My new 'awesome lime' gem (sponsored with steem❤️)

I have to admit that I never thought I would do a post like this. This seems somewhat unnatural to me and I cannot explain the reasons for this. But somehow I feel obliged. To give an account, so to speak, of the funds spent. And to thank you.
I had taken Steemit as an investment and was doing a full powerup for quite some time. At the moment, I continue to power up regularly (I don't believe in SPUD), but not completely, because, agree, in almost every post I complain that I have no income. Then how could I power up to infinity, it couldn't look credible.
I haven't used a club tag for a very long time, and that's because I don't want to fool anyone, I didn't know when I would need to withdraw some amount, and now this moment has arrived. Because I finally bought a phone.

I have often told you that my current/now already previous phone, which is quite old by today's standards, has been behaving quite strangely for quite some time and I felt at any moment that it will stop functioning and I will not be prepared for it.
I found the receipt and saw when I bought it - end of September 2019. Actually, I thought I bought it at least a year or more earlier because it's acting like a really old phone. But I have to admit that I still turned out to be lucky to some extent, given, indeed, the current standards and lifespan of technical devices. The phone is a Huawei brand, and I already know two people whose phones from this brand simply warped, broke and fell apart on their own, while mine is still intact.
And recently, an acquaintance of mine told me about her Samsung S21, which after 3 years simply shuts down. And mine, hehe, for almost 5 years is still alive.

Its price in 2019 was, for me, in the store of the telecommunications company 520 leva/266 euros, or 288 dollars at the current exchange rate, approximately. But then I had a discount from the company that sold it to me for BGN 270/EUR 138/USD 150, approximately. Having signed a contract for two years at a standard rate of BGN 35 per month/€18/ $19.40. But I have paid a discounted rate of BGN 30 per month/€15.40/$16.60.
I'm telling all this to get an idea of ​​what the rates are like in the country, and how we can compete with Germany on prices, I guess, and we're also more expensive on services and phone prices than other countries.

I dropped the phone on the tiles in the yard soon after I bought it and paid another BGN 100/€51/$55.40 to the tech guru in the next town to replace my cracked screen. So, for me, the price of this device became BGN 370/€189/$205. But that was already my fault. And that price seemed pretty reasonable to me at the time.

My friend with the broken S21 was asked BGN 400/€204.50/$221.70 for a repair and she refused, deciding to buy a new phone instead.

Right now the screen has already started coming unstuck on one side, but I'd say it's holding up quite a bit now. Because even then we were told in the telecommunications company store that changing the screen is a very risky operation, which often leads to the impossibility of using it later. They recommended I just buy a new phone. Of course 😁

My bigger concern was about something else. The screen had started flickering/blinking when I tried to turn on the phone and within a few minutes it was unusable - I couldn't do anything with it, couldn't turn it on, couldn't turn it off, restart it, etc. There were periods when it happened more often, but there were also periods when it was less frequent. At first I thought it might also be caused by the screen being replaced. But after months, even years of observation, I now realized that it is not related to the screen in such a direct way. This was happening when I tried to turn it on with the fingerprint. So somewhere in between the fingerprint on the back of the phone and the screen, something was happening that didn't always, but sometimes often, cause the blinking.

I had to buy a new phone. And I didn't have much choice, a phone could only be purchased every two years with the re-signing of the two-year contract. And only within one month after signing. (to be able to get some kind of discount)
I can't say, I have to re-sign now, but I'll buy when it's convenient, when the old phone really dies, or when I have the money for it.
I then delayed re-signing because I was looking for ways to lower my monthly bill. Because every two years you, "as a loyal customer" are forced to pre-sign a contract with higher and higher fees. You can never stay at the same prices for another two years. And if you want to lower your monthly payment - Oh my God, anathema...! You remember that clerk who told me they weren't a charity.🤣 Nasty criminals! Because that's what they are.

But let me not digress. I bought a new phone pressed by deadlines. I can't find the receipt, but I did find the purchase on a bank statement. It was the end of March 2022 and it cost me BGN 380 with the discount, roughly the same as the previous phone with the repair. However, I can't say what its price was back then without the discount. It was a Nokia G50 that I chose because it wasn't a Chinese brand, but even though it wasn't a very new model, it had quite a few defects, I think I wrote a whole post about it. And when I lost all my photos with a factory reset but still hoped I'd find some hacker to restore them, the phone became unusable and still sits in its box in a drawer.

Yes, I know, it sounds like I don't care about buying phone after phone, but I really did care about the photos inside and it took at least 2 years before I could swallow the thought that they would never be restored. On the other hand, the phone is unusable because its system update wouldn't go through and support told me I had to send it to... I think it was England to have it fixed.

And so it came this year, another expiration of the two-year contract. I was only waiting for this date again. To find out I'm no longer eligible for a phone discount after trying again to lower my monthly fee. 😆
But I really couldn't continue using the old Huawei anymore. So the only way to buy a phone this time was with Steem. And so it happened.

I chose several months and carefully. Such a purchase is no longer easily made on my end.
I had to deal with a lot of things. First I had to settle on a brand. After being so disappointed with this supposedly so famous European brand Nokia, it is now clear that I will never buy a phone from them.
I've always wanted to buy an iPhone. But let's not get so carried away, I can't buy anything at the moment. After the iPhone, I dreamed of a Pixel because it's also a nice phone, more affordable, but still impossible. That's why I settled on Samsung. I have had several of these over the years and have always been very satisfied. All of them still work, but yes, they are unusable in today's conditions and requirements.

Then I had to choose a model. First I was going to get the cheapest, or one of the cheapest. But it was this acquaintance of mine with the damaged S-class at Samsung, as I call it, that she took it this time and then said that it is not good, that its camera is terrible, etc. That's why I gave up on this almost cheapest variant of the Galaxy series - A15.
The following options are not many - exactly two. I was left to choose between A25 and A34, as the difference in their price is 40 BGN. That is, in principle, I should buy A25, but I said to myself, ok, the difference is 40 BGN, why not take A34? It is older, the version of android is 13, but in general it turns out to be better than the other one, which is newer, android 14, but still, cheaper.
Still, it wasn't an easy decision, despite the limited selection.

Then I had to decide where to get it. Overall, it is still very dangerous to shop for appliances from online stores. There is always the possibility that the phone is second hand, or just low quality, as I once told you about a site people asked: Are the phones sold there durable? (whatever that means) It actually means that low quality products are often sold in Bulgaria, I don't know how exactly they manage to achieve that. But in short, one can have big problems buying something on the internet if one is unlucky.

My friend bought her A15 from a large chain of stores selling consumer electronics and paid BGN 55 more than the price I found on a website. But she told me this - I don't want to risk it, I prefer to hold it in my hand, choose it myself, get it, rather than take the risk of online shopping. And so I too, considering the situation, decided not to take that risk either. Before I talked to her, I was more inclined to do it, but after that, not anymore. And so I also paid BGN 55 more than the cheapest online store, namely BGN 480 or 245.42 euros or 266.05 dollars.

Thus ended another not particularly pleasant task in my oh-so-boring daily life. Oh yeah, I also bought a cute clear case for this so-girly phone. I bought the case in a fake iPhone case packaging in a phone shop in the center of a regional town, which even sold phones for almost BGN 2,000/€1,022/$1,108, but there was no option to pay by card. 😂 Well, the case cost only BGN 15, therefore, adding it to the phone, its price is currently BGN 495, almost 500.

I really hope it's "durable" and that I can use it for years so I don't have to go through the same process again. Not even after the next two years.
That is.

Thank you for your time! Copyright:	@soulsdetour
	Soul's Detour is a project started by me years ago when I had a blog about historical and not so popular tourist destinations in Eastern Belgium, West Germany and Luxembourg. Nowadays, this blog no longer exists, but I'm still here - passionate about architecture, art and mysteries and eager to share my discoveries and point of view with you.

Personally, I am a sensitive soul with a strong sense of justice.
Traveling and photography are my greatest passions.
Sounds trivial to you?
No, it's not trivial. Because I still love to travel to not so famous destinations.🗺️
Of course, the current situation does not allow me to do this, but I still find a way to satisfy my hunger for knowledge, new places, beauty and art.
Sometimes you can find the most amazing things even in the backyard of your house.😊🧐🧭|