jr conlin's ink stained banana

i have mixed feelings about phones in general. i fought against having one up until i pretty much didn't have a choice in the matter, and signed up for my first sometime in 1998. i've had the same number since then (which kinda speaks volumes about my general inertia when it comes to cell devices).

i suppose the biggest problem i tend to have with these things is the fact that you get a very expensive device, and are immediately goat-roped into a two year contract where you're pretty much stuck with it. That and the fact that most devices really weren't that good. There were a few reasonable starts (e.g. the Treo), but even those were plagued with weird issues that made them less useful than you'd prefer.

The last phone i had was pretty much a placeholder, a Helio Ocean. Bought with the clear knowledge that Helio was not long for this world, but figured i could use them to park my number for a while. Sure enough, it worked.

The modern world awaits me
So, in this world of modern devices, i had a choice. Apple, Windows or Android. Apple was out because my iPod Touch told me that their devices can be more than a little flakey and far more locked down than i'd prefer. Windows devices were out as well, mostly because they seem to be kind of stuck at the moment. Blackberry was definitely out because of my experiences with a work issued 8830.

That left Android, which meant either going with T-Mobile and getting the official Google Phone or someone else. As fate would have it, HTC released their latest Android just at the time i needed to move off of Helio Virgin Mobile Sprint. Thus the new toy.

Droiding Up
Having not really messed about much with Android before, i have to admit that it's pretty darn useful. The interface is fairly clean with only a few minor nits (e.g. i'd love to be able to "wake" the phone by pressing the optical mouse button rather than the top "power" button, and the practically sucks oils out of your fingers, but otherwise, it's a darn spiffy phone. i won't go into details about function and performance, since there are enough online reviews. No, this is about basically me using the thing.

First off, let me note that i have absolutely no problem with Verizon wireless customer support. They have been pretty top notch, including calling me on a Sunday to make sure that there wasn't a problem on their end transferring the numbers. On the opposite side of that is helio virgin wireless Sprint, which apparently not only things to be perfect, but also require you to swing the chicken at precisely 5° off access at 58.871 RPM, clockwise, so no, i still can't get calls with this phone. (i can make 'em just fine.)

The other important thing to note is that it's a really good idea not to have a slew of widgets running. Those seem to do really bad things to your battery (which is no real surprise when you think about it).

As for things running on the phone, they're all damn slick. Far slicker than i expected them to be, frankly. The browser renders damn fast and fairly accurately, and most of other programs also don't always look like they were roughly hewn from freshly forged java. The HTC music client is crap since it doesn't recognize all MP3s, but it's easy to replace that with other players. Heck, even spending money in the Market is painless, provided you've got a card registered with Google Wallet.

Plus there's fun little toy apps like Google Sky, Goggles, and the Barcode scanner, which let me do things like this. As a portable network device, i'd have to say that for me the Android wins.

Of course, i'm still going to use the iPod for podcasts for now, mostly because apple makes pretty good music devices. i'm probably not going to use it as a pocket net device as much, though. i'm also going to consider carrying around the Nikon for when i want to take high quality photos, but as for the phone of choice, i'm going to see if work will cover the data plan difference so i can ditch the work phone.