To upgrade or not upgrade...?

Sometime during the last 6 months, the camera on my phone decided to malfunction. Maybe it was from being repeatedely dropped, maybe there is a limit to how many pictures can be taken with an Iphone 7 ;-) but one day it just stopped working. While it may seem like a small silly problem, you dont realize how often you use your camera phone until you don't have one and you are forced to use selfie mode, which while fun, doesn't make for taking pictures of objects or people in front of you. I imagine I became somewhat of a master of taking a picture with the selfie camera, and it would only take 7-8 tries to get it right..... or if I was in a hurry I would have someone else take the photo and then text it to me..... I will apologize again if you were subjected to this.

Most people reading this are probably in the camp of, why doesn't he get a new phone, I mean the Iphone 7 is a dinosaur, and the latest and the best is 3-4 generations "better" or at the very least get the camera repaired? My instinct was to replace the phone, not the latter. In all fairness, I am due for an upgrade, this phone is now, 3+ years old and I am constantly reminded by apple to upgrade my cloud storage because my phone is almost out of room (but I won't go down too far down that rabbit hole). One of my irritations these days is to be constantly reminded that I need to upgrade my storage space, be it gmail or apple, it seems like everyone wants to get you onto some sort of subscription, or "frictionless" transaction as it's referred to.

Anyhow, back to the broken camera in my phone. As in the past, at least for me, every couple of years, I would call up my current provider and ask if I was eligible for a hardware upgrade to which they would reply "of course Mr. Davies, please have a look at our site and be sure to select a phone from the options that are listed and have no cost associated with them, then call us back and we will ship it to you in about 3-4 business days":-). There were always a dozen or more to choose from.

On this occasion I call the company up and they confirm that I am indeed eligible for a hardware upgrate! Happy Day! A new phone and camera are within reach and I no longer have to deal with the awkwardness of asking a colleague to snap a picture for me, yay! My troubles are over!! That was a long week! BUT wait..... it says on the site that a new phone will only cost me $599 or something like $30 a month for 24 months?? That can't be right? Can it? I call the company back and they confirm that they no longer give away a free phone if you recommit to them for 2 years... Okay, I understand, maybe I will shop around and see if I can get a new phone from another carrier if I switch because my current provider doesn't appreciate me. Nope, all carriers now charge you for a new cell phone. Some were perhaps a little cheaper but on the whole if you want a new phone it's gonna cost you:-(.

So I continued to live the "shame" and "embarrassment" of having colleagues take pictures for me, or wasting 5 minutes trying to snap the perfect picture in selfie mode. Perhaps part of me is just being cheap, okay, I can live with that. I mean, those that know me know that financial freedom is more important to me than "keeping up with the Joneses" and having the latest and best. The other part of me says it's the principal of the whole thing.

These phones are designed to become outdated, to not last forever, so you HAVE to upgrade if you want the conveniences we have all come to enjoy these last 10-12 years with smartphones. Heaven forbid you actually break your phone and have to buy a new one because fixing it is often as much as buying a new phone. Yes people can argue that nothing lasts forever, it's true, I mean I had a fridge that lasted 2 years, SERIOUSLY, a brand new fridge, from a well established brand and vendor blew out and the cost to replace the fridge was only a touch more than replacing the compressor, or whatever the tech said was wrong with my once wonderful sexy fridge... but I digress. I don't know, something just seems so wrong with the way we are forced to consume products that only last for a couple of years, so you are in a constant debt cycle of paying for something that depreciates and becomes outdated faster than a 1986 Dodge Aries. To me it seems a little like entrapment, maybe that's extreme, maybe it's the frustration of the situation talking, but I refuse to get caught in the debt cycle with a new cell phone every year or 2 because the company releases a newer model that comes with a little more storage, a better camera, or a larger screen.

What happened to my beloved Iphone 7 you ask? I brought it to the apple store and dealt with some top notch sales people. Seriously, The Apple Store is like the Starbucks of tech. Super friendly, informed, knowledgeable and just wonderful all around. I had a delightful chat for about 20 minutes with the young lady who helped me while we decided the fate of my phone. I found out that its only $79 plus taxes to fix the camera in my phone. SOLD! I also found out that the "crack" I have had in my screen for the last year or so is just a really deep scratch and that is the reason it hasn't gotten any worse. An hour later, I was strolling out of the mall with a working camera phone for the first time in months, YAY!!

Will I upgrade my phone? Maybe one day.... ( my guess is, I WILL HAVE TO) In the meantime, I will take the $500 or so that I saved by not buying a new phone and buy my kids some pizza, maybe a pair of pants for school and then do something "super boring" like buy a few more shares of CIBC bank:-).