I’m not at all certain that I’ve only had three cellular phones in my life. That is, until this morning.

With consumerism rampant and planned obsolescence at the core of every electronics business, I’m convinced this news comes as quite a surprise to you. Unless you know me, that is. I’m frugal, and the majority of my waking life, I more or less tie myself in knots about how my worldly presence is creating evermore carbon emissions and filling landfill sites with all sorts of toxic and detrimental waste. Oh, if only the rest of the world was as obsessive as I am. Pharmaceutical companies would be making obscene profits from their anti-depressant sales alone. I get that requiring a phone in 2017 is unavoidable.

The first phone I remember owning was a Nokia 3210 (I did use a chunky 5210, but I don’t recall it being my phone). It was an incredible device that gifted the user with the ‘god-like’ ability to communicate with people without copper wires connecting you to the telephone grid. “Ha!” We all thought. “No more insanely expensive STD telephone calls.” It also had the ability to send short messages to your contacts through SMS also known as the Short Message Service. One message consisted of 160 characters or less and was usually charged at 30c per message (at least in Australia). It became an artform, cramming conversations within these limits to save yourself the extra money and I’m convinced this is the reason why ‘lol’, ‘roflmao’ ‘thx’ and other acronyms came into existence. All to save that extra 30c.

Now, between my current iPhone 4s and the Nokia, there was ONE other phone (there must have been one more, because I’ve done the research and the timeline doesn’t quite add up). Mind you, I have been using the 4s (received second hand at the time) since about 2012. You can only imagine the whiz-bang phone I was equipped with prior to the iPhone.

Sony Ericsson were a partnership that produced a damn good phone in my opinion – the K610i was my weapon of choice from about 2006 up until the iPhone. That’s SIX years of use. No whinging and whining about my desperation for the latest and greatest. I had this beauty when Apple first released the iPhone. The whole idea of a ‘smart phone’ that could give me access to my Hotmail account and use the internet in general just never really interested me. At that time YouTube wasn’t really a thing so what else was there to do on the internet on your phone? Seemed like a gimmick to me at the time. For the record, the K610i could access the internet, but it was a pain trying to navigate and an even bigger hassle waiting for the hardware to respond to requests.

Regularly buying new stuff needlessly (did you really grow tired of your phone in twelve months?) impacts people and the planet.

As I mentioned earlier, I am very aware of the environmental and social costs involved in the production of many of the consumer goods we all take for granted. Apple’s controversial Chinese labour camps.. eh hem.. "manufacturing facilities", is just one example of how not to do things. During 2010, we heard reports of Chinese workers committing suicide over the state of their working conditions in Foxconn factories - an Apple hardware supplier. Further to this, 2014 saw workers in Pegatron factories (a supplier of hardware for Apple products) complaining of excessive overtime and difficult working conditions. This has continued through to 2016. Environmental costs associated with smartphone production is pretty well summed up thanks to GREENPEACE who have detailed the global impact of ten years of smartphone production. The long of the short of it is that ALL cell phone manufacturers have a long way to go to improve their environmental impact over the long term.

The five year run I’ve had with the Apple iPhone 4s ends today.

I’m pretty sick and tired of all of Apple’s limitations and the straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak, was the lack of an expansion slot for additional storage space within the phone itself. I have had to transfer photos and videos numerous times from that thing simply because Apple wanted further justification to sell models with differing storage capacities that cannot be expanded upon. It’s a really dumb aspect to their sales model. While there are wireless options to transfer content off the phone to allow it to operate normally again, should we really be reverting to the barbaric practice of continual data dumps? TBH, I couldn’t care less now. I have my Galaxy S8 and Samsung have a new customer. Hello there, Samsung.

I’ve decided to do what all the Super-Fancy nerd-cum-reviewers do and whet your technological appetites with some fancy photography – my Sony Cybershot RX100 Mk II is such a delight to use!

Revel in my unboxing of the S8 and the shunning of a once amazing iPhone.

I realised I had a parcel to pick up from the post office. My new 10 000 mAh portable battery. Ironically, it was for the iPhone because it's battery is another reason why I'm now using the S8.

The Swiss Army knife assisted in the process of liberating the S8.

For a phone markedly larger than the 4s, the S8 was not at all heavy.

The accessories astounded me. Charger (of course), AKG earbuds and two adaptors - micro USB and standard USB (to assist in file transfer from your old phone, I'm assuming, as this is exactly what I used it for!) all came in the box.

The guides were minimal. The file transfer function saved me so much heartache and grief. I simply connected the two phones together using the iPhone's charging cable and that nifty adaptor and followed the prompts on the S8. It could not have been easier.

Shiny phones don't like their photo's taken. It came with 65% battery, but it's recommended you charge to 100% before use.

The "nuggety" 4s with a relatively new Gecko case. I had an identical green version of this case previously. Both glow in the dark. Funny thing is, I'll miss the glow-in-the-dark case more than the phone.

An end of an era (spent waiting for applications to launch and witnessing the tragedy of unnatural battery life depletion right before my very eyes). I won't miss you - much.

I'll leave you all with a final thought as I go back to playing around with all the cool new functions on my soon-to-be-outdated Samsung Galaxy S8:

The most sustainable phone, car or item of clothing is the one you already own. I urge you to hold onto items for longer in the hopes that future generations have the same opportunity for the quality of life we're all guilty of taking for granted.

See you in five or six years for my next phone unboxing.

All the best,
Nick

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