My dad is obsessed with getting new gadgets/gizmos and every time he wants a new one, he asks me to do all the research about it and decide whether its worth getting. His most recent obsession has been for the Verizon Hub. He thinks its really cool and would be convenient to have.
Basically, the Hub is like having a cell phone as your home phone. All you have to do is connect it to your broadband and then you can use all its neat widgets: checking traffic, directions, weather, ordering food, and watching trailer movies. Also, the Hub includes all the normal cell phone features such as a contacts list, calendar, messaging, etc.
Everything seems really cool with the Hub and my dad thought it would be real cool to get for my mom. But I realized that my mom probably would not use half the features included on the Hub. Shes very old fashion and does not like having tech-savvy devices. For example, she has my old Sony Ericsson cell phone which has so many cool widgets on it, but she only uses the phone as a phone and nothing else. So buying the Hub for her would be a waste because knowing her she wouldn't use it but to make phone calls. Also, the price of the Hub is $200 and a $35 per month service fee. With that money you could just use a cell phone.
So I was telling my dad all this and then we began talking about how land-line phones will probably not be used in the near future due to all the new technology. I was telling him about Skpye and how Skype is better than using a home phone because you can video chat while talking to the person. He said that he wants to give it a try and use it with my older brother, who is busy in New York with medical rotations. And so after doing all this research, I finally convinced my dad not to waste his time with the Hub and the next time I go home I'm setting him up with a Skype account.
I like that companies keep inventing new products and that they appeal to such a wide group of people because of all the different features on them. But, I personally don't see the point in getting a phone which does a million other things on top of its main function. I find it funny when people use the other gadgets so much that they forget what the original function of a piece of technology was supposed to be. It's all a bit warped.
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