Everything is gone but nothing is lost

In the middle of all the events last week, my phone decided to give up the ghost. When I failed to get it to restart, I spent an hour or so on the chatline with a tech support person, who had no further advice to offer and suggested I take it into the nearest store to be sorted out. The chap in the store shrugged his shoulders and wondered what magic he was supposed to be able to create and seemed genuinely surprised that he got it working again.

It didn’t last until I got home, though, and by the time I took it out of my bag it was gone again. My super-clever phone was now no more than a doorstop.

My contract was up for renewal, I knew, but the phone store chap advised that this is the season for new phone launches and if I could bear to wait a week or so, even though I didn’t necessarily want the latest and greatest, the current models would slip down a notch in the pecking order and would possibly be cheaper as a result.

When I got home, I headed straight for the cupboard where I knew we had a collection of old phones! There are some pretty ancient ones there, some so old that they’re almost new again (original Nokia 3210 anyone?) but I knew that the phone before this one was there and still working. Perhaps it would get me over the hump until I replaced the broken one?

As I pulled the latest “old phone” out of the cupboard to charge up, I began to realise the implications of changing to a new one. Would a new phone still fit inside my little USB-charger bag or would I need to fit in an adapter as well? Not only that, but as soon as I looked for the SIM card, I realised that the format of that had also changed. No way was I going to be able to fit a microSIM into a miniSIM slot without an adapter - and yes, who knew there were so many variations?

I went to my book group that night with my Hero’s phone in my bag. How did we manage for so long without the need to be in touch 100% of the time? Well, of course, I didn’t need to stay in touch with anyone, but working on the principle of Sod’s law, if I didn’t have a phone with me I’d get a flat tyre or something.

Clearly I needed a replacement and the following morning, I rang the phone company and prepared to have the conversation. Needless to say, everything is cheaper and includes more than my last contract, so it was easy to haggle and find a good deal. No upfront payment for the new phone, more data and £12 cheaper than before. What’s not to like?

The new phone arrived the following day and I found it to be both familiar and different enough to be confusing. My first worry was that since my old phone died so suddenly, I couldn’t transfer the data to my new one. Everything had gone and I feared it was going to take me ages to sort it out. Except…as soon as I signed into Google, everything - including all my apps and settings - appeared. Spooky or what?

Working through the tips and tricks, I found my way around and felt ok. I needn’t have worried about losing all the data - until I tried to text a friend and discovered all my contacts had gone. I’d forgotten I needed to set up the program to sync my Outlook (I use Akruto) With a bit of help (heroic qualities stretch to tech support as well) we got that one sorted.

I remembered to pair it with my car though!

Surely that was all? Well, yes, until I went swimming and realised I hadn’t paired it with my watch/distance tracker. Thankfully, the new phone fits comfortably in my little gold bag charger even though it needs an adapter for the USB connection. I’ve ticked that one off. Still, every day it seems I come across another little thing that I need to tweak/update/adjust/sync because Google didn’t remember everything.

I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.