I have had two mobile phones at the same time for years. One is my work number. The other one is my personal one. It is been that way ever since work stopped letting me expense my own number and required you to have your number on their shared account for at least 10 years or so. In the US I had concerns about moving my personal number to my work account. What if I left and I wanted my number back? Our human resources Department was actually very cool and had said you can absolutely have your number back. Only in rare situations (not a scenario I fell into) would there be a question of not allowing it. In any event I felt more comfortable keeping my personal number separate so I had my work phone and I had my personal phone.
When I got to the UK I could have simply got only a work phone. I didn’t have any history of a number that I have been tied to. In the end I got my own personal one for the same reasons I had one in the States. I wanted one separate from Work. In the UK it is significantly cheaper to do this. My personal phone SIM costs me 13 pounds for more data and minutes than I ever remotely use. In the US that same plan would cost 75-100 dollars.
The phone I use for work has varied greatly. It is generally my second phone. That means it is never a high end one. It has been everything from vanity of Android to an iPhone SE, the original. The SE is what came standard with the contract in the UK. The screen is frankly just too small for me. I find that funny since for years that was the standard size of an iPhone screen. I had many different iPhones of that screen size and didn’t like the size however got by ok. I guess age just catches up to you. Since the phone that came with the contract was virtually useless to me I used the SIM card to experiment with different phones. When are travelled internationally a bit in the summer of 2019 I bought an Android phone and they did dual SIM cards and used the Work SIM with it. I found that the very big sized screen of the android phone I was using specially as a second device made it useful for me. I didn’t always keep in my pocket so even though was bigger than my regular iPhone 11 pro it didn’t matter. I have written about my issues with the Android phone and why I sold it in another post. With that phone gone however I was back to either using the iPhone SE or an iPhone 6 that I had from the states. Neither option had a lot of storage. 32gb on an iPhone is basically unusable in my opinion now a days. To compensate for the poor storage and small screen of the SE I splurged for a used iPhone 7+. The screen size was nice. It was better than the 6 or SE I had. It just wasn’t bigger than my iPhone 11 Pro that I used for personal use. The physical size of the 7+ was bigger than the 11 Pro. That made it an oddity. The screen was smaller yet the size was bigger. The screen was nicer and the storage was better than the other options I had. I still found no value in carrying it around and left it in my bag for when I need it.
Even before the lockdown I had thought about using a tablet as a quasi phone. It was a good idea I never really did anything about it. During the lockdown I obviously did not really leave the house very much. I ended up using my iPad Mini 4 as a sort of phone replacement. In many use cases at least around the house the iPad mini was a pretty good phone replacement. I couldn’t keep it in my pocket all the time yet it was nearby most of the time. One challenge was that the iPad mini 4 was starting to see its age in performance. Before the mini 4 was being used as a sort of phone replacement I had meant to sell it on eBay anyway. My using it and feeling its limitations compelled me to sell the mini 4 on eBay and and upgrade to an ipad mini 5.
Sometime after getting my new iPad mini I moved my work SIM card to it. I have been using the mini basically as my second phone. Even though I can’t put it in my pocket (it is a bit big for that) I can carry around and even put it in my jacket pocket of some jackets. If I am out of the house for more than a brief trip to the market I usually have my backpack or messenger bag with me that I can easily put it in. I am finding the much larger screen size to be great.
Except for WhatsApp I think I can do pretty much everything on the tablet that I do on my phone. All my work apps work perfectly well and I take advantage of the bigger screen. I can make calls using FaceTime audio, Signal or Bria for voip calls using my US number. Let’s face I do not make many regular phone calls these days. Even if I need to I can use FaceTime tethering to my iPhone for that anyway.
I may end up needing to put the work SIM card into a real phone at some point in the future. I am not really sure. I am hoping not. The iPad mini isn’t perfect. I still use my phone more in the house since it in my pocket. I also use my iPad Pro more as a sort of computer replacement around the house. When I need to run out for short periods of time or even just to sit here and dictate this blog entry using the iPad mini is just right.