JUDGING A BOOK BY ITS COVER

 Regular readers will know that I took a trailer load of rubbish to the tip yesterday.

In fact, two of the readers were so impressed they posted favourable comments on the post that I wrote about it:

Not so impressed though was a shop assistant in the Harvey Norman shop who attempted to ignore me when I called in after doing the tip run. In the large and confusingly laid out shop I looked about for Apple products, particularly iPhones. The guy saw me but pretended not to as I was wearing my tatty 'going to the tip' clothes and, admittedly, might have been a bit grubby. I saw him and approached and asked where the iPhones were. He vaguely indicated 'over there' and walked away.

I went to look at the phones but saw that they only had the iPhone 15 at a ridiculously high price, I'm looking for an iPhone 14 at a ridiculously low price so wasn't interested.

Anyway, even if they did have what I wanted I decided that there was no way I was giving them my money given the 'judging a book by the cover' attitude the guy displayed. I left the store.

I do want to buy a new phone as my iPhone 8 is giving some battery problems and, being small, is hard to use for anything beyond telephoning and texting. The iPhone 15 though doesn't offer me, with my low usage requirements, enough improvements over the iPhone 14 to justify the significantly extra cost.

After buying a few items at the supermarket on the way home (they willingly took my money) I called in to the nearby Noel Leeming store. A very helpful assistant (I always enjoy great service at this store) led me through the iPhone offerings (a greater range than the other store had) pointing out the differences between the various iPhone 14 models and the iPhone 15 ones. She explained the GB ratings and what they meant in relation to usage. She accessed my phone which showed a 256GB capability but that I still had 237GB available showing that I don't use it a lot. This meant that I certainly didn't need the higher rating phones and could even make do with a lesser rated one. She told me that iPhone 16 would be released soon and that then the iPhone 15 would be reduced in price making it a good deal and to be recommended. I thanked her and said I'd talk to the boss - my boss The Old Girl.

I will consider the iPhone 15 now and will keep an eye on the prices.

I've looked a lot at on-line offerings for new and refurbished phones but, as I've been gypped before (Dick Smiths for the current phone I have) I'm wary of these. Every time I find an attractive offer from a purportedly NZ supplier I do a background check via Google and discover that they are either not a NZ company and goods will come from overseas or that there are too many bad reviews about them. I think that I'll stick with the official Apple store or with Noel Leeming and buy new with manufacturer guarantees.