Do you bother with custom ringtones on your smartphone?

Not so long ago (at least, what’s a few decades between friends?), there was no higher form of mobile phone personalization than customization. ring. In the space of just a few years, we went from simple blips and bloops, to polyphonic entertainment that was at least recognizable as actual songs, to straight-up MP3 ringtones. After climbing that mountain… we just move on?

At the very least, ringtones are no longer the status symbols they once were, a shift undoubtedly accelerated by the shift to text-based methods for much of our communication (who knew having an actual, usable keyboard interface could be such a game) -Changer? But while we may be getting a lot fewer calls than we used to, that doesn’t mean we’re compromised when it comes to ringtone options—if anything, you now have more and better options with flip phones than before.

Realistically, it probably depends on how much of a voice calling user you still are, and how much effort you really want to put into keeping your phone fun. If you take the time, you can browse through all your contacts and assign them personalized ringtones, so you know exactly who’s calling when you hear the first few notes. Or, you could update your phone for the season and change your ringtone to some holiday music.

Ultimately, there’s no wrong way to do it. You probably have some of your favorites among the built-in ringtones on your phone, so why go to more trouble if one of these simple options works for you? If you do want to go the custom route, there are basically no limits, if you can imagine it, you can make it happen.

So what will happen to you? Are you still as enthusiastic about ringtones now as you were when you first learned to play Snake on your Nokia 3110? When setting up a new phone, do you still take the time to choose a good phone, but rarely revisit that choice? There are probably as many ways to use ringtones as there are ringtones themselves, so keep reading our review and let us know your own relationship with them.