I now have a cell phone

I got my first cell phone a few days ago. I signed up for the AAA
plan with Consumer Cellular which charges $10/month and .25 cents a
minute. I don't use the phone much so it seemed like a good deal.

I got the phone a few days ago, having only ordered it on Friday of
last week so it came fast. It was alot smaller than I was expecting.
It is a Nokia 1600. It doesn't have a camera. I'm not paying for text
service but for some reason it says I have some text messages sent
and received (That has since been resolved. I erased the message
counter but the customer service lady, a nice girl, didn't know why
it had happened.) I have called them three times and I think I
bewildered two customer service agents who answered. One woman had no
idea what I was talking about when I asked her about the musical note
icon that appears when the screen dims. Both were patient and helpful
though the other guy I talked to seemed to be frustrated that I
wasn't up to speed on how this cell phone worked. (I have plenty of
computer experience so can get what I need out of geeks but I have
very little knowledge about how to use a cell phone.)

I have made a few calls. The first was to my sister who uses a
portable phone through an internet connection. It broke up a couple
of times but I don't know if it was due to her portable phone, the
internet connection or my phone.

I have noticed I get both two bars and four bars for reception while
sitting in the same chair. I looked up the cell phone reception on
MobileMedia's cell phone coverage page
(http://www.cellreception.com/coverage/) and some people have
commented that my area does get poor reception sometimes.

I am not impressed with the voice quality. (It's also hard to hear
sometimes. And totally inconvenient to adjust the volume while in a
call. That's BAD design.) I am not sure I want to put up with these
limitations. I also don't like having the keypad on the phone. Often
enough you have to hit keys while listening to a menu. Using a phone
that has the keypad on the base unit is much easier. I haven't found
any Bluetooth desk phones that I, in theory, could use with this
phone (if it had Bluetooth, which it doesn't.) That would be a good
accessory. Inventors, listen up.

I do see how people can be absorbed by the buttons on their phones.
You do spend a lot of time looking at them. These are really small. Too small. They are backlit too but the lighting isn't uniform. Bad design.

More later.