“Do only young people buy your phones?” I barked, wincing inside at having lumped myself with the non-young. I was at the store where I had bought my not-yet-8-months-old smartphone, my first, and objecting to the tiny font the messages were displayed in. “No, ma’am, but …,” began the salesman who had on a similar visit earlier downloaded an app for me to view my contacts list in bigger font. “Is there an app for messages?” I asked. “No, nothing, but we’ve launched a more advanced phone and all those features are there in that,” he said. Oh, really?

Many years ago, an advertisement for some detergent claimed it would not only clean clothes well, its USP was that their colour would not fade. Isn’t that a hygiene factor, pun unintended? Why should it be touted as a unique selling proposition? Someone said how else would the premium on the brand, vis-à-vis competition as well as other brands from the same company, be justified? So if you buy a cheaper detergent, you can expect your clothes only to be clean, never mind that they don’t look like themselves anymore? And it’s a bonus or a higher order benefit if the colour is intact!

I recalled this as I rued my decision to purchase a smartphone when I gave in to pressure exerted by no one and bought one. A long-time fan of a certain brand, I bought a beginner’s version from its smartphone line. I’m no technophobe but I’m not an early adopter either, and prefer to spend my money cautiously on things untried and untested. All I wanted was Internet on the go and a decent camera. And, of course, a good battery so I would not have to charge the phone every single day.

I was happy to buy it, even though it cost much more than the kind of phones I had used till then. I did not even take much time to get used to it. I began using it and kept trying to figure out various things. Mine is a prepaid connection and all my old phones had told me how much each call I made cost – this one did not. The service centre told me that smartphones don’t provide that information but The Spouse rubbishes this, his smartphone does. The camera is no big improvement.

On those old phones, I could see messages and contacts’ details without a microscope. It was not obvious how to forward messages till I stumbled on to the secret. And the most irritating of them all: As soon as I held the phone to my ear, even the slightest pressure on the touchscreen would put the call on hold/speaker/mute or disrupt it with a combination of those. Apparently, I had to ‘lock’ the phone as soon as I started speaking so that this wouldn’t happen. I got used to that too but now that facility doesn’t seem to be working anymore.

My problem is this: I upgraded to a smartphone by forking out a big premium and I lost the basic facilities an ordinary phone gave me. Is a smooth talking experience a fair trade-off for a bigger screen? Oh wait, I’ve paid several thousands more for the new phone, so where is the question of a trade-off? I didn’t have to bother with any locks and keys each time I spoke on the older phone, why should I do so now? Why should that even be a necessity? Why should I download apps to see my contacts list without trouble? Why should I buy another phone to be able to read my messages? Why should I pay more to get less?

As I see it, it’s worse than the detergent ad that had me indignant about its USP – at least it put ‘colour integrity’ over and beyond cleanliness but here I was, having joined a certain league of customers not only by graduating to a smartphone, but by buying a famous brand and not something more home-grown. And to think I had stayed true to the brand, brushing aside suggestions to buy the current hottie! I am tempted to go back to an ordinary phone and not give this a chance any longer. Woe is me!