＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:https://skawa68.com/
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49）さん / X
At the end of April 2017, I switched from the AU “feature phone” I had been using for many years to a “smartphone.”
My wife had switched to an AU “Android” smartphone a few years ago, and had been thinking about changing to a different model, so she suggested that we both switch to a new smartphone.
I too have noticed recently that “feature phones” are almost nonexistent in mobile phone stores, and I felt that when I wanted to change my phone model, I had no choice but to get a smartphone, so I decided to take the plunge and switch to a smartphone.
1. Compared to my wife’s smartphone, the battery drains “abnormally fast”
Immediately after purchasing it, even though I haven’t been browsing the Internet much, the battery has been almost completely depleted in a day. My wife often watches YouTube, but I only browse the news a little on the Internet and send “calls to come home” emails, but the battery is drained abnormally fast and it takes about three hours to fully charge it.
2. Request an exchange at an AU shop
The smartphone I purchased is the same model as my wife’s, a Sharp BASIO2, but the battery drained quickly from the start, so I thought it might be a defective product and asked them to exchange it.
The staff at the AU shop did a quick inspection and was able to charge the battery, so they said, “Please keep an eye on it for a little longer. Please come back and let us know if you need anything else.”
As for “exchange,” I was told that they would exchange the product anytime if I paid 3,000 yen, but I declined because “it is not right to pay an additional 3,000 yen if the new product I purchased is defective, even though the buyer is not at fault in any way.
I asked the same question several times, but received the same response. Since I am a “smartphone beginner” to begin with, I thought, “Even if I don’t use my smartphone, the battery often runs out, so if it’s only this much, I guess it’s not abnormal,” and left it as it was.
3. Turn off my Wi-Fi at night
An au shop assistant suggested that “if Wi-Fi is on, it may respond even at night and drain the battery,” so I tried to turn off Wi-Fi at night. Later, because I thought that my smartphone would not receive any calls at night, I decided to “power off” it to reduce battery drain.
4. Power cut during the day
Even so, I tried to keep the power off during the day to reduce battery consumption. However, I thought there was no point in having a smartphone like this, but I had no choice but to turn it on only when I wanted to call home.
5. The battery ran out overnight even though it was fully charged
One night in December 2018, I fully charged it and didn’t use it at all overnight, but the next morning the battery was completely dead.
6. Go to an AU shop for advice
This was clearly an abnormality, and I thought maybe the battery was defective from the start, so I went to an AU shop to ask for advice.
The clerk who dealt with me this time seemed to be a veteran and took the time to listen to my situation. The “free warranty period” of the insurance attached to the phone is one year, which has already passed, but after coming to the store several times to discuss the situation, they decided to send the phone to the manufacturer for “free repair” taking into consideration the fact that I was told to “wait and see.
7. Caused by a power circuit failure
After a “comprehensive inspection” by the manufacturer, it was found that the “power supply circuit (the part that stabilizes the electricity) was broken,” so they replaced the “board (all integrated circuit components inside).” The “battery” was found to be “normal.”
8. Dissatisfaction with the initial response from AU Shop
The store is always crowded and it’s normal to have to wait about 30 minutes, so the staff serving customers may be feeling like they want to get rid of them quickly.
However, I think the AU shop staff should have been a bit more considerate in offering advice to a “smartphone beginner” “early elderly person” like me from the start, and should have immediately “requested a free repair from the manufacturer.”
If I had done that, I probably wouldn’t have had to take such a detour or do the pointless thing of turning off the power at night or during the day.
9. Antivirus software was not installed
When I picked up the repaired smartphone, I was told that if I canceled the ‘au Smart Pass’ special contract, my monthly fee would be reduced by about 500 yen, so I asked what disadvantages I would encounter if I canceled ‘au Smart Pass’.
The salesperson said, “If you have an au Smart Pass, you can install Virus Buster software for free.” So I asked, “You don’t have any virus software installed right now?”
It was careless of me to assume that AU had installed comprehensive antivirus software on smartphones, but there was no antivirus software installed. My smartphone was completely defenseless. So, I decided to continue with the special contract for Virus Buster software and had the store clerk install it for me.
However, I am disappointed that if AU was going to set up the “au Smart Pass” special contract, they did not the Virus Buster software to be installed at the very beginning.
Although this may be obvious to “professionals” such as AU shop staff who are used to using smartphones, “smartphone beginners” have no idea, so I hope that they will keep this point in mind when dealing with this issue in the future.
This is by no means “customer harassment.” As a smartphone newbie, I suffered great harm due to the dishonest and inappropriate initial response from the AU shop.
My wife’s smartphone was also unprotected, so I later had her install Virus Buster software, just like mine.