Smartphone 'defectors' increase

Smartphone 'defectors' increase

By Kim Tae-gyu Pak Hyun-il, a Seoul-based self-employed man in his early 50s, recently snapped up a smartphone in line with the fever for sophisticated phones, which was created by the Apple iPhone. It did not take long before he realized that the bulky handsets’ rich applications were way too much for him, as he hardly uses many of the features and just sticks with phone calls, instant messaging and pictures. He struggled hard with the touch-sensitive screens. When software crashed for some reason, he had to restart it, which was a hassle because a smartphone takes much longer than feature phones to reboot. Worse, he had to pay around 40,000 won a month despite the minimal uses under the conditions of the two-year contract. Swallowing the payment of cancellation charges, however, he came back to an ordinary phone. “In tandem with the smartphone trend, I grabbed one earlier this year on a two-year deal. But it was of little use to me — the touch screen almost killed me and the complicated applications were beyond my reach,” Pak said. “I learned that I did conspicuous consumption following other guys. Although I had to pay a substantial amount of charges to terminate the contract, I opted to return to feature phones.” There are many users like Pak, dubbed smartphone defectors, particularly among senior citizens who are not so savvy on technology. “Tech-aware early adopters easily get used to smartphones. That’s why smartphones gained popularity across the nation. But not everybody loves the high-tech gizmos,” said a Samsung Electronics worker at an after-service center. “In particular, 40-somethings or 50-somethings who use just basic functionalities of cellular phones tend to give up on smartphones. The number of smartphone users will be sure to rise but at the same time the number of defectors will also increase.” The number of smartphone users hit the 3-million mark in August and the figure is projected to double by the end of the year. In a couple of years, about half of the country’s population is expected to be wielding smartphones. The Samsung engineer pointed out that the defectors surface when glitches in smartphones sprout up such as the “death grip” problem of the iPhone 4. Since its debut this summer, the iPhone 4 has been subject to complaints regarding dropped calls. When users touch the lower left hand edge of the gadget, the signal can be significantly degraded. Many other smartphones have also been constantly under criticism with regard to flaws in their software or when making phone calls. 스마트폰 도망자들 늘어나다 서울에 사는 50대 자영업자인 백현일씨는 최근 스마트폰을 구입했지만 시간이 얼마 지나지 않아 이내 후회했다. 전화와 메세지, 사진 기능만을 사용하는 그에게 복잡다단한 기능들은 별로 필요 없었기 때문이다. 특히 터치 스크린이 문제였다. 소프트웨어 문제로 다시 켜야 할 때 보통 휴대폰보다 시간이 많이 걸려 성가시기도 했다. 그래서 그는 2년 약정한 기한이 많이 남았지만 위약금을 물고 다시 피쳐폰으로 돌아가기로 했다. 삼성전자 A/S센타에 근무하는 한 엔지니어는 백씨 같은 경우가 늘어가고 있다고 지적했다. 젊은 사용자들은 스마트폰의 기능들을 잘 사용하지만 40-50대 사용자들은 부담스러워 한다는 것이다. 그는 ``스마트폰 사용자들이 앞으로 많이 늘어 날 것 입니다. 하지만 그 못지 않게 스마트폰 도망자들도 늘어날 것”이라고 예측했다.

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