There are people that are not tech savvy, and most often, if they want to buy a gadget of sorts, they will want to seek for advice on the best gadget to buy that will suit their lifestyle.
If you've ever had the opportunity to attend to such kind of persons, then you will agree with me that it is just plain hard work, trying to explain to them how stuff works in the tech world.
They will try to bug you with all sorts of silly questions and you will be like... Where the hell has this fellow been when things were changing in this fast changing world?.
Let me tell you from my experience. One of my neighbor, whose wife got admission to one of Nigeria University, came to me to seek my advice on whether to buy a laptop or an iPad for his wife. I told him that since she is a student, it will be good for him to get her a laptop because that will be more productive in the long run, then he told me that if not because of my advice, he would have bought the iPad for her because somebody wanted to sell it for him at the rate of N10,000, I said what?, that is impossible and he said he is serious about it, that if I doubt, he will even bring it for me to see, and I told him to bring it so I can see it. The following day, he brought a very archaic "chinko" tablet, the type that use 10 Nokia battery lol.
I told him that this is not iPad, this is Chinese tablet, no SIM slot, no 3G, 500mb ROM and 250mb of RAM. He said, but the guy is using it to watch movies. And I asked him if his wife is going to cinema or school.
After some days, he came to me and said, he'd gotten a laptop that someone wants to sell it for N15,000 and I said he should bring it let me see. As usual, he brought a very old chinese laptop (The brand name I can't even remember).
I checked the spec of the system though it is also a 'chinko' laptop, I told him that she can manage it since the system is okay, with 120gb HDD and 2gig RAM.
Now, the next thing he asked is, how she can be browsing with the system, I told him that he will need to buy either a modem or a Smartphone with Hotspot functionality, so she can be tethering via Hotspot. And he asked me which one do I suggest? Then I told him that he should go for the phone because, at least apart using it for Hotspot, she can also be using it to browse and make calls.
One certain morning, he came to me and told me that he'd bought the phone and I said wow that's cool so I said let me have a look at the phone, lo and behold another 'chinko' phone, I wasn't disappointed because I know what the man can do, no 3G, 250 RAM, 500mb ROM.
I asked him how much he bought it and he said N4,500, I told him that browsing will be a lot difficult in this phone because there's no 3G, which means it's going to be very slow. He said she can manage it like that.
The next thing is to load the phone and subscribe for a data plan. Before then, he told me that I should download all the things I know his wife will need in the course of her studies. In my mind, I was thinking of downloading Chrome browser, PDF reader, Antivirus and maybe one or two other apps which will use up to 280-300mb.
So I told him that we will need to subscribe for a data plan before she will start browsing with it. He didn't ask me any question, he just said, 'OK I'm coming'. The next thing is for me to see the man with N100 MTN recharge card, he told me that I should use it for the subscription. I'd wanted to laugh, but I managed to control myself. I told him that, Sir, this cannot even open 7 Web pages and he said "nooo, there's 10mb free that MTN gave inside the sim card o". If you add it to the N100 it will be enough. I said Sir, we're talking about 300mb here not 10 or 20mb, he said so like how much is that going to cost? I told him N1000 will give us 300mb and the man shouted "one what? For only megabyte? Shey na megabyte go make my wife pass her exams?. This is bullshit I no do again. He told the wife to go and use the laptop like that without internet.
