An Ode to Landlines and Desk Phones [Lifechanger]

Earlier this year, after almost a decade of exclusively using cellphones, I installed a landline and got myself a batphone. It’s been fantastic.

With Google Voice, there’s no more of that ” call me on my landline, I’m at home,” or ” hey I’m running out, let me call you back on the cellphone.” I will be able to easily make that decision by answering incoming calls on the phone I would like to chat on, because Google Voice rings all my phones together. Oh, and with Google Voice, you will get away with having only local (and not long distance) service, because even your outgoing calls originate with an incoming call.

Not only that, having a landline actually makes Google Voice work better. GV users are all acquainted with the slight voice delay added when facing Google’s pipes, so you regularly get awkward conversations where people talk on top of one another because the natural talk-silence-talk rhythm is thrown off. When delays are measured with milliseconds, having a landline helps reduce that latency issue drastically.

So having a landline is excellent for call quality and such, but that’s only half the convenience. The alternative half? Having the ability to use a desk phone.

I’m not talking about a posh wireless DECT phone, I mean a solid, old time phone. The type they sell on rotarydialphones.com and redhotphones and other sites that dedicate themselves to salvaging older gear. The type of phone that existed inside the ’50s and ’60s and were reconditioned. Old Western Electrics-things that were solid and weighty and gave you gravitas once you had a conversation.

This isn’t virtually looks, that’s also the manner that these phones were made. They were heavy, but not too heavy to be uncomfortable. They fit your face. That you can hold the phone by its grip, or by the bottom, in case you were having a more serious conversation, or pressed up against your shoulder, when you were making dinner. I don’t know what it was in regards to the design, but a corded handset feels marvelously better pressed up against your face than a cellphone.

I love cellphones-no doubt. And hell, you can also recreate the conventional handset experience easily. I’m just saying that there’s a lot of benefits in sticking with technology that’s been around for approximately a century. When the president gets woken up to respond to the 3AM phone call, he doesn’t answer it together with his cellphone, he answers it at his desk.

Imagery by Sam Spratt. Check up on Sam’s portfolio and become partial to his Facebook Artist’s Page.

Image credit Wikipedia

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This post is tagged: Desk, landlines, Lifechanger, ode, Phones