[Off-topic] Pennycake:
I use less than 100 minutes a month and now make less than 100 texts a month - so a "dumb phone" isn't very useful to me - more like something I carry around for an emergency that takes up space.

Now that I have data, I don't need the texts since I can use IM+ for the people I was formerly texting over 1000 times a month. That's not all that different, sure - but now I can easily access the people who aren't texting, but who are at their computers sending IMs.

The use of a smartphone isn't solely in communication - but in everything else it can do. Navigation is a big one - many times I'm out and need to know where something is. Formerly I'd have to put it off for another day, ask someone at a gas station, or call a friend and hope they could go to their computer and find out for me. Now I don't have to bother anyone and I'll never be over an hour late for the opera again.

I had to go to my friend's parents' house - somewhere I'd never been, in a part of the city I rarely go, and it was so much easier for me to just get the address from them and have the phone navigate than to try to keep them on the phone and give me a turn-by-turn - when they might not even know all the streets from here to there.

I don't have to try to plan eBay auctions based on when I'll be home.

I don't need to carry an iPod any more since I can put all the music I might want on my SD card. I was resistant to switch to an MP3 player in the first place. But then I realised that if I had one, I didn't have to pick which CDs I was going to bring with me that day - I could literally have them ALL with me in a tiny package.

My phone screen is big enough to watch a movie on while I'm waiting or on a plane or something. It's not the best, but much better than my iPod classic screen. The iPod Touch is nice enough, but at that point why not just get a phone that can do it all instead of carrying two things ?

With Astrid I don't need to constantly remember all the silly little things I need to do. I can keep a schedule much better now. I know that on Mondays I want to feed my lizard fruit for variety - and I can see that in my phone and know to stop by the store on my way home from work. I used the calendar on my dumb-phone, but this is a whole new level of being able to keep track of things easily. I have ADD and not having to constantly remind myself not to forget things, my phone can remember for me. That way I can use my brain for things that really matter, instead of repeating "pick up strawberries" to myself all day.

I used the calendar on my dumb-phone, but this is even better. Very easy access to my work schedule. And setting an alarm is incredibly simple. I've been using my mobile phone as an alarm clock since I've had one since it's been more reliable to me than one plugged into a wall. This makes things even easier - if I have a set alarm, it will remember that ever Wednesday I need to be up at 4:00pm (I work nights and I wouldn't have it any other way) or whatever.

I can use my bank's mobile app to deposit a check. I have literally been to the bank ONCE since I've gotten this phone, where formerly I had to go quite out of my way and it would sometimes take me over a week to get there after getting a paycheque. That one time was because I wanted to get my account number because I'd lost (well, not out of the house, but you know) the little card they'd written it on before.

It's more than a phone, it's a management device that also consolidates many physical objects like maps, planners, iPods, whatever. I even use it as a wallet fairly often now thanks to Google Wallet.

And of course, all the silly little things. I used it three times in the past day to look up an actors while we were watching a movie or whatever.