Are we being had?

Thank you, phone, for reminding me what I was going to do next.

Post something about mobile phone Wi-Fi. Ok, so the mobile phone manufacturers finally caught on that smartphones are not so smart. In fact, they're f***ing dumb.

But now we all need them.

First of all they learned, through their customers, that the gateway to a liberated lifestyle kept trashing the battery. Without a charged battery, a phone is just weight to carry around.

It seems the battery designers and manufacturers couldn't keep up with the imagination and advertising of the phone manufacturers.

But help was at hand, in that muddling-through way.

One of the biggest drains on the battery was the WiFi radio stuff.

Radio is a great idea until everybody thinks it's a great idea, then it has to compete.

Throw in buildings, walls, compact electronics in the same square centimetre and you have lots of things that get in the way of radio signals.

But we have to increase battery life. It's beginning to embarrass the smartphone.

So they reduced the power available to WiFi radio.

Now I have to stand on top of the router to get a signal.

The other phone has a dead battery.

Oh, yes. Integral batteries.

Dead battery? New phone.

Why?

Does it feel like we're being had?

Last phone lasted about 20 months. Dead battery (£350).

This phone doesn't pick up WiFi (200€).

Are we being had?

The worst thing is, my partner and I have based our individual world-prowling life on promised connectivity.

It's not going well.

Really. Are we being had?