Thanks Vodafone for Breathing Life Back Into my Samsung Galaxy Ace Phone Camera

I am a member of the Collective Bias® Social Fabric® Community. This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper amplification for Collective Bias, Samsung and Vodafone.

Truth be told we are a bit of a Samsung family; me with my Galaxy Ace Samsung smart phone and the husband with whichever Samsung it is he has. We also have a beautiful Samsung Smart TV. There are certain brands which you build up a loyalty to. I have a few in my life and Samsung's definitely one of them.

Once you get a "smart" phone you never look back really, especially as a blogger, as it suddenly means you can be a social media Goddess even whilst on the run (alas haven't been one of them for a long time). Once a smartphone is part of your life gone are the days of only being on Twitter whilst at home at the laptop. Gone are the days of missing a convo while in the kitchen putting on the kettle... I used to run a successful linky called Mumentum, and we used to have many a chat running on Twitter. Those were the days pre-smartphone and I'd always miss a lively bit if I left the room. Thankfully they were also the days (I think if memory serves me right) when Aaron would be breastfeeding on my lap, so being tied to the sofa was no problem as it gave me laptop time.

When I chose my Samsung smart phone (it was Summer 2011 I think) I spent over an hour in the shop and my priority at the time was that it could take good photos. I was delighted with my choice. This post about Table Table's Ultimate Sharing Sundae was very popular (1,062 views and that was back in 2012 when my blog wasn't nearly as successful as it is now - now you know why so many parent bloggers become food bloggers as that is where the stats are) and shows what the phone's camera can do! See, mouth watering right:

What is amazing about the camera phone is that it creates the above quality of photo without creating a large file size (hence my old memory card having 7k photos on it) ... amazing! My camera takes great photos but they are like 3MB each! Whereas the camera phone photos are like 10% of that yet as above, still more than adequate for tweeting and blogging.

When you have a camera on your phone you can take nutty spontaneous photos like this to tweet out immediately:

But then boom, my memory card got full, and worse still BOOM, the photo shop I took it to, who said they could burn a disc for me, encountered an error when trying to do so. They knew burning the disc would take a while so sent me and Aaron to Sainsburys, but when I returned, it was to disappointment. I have kept my memory card on the dining table ever since - it has a precious 7k photos on it!!!!!!!!! Which equates to a whole heap of precious memories! One day I need to sort it out, as I can't say goodbye to all of the awesome photos on there. One whole holiday in Ireland is captured on there for example. I remember before Aaron discovered you tube his favourite thing by far was to scroll through the photos on my phone.

That's another thing, when you are out and about you can show phone photos to people when discussing something, but that's alot less likely with your camera, as chances are, you've already deleted them and downloaded them, to make space for more given their large file size.

I used to be one of those people who took photos with the phone and/or the camera! It gives GREAT flexibility when the camera memory card is full, or worse still the camera is not charged, if you have a camera phone with you! Choosing phone obviously, if wanting to do picture messages or to Tweet them (alas, no memory card in phone has meant I have not "live" tweeted a pic since JANUARY 2013)!

We were in an amazing park the other day and Aaron and Daddy were climbing on these walls covered in graffiti. The camera wasn't charged, so I used my Sony Bloggie. When showing them to Aaron in the car on the way home, being unfamiliar with it, he deleted them all by mistake.

It's sad, as I used to be able to run G+, Twitter, Facebook and photos on my phone when I had a functioning memory card...... 

You're not really an attractive proposition at a blogging event if you are not live tweeting whilst there. I felt a bit daft at the Tesco finest* event and the Wagamama event when all of my peers were tweeting out photos and I wasn't. Same last year when I was at BritMums Live and Mumsnet Blogfest. You are a bit more present though, if you are not busy tweeting, so that was my comfort.

Off I went Sunday to Vodafone to get a memory card to breathe life back into my phone!

Little did I know they wouldn't have any in stock. Despite working in retail throughout my career (my last few roles in Head Office environments) I have never been a person to phone ahead to check that the shop has what I want in stock. Lesson learned now though.

The only preparation I did was to go on the site to find my nearest Vodafone store. 

Despite not having what I wanted in store the staff member who served me was incredibly helpful and showed me the memory cards online, assuring me that their site was transactional. The minute I arrived home I ordered it before even putting on the kettle. An 8GB pre-formatted plug and play micro SD card for my phone!

It arrived Tuesday, but alas I did not hear the door, so had to contact their courier DPD to request an a.m. delivery today. They were incredibly helpful and rescued me! It arrived at 08:30 this morning :-) It's beautifully packaged:

Just discovered that you can download here a user manual for the Samsung Galaxy Ace and it says:

› Format the memory cardFormatting your memory card on a PC may cause incompatibilities with your device. Format the memory card only on the device.

That above is clearly what caused the problem with my previous memory card and is why she could not burn a disc for me, as I had put the card in my computer to view phone photos (I think to tweet them) once I no longer could as the memory card was full!

Thankfully the Vodafone one is "plug and play" ready to go, and already formatted. I will be very careful with THIS one and will not put it in my computer!

It did indeed plug and play and within a matter of seconds I was installing twitter on my phone (welcome back!) followed closely by Google+. I am not currently in the mood to have Facebook on my phone. These were my 1st two excited PHONE tweets:

So the next time I have insomnia (which thankfully isn't too often) I will be back to middle of the night tweeting like the old days. That used to be my most fun time on Twitter as you would discover who else was also still awake. There'd be no "Mum" tweets in your timeline, but the second you would send one, you'd get at least 4-5 replies from other Mums delighted that they weren't the only one still awake. That was one of the things I missed the most about Twitter when I no longer had it on my phone. Hopefully it'll be great craic being armed and dangerous with my new memory'd up phone (being a dinosaur of a phone - nearly 3 years is a LONG time in phone years) as the internal memory (without a memory card) is shite on my phone. It will suffice for now though. I am a happy girl but why did it take me so long!?? It took doing this #CollectiveBias shop for me to sort my life out!

It was great today getting back to my old habit of taking spontaneous photos on the phone:

It looks like Aaron is scooting towards that moody sky! Love it!

Today I have discovered via that Samsung user manual (linked to above) that my phone can cope with a 32 GB card so I think that may be what I get next time. Truth be told my Samsung Galaxy Ace is a bit of a dinosaur and this "shop" has taught me that there are many flashier versions now on the market:

But...... as a stay at home mum I am currently frugal and on a tight budget so as soon as I had spent 24 months paying for my phone via a monthly contract, I called my network last Summer and asked to go Sim only. Yes it means I did not get a "free" upgrade but it means my bill is only 6.50 GBP a month (it's been nearly a year and I do NOT regulary go over, so including VAT my monthly bill is normally under 10 pounds). You see, nearly 3 years on and I still love my Samsung (even more now today with its new lease of life) I don't currently feel the need for an upgrade. I say that less sincerely having today seen what is available - I will keep that wish on the long finger for now... But, thanks to Aaron watching You Tube on my phone, it does get taken through its paces, so it is only a matter of time!

I can probably list on one hand how many phones I have had since my first one in 1996. First I was a Motorola girl, then it was Nokia all the way, to today where I am strictly a Samsung girl. I find my Samsung incredibly intuitive to use. It's my first touch screen phone and that was easier to get used to than I expected. Scary at first and totally normal within days!