I've had an upgrade to use since March, and I know AT&T was profiting off it - but I couldn't justify paying money for a Note 4, especially while I had a Note 3 that still worked (minus (e:paul)'s crack and the lack of charging from when I took a drunk bath with the phone). It seemed wasteful.
Well I wanted to have a working and long lasting phone for Jabe Pond this week - so I finally bit the bullet and upgraded to the Note 4, for $0 upfront!
The Note 5 is out, but it sucks - who wants a sealed up phone you can't root, take the battery out of, add an SD card into, and adds a glass back? For $300!
The new phone is nicer, especially the camera and battery life - but it's not as life changing as when I went from a flip phone to a HTC Titan, or a Windows Phone to the Galaxy S3.
I really feel that we're reaching the end of the treadmill of consumer electronics capitalism... I'd like to write about (e:paul)'s breakdown at the AT&T store when he realized there's nothing new he wanted to buy.
The best feature of the phone is if you press the power button three times, the emergency mode is activated and it sends an SOS text with a picture from both cameras, a sound clip, and your location to your emergency contact.



I don't know - I hope it actually holds out, because I'd much rather go to a dive like that than some fancy popular $15 cocktail place.
I wonder how long that place will be able to last at that location given all the Gentrification right next door. I can see someone swooping in, buying the building & turning it into Condos & retail, froyo & a yoga studio or something.