Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Hand Held Status Symbols (A.Onyango)



Every man wants to own status symbols. A Mercedes says, “I have class”, a fitted Italian suit says, “I have taste” and a chrome timepiece says, “I don’t have time for your nonsense”. But there is another status symbol which usually goes undetected by the naked eye unless it is held up by the owner. While they are not silently killing you with deadly cancer causing electromagnetic waves, cellular devices hold everything from schedules to high definition videos of the wife (or not) doing a strip tease. But people need to be careful which particular one they decide on.
 We begin with Personal Assistant Devices (PDA). Throw these things away if you want people to perceive you as a man of high status. All a PDA does is let people know that you do not posses enough power to have an ACTUAL assistant. Having a human being you can blame for all your scheduling malfunctions is a status symbol on its own. Furthermore, the last time a person used the acronym “PDA” publically in a sentence and got away with it was while Moi was enjoying his fourth quarter. People have moved on. Your personal assistant can have a PDA… But NOT you!
Tablets are for insecure people. If you want to communicate power then you understand that it is in the subtleties and not extravagance. Think about it, rappers drive around in Hummers but a high powered CEO owns a Maybach. Both of them are expensive vehicles but only one of them says “I don’t need your attention”. Same thing goes for cellular devices. Having something sleek and powerful with an amazing design that you can comfortably slip in and out of your pocket says a lot more than a huge hand held thing which makes you look like a child playing “driver” with a fake steering wheel. In addition, tablets are absolutely worthless without an audience to demonstrate them to. The only viable use for tablets is to catch up on your reading. It’s like an expensive backlit desk.
Today it is all about the war of the smartphones. How many mega-pixels is the camera? Can it connect to Wi-Fi? What is the memory? Is it touch screen or number pad? Is it AMOLED display? Does it have GPS? Can I watch a two hour movie streaming from the internet on it without losing massive battery life? These are some questions that a challenging smartphone buyer asks. Smartphones have taken every single communications function including texting, calling, e-mail, news updates and social media integration and crammed them into pocket friendly devices.
 Dead are the days of the Nokia 3310. Ignoring phone calls and text messages does not cut it anymore if you want to communicate power. You have to simultaneously be able to ignore e-mails and tweets as well. All this must be done on a device which your juniors cannot afford. For example if you have a Samsung Galaxy 2 and your junior has a Galaxy Note then either that lad needs to be fired or you need an immediate upgrade. Either is a viable option. 
Furthermore, if you are a high status individual buying something being marketed by a soccer player then you have issues. Yours should be that unique device from a strong name brand but very few people own. For this I suggest a look at the HTC brands. While we are at it, all i-Phones are held by people obsessed with fitting in and ANYTHING with the word “mini” in the title is a feminine device.

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