two-year contract of our current plan, which still has five months to go.

Now, most of the problems have been covered under our cell-phone plan. Even my replacement phone that just died was issued under warranty, even though I was a few weeks past the deadline. The goodwill has run out, though. To fix my current problem, I’ll have to wait a few weeks and then pay a fee to “upgrade” to a new phone, or I can skip the fee and upgrade when the plan expires in May — both options requiring signing another two-year contract with my provider.

But that’s not the point.  While I understand that we live in a bright new age of disposable technology, cell-phone makers seem to be pushing the limits. Maybe it’s because new features continually render today’s latest cell-phone wonder obsolete in six months, so they don’t care. Whatever — continually stopping by the cell-phone store to get the latest problem fixed among my family of four is getting old. On the most recent visit, the rep said I should seriously consider buying the company’s cell-phone-replacement insurance to guard against future problems ($5 a month and a $50 deductible). Instead, I think cell-phone makers should seriously consider producing a phone that will last for the hardly taxing duration of a two-year contract. Â

This entry was posted on Friday, December 28th, 2007 at 8:54 am and is filed under Gadgets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.