After having an old "texting" cellphone for around 7 years, I decided it was finally time to get a smart phone! I chose the Apple iPhone 6s Plus with 64 GB of memory. My wife got one as well. My daughter who has had smart phones in the past went with a Samsung Galaxy 6 Edge with 64 GB.
It seems that every Black Friday, we have a goal of getting one major item and phones were it this year. Our phone contracts have typically ended around Black Friday, so that's when we start thinking about phones for the coming year(s).
My wife and I decided that the iPhones made the most sense for us since we both have had iPads for the past couple of years. Moving to an iPhone is like using the iPad, so the learning curve is relatively small. My daughter has had Android phones in the past, so she stayed with that by getting the Samsung.
Overall, I like the phone, but it's really huge! With the Otterbox Defender case on it, it's like holding a small brick! But the case has a belt clip on it and that allows me to clip the phone onto my belt rather than sticking it in my pocket like many users do. I like this better and it actually doesn't get in the way as much as my old small texting phone did since it was "thicker" in its case on my belt.
I downloaded a bunch of apps that I usually use on my iPad and now I'm wondering if my iPad (which has cellular data ability) will be used on the road as much. It's really a duplicate of what the iPhone does, but being larger, it's easier for me to see and to type on. I prefer to use the mini over the regular iPad since it's more portable and I like the larger size over the iPhone when viewing videos on it.
I've adapted to the new phone rather quickly. I've only really played with it for about three days or so, but already, it feels like I've had it for a while. It's easy to use!
I also decided that the larger "Plus" version of the phone was best for me since it will be easier to see, has a longer battery life and takes better photos and videos with its built-in image stabilizer over the smaller 6s version. My wife also wanted a bigger screen, but I wonder if it will be harder for her overall since her hands are no way as large as mine. Time will tell.
We spent literally the whole day on Black Friday dealing with phones. Originally, we chose the Samsung Note 5 and purchased those at Best Buy. But being Black Friday, getting the phones activated proved a challenge to the store. Their computer system crashed as they tried to activate our phones and took forever on Verizon's part to get the phones activated. After the long wait, we later found that my wife's phone didn't activate correctly. It wasn't until after we left the store and got home that the activation problem was discovered. This meant another trip back to the store to get that fixed, but after playing with the phones at home, we decided that the smartest thing to do was to pay a little more (a lot more, really) and get the iPhones instead since we both were familiar with the new iOS 9 operating system having had iPads already. Plus because I already had an Apple MacBook Pro computer, transferring files and photos would be a lot easier. So back to Best Buy we went to make the exchange and get my wife's activation set correctly.
After another long wait in line and then waiting for the activations to work properly this time on the new iPhones, we headed home for dinner. But when I got home, my daughter found that the Samsung Galaxy 6 that she got had a problem with the front camera focusing. She checked the internet and found that many other users of this model had the same problem! So it was back to Best Buy again! While there, we learned that the Edge version of the phone was the same price, so we swapped her phone for the Edge version.
We started out our journey on Black Friday going to Verizon to check out their phone deal, went to Target who had iPhones on sale, but didn't have any more in stock and then to Best Buy to get our phones. In all, we started at 8 AM and didn't finish everything until perhaps around 7:30 PM... give or take. It was literally an all day affair!
Were we done now? Not yet! Today (Monday), we found out that the iPhones had gone down $100 at Best Buy! So back we went to the store to get a price adjustment on each of our iPhones which saved us $218 between the two phones! Hopefully, we are done now!
The Best Buy cellphone sales staff were fun to work with though! We went through several of the people there helping us through the ordeal but the one that stuck out the most was a guy named Jake who joked with us throughout the day as we went back and forth getting the phones right. It was a long day, but fun because of the staff. Kudos to them!
Oh... I got the phone in "Space Gray", my wife got hers in "Rose Gold" and my daughter got her phone in "White". We ordered cases for them on Amazon.com. I got a Otterbox Defender case, my wife got a Spigen Ultra Hybrid Series Air Cushion clear case to show off her Rose Gold phone's back and my daughter got an Otterbox Symmetry for her phone.
It was a long journey, but we all like what we have now.
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