My Razr phone has had battery issues from practically Day 1 and it’s gotten really bad over the ast few weeks. It was getting frustrating as hell to plug it in when it’s practically dead, it tells me it’s charged completely in 15-30 minutes and I get about 15 minutes of talk time. My phone calls to my mom are routinely 30 minutes to an hour (or more) and with no long distance service on our home phone, I was running out of battery about the time we got started talking.
So we stopped by a Sprint store yesterday while we were in Apex. I asked them about a battery and they told me it would be about $50 and they’d have to order it. My other options were a battery or cell phone accessory store. Needless to say, paying $50 for a battery when I could spend $50 and get a new phone wasn’t appealing. And of course the problem is that $50 right now is a huge amount of money to spend! I took a look at the phones I could get for free but wasn’t impressed. I really wanted a full keyboard because I’m starting to use text messaging a lot more and I hate texting on a numbers only keypad.
So I declined and figured I’d work my tail off next month so I could have an extra $50 for a new phone. Then we went to the Cary mall (Why does the Cary mall suck so bad? You’d think they’d have one of the nicer malls in the Triangle area, but it really is one of the worst!) and I walked past a cell phone accessory store. I went in to ask the price of a battery and they told me it was $30. Better, but still not great when I compare what I can get in a new phone. So I passed again.
We walked by the Best Buy Mobile store and I stopped in to see what they were offering. A free Rumor (or maybe a rant?) but I wasn’t crazy about it. I really wanted an LG Lotus or a Samsung Instinct. Since the Instinct required an upgrade to our plan, so I was leaning towards the Lotus. But they were both still out of my price range…so I decided to think about the Rumor and just see if maybe I couldn’t find a better deal.
And then we came to Radio Shack. I left my husband outside with the little kids (1 of whom was screaming because he’d been strapped into the stroller for running off 1 too many times.) and stepped inside with Jackson. I found out that they had pink refurbished Instincts for free, but since that required a major upgrade to our phone plan I couldn’t justify it. So I was ready to leave when the salesman asked if he could help…and I told him about my Razr issues and asked how much a battery would be. It was too expensive, but he said he could check and see if they could give me a discount on anything else. I told him I really wanted a purple Lotus and he looked at a list and said they could let me have it for FREE. WOOHOO!!! They had to get it from another store, but I had it in my hands within an hour. All it’s going to cost is an $18 activation charge on our next bill, which is a lot less than what a new battery would have cost me. I guess this is my Mother’s Day gift! My husband got off cheap this year, but I figured I wouldn’t get anything since things are so tight anyway.
So far I like it a lot. Texting is so easy with the keyboard, the pictures are great, the screen is nice and big and it’s very easy to use. Not to mention it is cute as can be! I love the purple and the flowers and the square design. I’ve been getting it all set up with ringtones and stuff today (I found a ton of promo codes for free ones) and learning how to work it. So far it’s great…but now I’m wishing I had a data package so I could really take advantage of all the features!
