New Phone Lacking One Week Later

Things change so fast sometimes. You get a new phone – shiny!Then something else new happens. It smudges your phone’s dazzle with greasy fingerprints. Bummer. Then you shrug your shoulders. If only…

It was a sunny day. After waiting for months, the new Android smartphone I wanted was released to the public, so I finally bought it at my local Best Buy.

One week later, it wasn’t enough.

I knew the feature-set beforehand. Previews of the Moto G Power told me what I’d be getting myself into. And I wanted in – despite the phone’s lack of NFC. That didn’t matter to me at the time.

Near Field Communication (NFC) is a wireless technology that lets your device talk to other nearby devices. It works like scanning grocery barcodes at the supermarket. No need to fumble for cash, swipe a debit card, or type a PIN code. To buy your broccoli and ice cream, just wave your phone over a scanner. Like Star Trek.

NFC in your smartphone is about convenience. Your phone becomes your wallet. Apple, Google, Samsung, and others make phones with digital wallet apps so payments are easier to carry out and manage.

My previous iPhone 7 has NFC built-in; I never once used it! Why? Because my local bank didn’t support mobile payments.

Until a week after I bought my new Android phone lacking NFC!

I kid you not. While playing with my shiny new phone, I noticed an unread message in my Gmail app. It was from my bank. Some kind of announcement. What’s that? They now support mobile payments! But…are you kidding me!?

To rub it in my face, what did I see later that same week while driving my car down the road? There, on the left, a small billboard with a new advertisement. My local bank’s logo and name. It says they now support Apple Pay and Google Pay!

Fantastic! Oh wait. My new phone can’t do that. I slouched, a small frown on my face.

If I had known this a week or two earlier, would I have suddenly decided to not buy the phone I’d eagerly anticipated? Maybe. I would have definitely reconsidered.

The convenience and futuristic tech-trick of paying for stuff with a wave of my phone is too cool for a geek like me to pass up. I’ve already enjoyed the quick and easy ability to buy things in apps on my phone using Google Pay – since my bank finally made it possible for me.

I can only dream of how nice it would be to glide my phone through the air to pay for a bag of tortilla chips and a jar of salsa.

Until I buy my next smartphone; it’s gonna have NFC.