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Smartphones remain a testbed for particularly useful inventions. for photography and for software features such as voice recognition.
Thumbs up for smartphone companies that continue to perfect their products. That doesn’t mean we should care about Google’s weird-looking new Pixel phones – they really do look weird, anyway — or Apple coming iPhone … 13? 12S? Anyway.
The newest phones will be lighter, faster, better, and perhaps more expensive than the old ones. Cool new features will be there when you’re ready. Until then, you don’t have to care.
Tip of the Week
Don’t give up if a tech company doesn’t fix your phone
Not ready for a new smartphone yet? Brian X ChenA consumer tech columnist for The New York Times has a tale of tenacious determination to keep an old device alive and kick it:
A few weeks ago, a reader named Marianne sent me the following email:
Last year I tried to get a new battery for my Samsung Galaxy S7. I took it to Verizon where I bought it. They said they couldn’t turn on the phone to replace the battery and suggested I take it to a repair shop. I called Samsung and really put a lot of effort into talking to a human.
The person I finally spoke to said I had to send Samsung $75 to have him agree to look at the phone and they would contact me if they could install a battery. I authorized my credit card for $75 and waited for the required postal authorization to receive an email the next day saying Samsung wanted to cancel the entire transaction. At that point I gave up. I would be very happy with my S7 if it could hold the charge.
I responded to Marianne and encouraged her to try again – but this time contact several local independent repair shops to ask if they could do the job. Days later, she said she had found someone and her phone was back to its former glory!
Moral of the story: If a brand like Apple or Samsung says they can’t help you fix a phone, don’t give up. There is an industry of independent repairmen whose job is not to sell you a new phone, but to keep your phone working.
Often times, independent technicians can make repairs that manufacturers don’t want to do, like replacing a faulty charging port on an iPhone. Do a web search on Yelp or Google to find a good, honest mechanic.
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