You are walking down the road, humming that one song still stuck in your head from a week ago. Suddenly, you realize your pocket is a little lighter than it should be. As panic floods your mind, your hand automatically dives into your pocket to check it, and as feared, your phone isn’t there.
Your whole (online) life flashes before your eyes in slow motion as you realize a universal truth. Your trusty ol’ smartphone is gone.
In an instant, you have been robbed of some of the things you have wasted so much time on. Your high score in Color Switch that took you your whole semester-worth of classes to beat, tons of un-backed up ugly-selfies that you used to threaten your friends with, the impressive music collection that was the only reason your cool cousins brought you along for long drives; it’s all gone. Everything is gone.
We have all been there once (or twice, maybe even thrice). Be it dropping the phone in the toilet or on a concrete floor, getting it snatched at gunpoint or finding it suddenly vanished from our pockets, we all get the same feeling of hopelessness.
Fortunately, there might be a solution to it or more of a hack as you might call it. Instead of spending all your hard-earned money on one ultra-expensive phone, why not use it to buy two not-so-ultra-expensive phones? Here me out, as I make my case.
“Two average phones are better than one good phone.”
Here are some reasons why two phones are better than one.
Karachiites are already known as the master of the “two phone” technique. For any person who has an iPhone or a Galaxy S series phone (or any expensive smartphone) as their primary, you are also extremely likely to find a dirt-cheap Nokia 1100 or a Q-Mobile in their possession.
The expensive phone is most likely the stay-at-home phone, only to be taken out in the wild for functions, going out for food, or on special occasions. It is the one you use for your Snapchat, social networking, taking pictures, etc. Some people don’t even bother to buy a SIM for their smartphones. Why bother when you won’t even need it?
The other one is for real phone use, taking it out in the city and to be used for texting and calling purposes. It is the one you want to be caught with if some gentlemen on a bike cares to pay you a visit.
This is why you will almost never see a person using the latest iPhone talking on call while standing on a busy chowk in Karachi or other crime-infested urban cities in Pakistan.
The smart ones will be carrying a cheap dumb phone, nine times out of ten. (The tenth will learn soon enough why that is a good idea to begin with).
It is 2016 and surviving without a phone is simply not possible. Sadly, smartphones have pathetic battery lives. You can either buy a Moto Z Play— one of the longest lasting phones today— or go for a battery pack. The choice is pretty limited for heavy phone users.
On the other hand, there is a ton of choice if you want to go for two phones. You can buy one expensive smartphone of your choice and one cheap one for all your primary phone usage. It might cost a little more than buying a battery pack but it will save you the trouble of relying on just one phone so much.
Android or iPhone? The battle that has consumed so many comment sections on so many blog posts around the web. Android, known for its openness and abundance of choice, versus iPhone, touting its buttery smooth performance. While for some, the choice may be as clear as black and white, neither side can deny that the other one also has its merits.
So instead of picking one over the other, why not try out both? Don’t buy the latest Galaxy or the latest iPhone. Buy an older Galaxy, or an HTC, or some other comparatively cheap Android and an older iPhone so it is also economically feasible.
Try out the best of both the worlds. It is not okay to criticize something you have never used. Maybe, you might even find it in your heart to go over to the other side once you have used it.
Pakistani networks are always battling it out to provide the cheapest packages or to be the first one to introduce a new technology. Each one has its own qualities and personally, I find it better to have a choice between using at least two networks at all times.
Some networks have great bundle packages but are plagued by issues like cell reception in certain areas of the city. As a result, I have to juggle between two networks, depending on what my particular need is at that time.
You can always buy a dual-SIM phone if you want a choice between two carriers. However, as in the case of an Apple iPhone that doesn’t come with dual-SIM options, that does tend to limit your choices a bit.
This one is pretty self-explanatory. Living without a phone is never a choice, not even for a few days in this era of connectivity. What if there is a strike or something and you have some important calls to make that cannot wait? What if you dropped your phone, shattering its screen and it will take a week to get fixed?
It is always a good choice to have an extra phone on hand.
Many companies hand out ‘work’ phones to their employees. Sometimes, these phones even come with pre-installed software so they can only be used for work. This has a psychological effect on your work as well as home life.
The work phone can be for emails, calls, texts, etc, while the other one can for your leisure use. Not only will it help you draw a line between work and home, it will also make you less stressful when at home.
Even if you don’t get a phone specifically for work, you can just buy one for yourself.
So there you have it folks. Do you think having two phones is a necessity or a luxury? Let us know in the comments below.
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