[ponyakr]

I remember the many times I said that all I knew about a computer was which part the mouse is, & that I hoped I'd never have to learn how to use one.

But, then some of my favorite parts vendors begin charging for their paper catalogs & set up free websites. So, I decided that I needed to learn the basics of using a computer.

So, I learned the basics & bought an HP laptop. Have never bothered to learn much more than the basics. But I can search online for info & parts & other stuff I wanna buy. Can also post on forums & FB pages(when I'm not locked out).

But now, the time has come when I feel that I NEED to learn how to use a smartphone. I suppose that TJ & I are included in a VERY small percentage of the adult population in this country who have never had a smartphone.

But, as we were recently reminded, there are lots of things in life now that pretty much REQUIRE a smartphone. Almost everything you try to join or sign up for, now requires that you respond to a message or code sent to your mobile device.

We bought a $20 flip phone from Wal Mart & a cheap basic TracPhone plan. It gets signals from the Verizon towers. We live several miles from the nearest V-tower. Our phone will not receive or send from unside our house. Have to take it out on our front porch to get a signal that will receive messages/calls. Same was true for the Verizon hotspot we had for years.

Well, about a year & a half ago, AT&T home internet became available from the brand new tower that was built about a mile North of us. So, we got that set-up, complete with the indoor Wi-Fi. It's a lot cheaper, even tho we get MUCH more allowable data transfer. I think TJ said it's now up to well over 300GB. We've never even used 100, so far. Max was 24GB on the hotspot.

So, anyhow, we were considering switching our flip phone over to AT&T, so we could use the closer tower, for a much stronger signal, at home.

I'd seen the huge amount of interest always created surrounding the introduction of the new, high end smartphones. But, I also noticed that the price of those are now well over $1000. So, I had never even considered getting a smartphone.

But, since we have recently been made aware that a smartphone could be very useful to us in certain situations, I decided to do some online info searching.

So, this thread will be about our 1st smart phone, which one I chose & why, & the whole process of learning the basics of using it.

Will probably ask lots of really basic dummy questions, since I've never even made a swipe on a smartphone or touchscreen device of any kind.

Might be sort of humorous for many of you guys who have been using them so long that you now just sorta take 'em for granted, & can do what you need to do without hardly even thinkin about it.

So, let the story begin !