The "Cell Phone for Dummies" - so easy to use!

A little over a year ago, my wife decided I needed a cell phone. "All right," I said, "but make sure it's not one of those fancy-pants kinds that I won't be able to figure out."

Thank God she listened.

The Samsung SCH-A870 is, compared to most of today's new "gadgety" phones, a simple man's dream. And the metallic royal blue exterior isn't bad, either. Oh, it was available in white, too, but I guarantee that would've lasted about five minutes. So blue it was.

Now, mind you, I was not in favor of getting a new phone, because it had been about 10 years since I had one and it was one of the old, really simple types that are just not available these days.

But I have to admit, it was pretty easy for me to figure out the extensive menus that Samsung packed into this thing, and Verizon makes it pretty easy (albeit a bit time-consuming) to download new ringtones. I must say that I like that. Just about everyone in my contact list has their own tone, so I know who's calling without even looking. That's a plus.

I don't use the camera very often, for the simple reason that its quality is pretty marginal. Of course, I have a regular 8.2 megapixel digital camera that is much better, so maybe I'm spoiled. I don't use the 1.3 megapixel "OrbiCam" in my Acer laptop for much the same reason. It's just plain lousy. But that's another review.

Sound quality is good, and the volume level can be adjusted to heights that even hard-of-hearing folks like me can hear it. Big plus there. My wife has upgraded to a fancy Motorola phone that is nowhere near as easy to hear or use. Score another one for Samsung.

Since I spend a lot of time in my truck, and also in my garage, I need a pretty durable phone. I've got butterfingers, you see, and I tend to drop it. A lot.

If I actually had a count of how many times I've dropped this thing, it would be scary. But the phone just keeps coming back for more. Now, I'm not suggesting you go out and smack it with a baseball bat repeatedly or run over it with the nearest Suburban over and over again, but Samsung has built durability into the SCH-A870.

Oh, and one more thing: You can surf the web with this phone, but I didn't want to activate that feature, so I can't tell you how it works. I use text messaging occasionally, and that's more difficult than useful (thanks to my large fingers and crude semi-opposable thumbs ... insert Tim Allen-style simian grunt here), but since my wife thinks it's "cool," I end up texting more than I'd prefer. At least it works.

All in all, I like this phone a lot more than I thought I would. I didn't want to, but I do. Go figure. Maybe this "new technology" isn't so bad. Just don't tell my wife!