To Have and to Hold
BUYING a phone is hard. Buying a phone for someone else can be even harder.
Whenever the holidays roll around, advertisers suggest that cellphones make terrific presents. Yet the purchase is anything but simple, said Jean Riescher Westcott, the co-author of “Digitally Daunted: The Consumer’s Guide to Taking Control of the Technology in Your Life.”
“It’s being marketed as a gift; I don’t think it’s an easy gift,” she said. The cellphone is, after all, an extremely personal item, even intimate. Joe Farren, a spokesman for CTIA-The Wireless Association, a trade group, said, “There’s no question that wireless devices have become incredibly personalized — people view them, in many cases, as an extension of their own person.” And with more than 600 handsets in the American market alone, Mr. Farren said, choosing can be a challenge. The buyer has to know the recipient very well, and has to know the goods, too.
Time was when a phone was, pretty much, a phone. Though features varied from model to model, there were few brand-name cellphones that attracted attention and consumer lust. The purchase was, then, largely a matter of features.
That changed with the advent of stylish phones like the Motorola Razr in 2004, and data-friendly smart phones like the iPhone last year. Now a new generation of phones influenced by the iPhone’s success has begun to emerge, like the BlackBerry Storm and handsets powered with Google’s Android software.
Still, features matter. Those who advise people on which phone might be best for them or for a loved one say that understanding the recipient’s needs and preferences can help simplify the task. “It’s no different from when you’re buying a TV,” said Mark Asnes, the chief operating officer of Wireless Zone, an independent retailer of Verizon products.
Continue reading the main story
RELATED COVERAGE
slideshow
Mobile Phone Enhancements JULY 1, 2010
For Cellphones, an Enticing Array of Add-Ons DEC. 1, 2008
Giving a Cellphone, No Strings Attached DEC. 1, 2008
Smart Phones, Smart Choices DEC. 1, 2008
ADVERTISEMENT
Continue reading the main story
Matching people to features, Mr. Asnes said, is a matter of asking the right questions. For example, he said, does the recipient like to take pictures? If so, a phone with a good camera, like Samsung’s FlipShot, is a must. Does the person love to listen to music on the go? If that’s the case, the Chocolate, from LG, is his pick — though those on the AT&T network might choose the music-ready iPhone.
Mr. Asnes said there are other questions to consider: Is the recipient a “gadget freak”? Or does the person travel a lot? These factors could nudge a buyer toward touch-screen smart phones like the iPhone or the BlackBerry Storm, and toward features like downloadable video and turn-by-turn voice navigation.
On the other hand, if the recipient is an older person like a parent and the gift is a first cellphone, Mr. Asnes recommends simple models like the Coupe from UTStarcom, which color-codes its accessories and has big, easy-to-read buttons and display.
Buying the hardware might be the easy part. Even if the phone is right, it might come with contracts and entanglements that can turn the act of giving into an ordeal.
Ronald Stuhm, a sushi chef in Manhattan, said he was excited when his wife told him that he would be getting an iPhone for his birthday in November. But when they went to an AT&T store to buy it, the salesman told Mr. Stuhm that his current contract was in force until next year and that he would have to pay $200 more than the advertised price of $199 to get the phone.
Mr. Stuhm told the salesman that he would sign up for a new two-year contract, and that he would be adding a data plan that would give the company far more money than his current plan did. But the salesman would not compromise. “I didn’t get my iPhone. I didn’t get my birthday present,” Mr. Stuhm said. Did his wife come through with anything, though, to mark the beginning of a new year in his life? “Six pairs of socks and a wallet,” he said, spitting out the word as if it were an obscenity.
Another important consideration when giving a cellphone is knowing the recipient’s carrier and a little about the person’s contract, Ms. Westcott said. “Everybody says, I want an iPhone,” she said, and added, “but do you want an AT&T contract, and a data plan? And do you want this monthly bill?”
Newsletter Sign UpContinue reading the main story
Interested in All Things Tech?
The daily Bits newsletter will keep you updated on the latest from Silicon Valley and the technology industry, plus exclusive analysis from our reporters and editors.
Enter your email address
Sign Up
You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services.
SEE SAMPLE PRIVACY POLICY OPT OUT OR CONTACT US ANYTIME
Some buyers avoid the complications of contracts by buying prepaid, no-contract phones from services like Virgin Mobile and GoPhone, said Charles Hodges, director of corporate and media relations for Radio Shack. That’s what he and his wife did for their children when they were 12 and 14.
Mr. Hodges advises against spontaneity on what should be a happy day. He recommends that buyers and recipients make a joint trip to the store, so that the person getting the gift “can choose the phone they want with your blessing and checkbook,” and without unpleasant surprises. In fact, buying for children is a parental prerogative that has as much to do with deciding what the youngsters will not get, like the scandal-inviting camera phone, as what they will get.
When Dan Watts, an executive for a nonprofit radio station in Cincinnati, bought a phone for his 13-year-old daughter, Amanda, it came with features like text-messaging — but with restrictions as well. She was not permitted to use it after 9 on school nights, and she had to keep her grades up or lose the phone. Amanda also had to pay the $20 monthly fee out of her allowance. In addition, Mr. Watts said, “Her mother and I had the right to demand the phone from her at any time to review her contacts, recent calls and recent texts.”
Some experts in relationships and the ways that technology affects them warn that there can be an uncomfortable and even creepy side to buying a cellphone for a loved one. Dr. Carole Lieberman, a psychiatrist in Beverly Hills, said that several of her patients had bought phones for the wrong reasons. “The danger for anyone giving a cellphone as a present,” she said, is that if the impulse is not “coming from the heart,” it could involve “wanting to put someone on a cellphone leash.”
One of her patients, a man who was having marital problems, bought his wife a phone so that he could receive the bills and see if she was cheating on him, Dr. Lieberman said. He even checked her text messages. In cases like those, she said, “their goal is really to be more in control of their partner.” The lack of trust, she said, “ruins the relationship.”
But a phone can build a bridge of trust as well, said Launa Taylor, a garden designer in San Rafael, Calif. Her boyfriend, who is older than Ms. Taylor, is not a big fan of technology and has never owned a cellphone. But he told her that he would pay his share if she would add him to her family plan, saving the expense of getting a contract.
That line of reasoning, however, pricked at a point of contention in their relationship; the boyfriend, who had gone through a bitter divorce years ago, had long been skittish about commitment to Ms. Taylor. “I would tell him, I’ll put you on a family plan when we’re a family,” she said, and put off buying a phone.
In November, after therapy and thought, she took him out to a nice restaurant for his birthday and handed him a box. Inside was a Breeze phone from AT&T, which is simple and light. “I said, I feel like we’re a family these days, don’t you?”
She had programmed her number into the first autodial position. Now, she said, he brags to his friends that Ms. Taylor bought him a cellphone — and makes sure they know that it marks a shift in their relationship.
“You might say the cellphone was our engagement ring,” she said.