It seems that every teenager, most adults and some children have cell phones today. You go to any event and you will see people with cell phone taking pictures or texting their friends about what they are seeing or about nothing at all. Cell phones used to be black or silver but now you can get a cover for anything and everything under the sun for your cell phone. It might be a animal skin look or your favorite sports team or college or you could settle for a simple plain color cover. You can buy many different cases for you phone with the same choices as the phone cover. In some foreign countries you will see cell phoned decorated with charms. These range from the size of a standard charm to the size of a key fob. When I was visiting South Korea, I saw many cell phones with these charms and I would ask about them and there was usually a story behind the charm. It was a way of making the phone more personal. I have seen a few in the US with these charms so I assume they too will be catching on in this country. According to some sources the biggest new industry for cell phones(estimated at 2 Billion dollars a year and growing) is that of ring tones. You can download different ring tones for different people.  You could have a love song for your wife and something different for you boss.  Many people will select popular songs as ring tones while other may select a voice to announce the call.  With new technology phones are getting smaller and more advanced with more features being added every day.

I remember, as a child, reading the comic strip Dick Tracy. Dick Tracy had a friend Adam Smith, I believe, who had a high tech company and had all kinds of cool gadgets. What the strips creator was envisioning is now a reality and going way beyond what even he though up. The trade mark of Dick Tracy was the wrist radio/walkie talkie. In later years it became a video walkie talkie with a midget TV included in it. Today all these things are in you cell phone along with a camera that would be the envy of James Bond and an MP3 player. With the more advanced phones you can access the Internet, have an organizer and have a mini computer in your hand. Just think of the crimes Dick Tracy could have solved with today's cell phone.

All of these new accessories and extras that have been added to the cell phone along with all the glamour and glitz, it is still a phone. This phone, to be mobile, requires a battery and the battery has to be recharged. Now you know the must have accessory for every cell phone - the charger. With out the charger the phone is just a fancy toy. The charger is usually a plane black unit with a plug in at one end and a small connector at the other end. It is included with every cell phone sold and the one you had for your last phone will not work with your new phone. In my family we have 5 cell phones and there are usually only 2 that share the same kind of charger. One of the first things I do is purchase an extra charger and a car adapter for the phone I have. At one time all the phones used the same battery so when my wife or daughter used up the charge and forget their charger when traveling I was able to swap out batteries and recharge their battery even though we had different phone chargers.

Many things can happen to the phone and you can still use it. If the camera goes the phone still works, the case breaks and you can repair it with Duck Tape. You could lose your fancy ring tones and the phone will still work. But without the charger when the battery loses it charge, no matter how much you paid for the phone or how many fancy gadgets you have on it, it will not work without the lowly battery charger - which makes it the most important accessory you can have and you probably should have an extra one just in case you leave it at your friends house, that you were visiting, across the country last weekend.