Apr 13, 2011

New Phones

It's been a grueling decision. Last fall I was attracted to the Samsung Epic 4G as my Motorola Droid started showing its age before its first birthday. However, I'd have had to pay the early termination fee for a full year of service. So I waited and since then we've seen some hot new phones hit the street and even more hit the headlines. There are so many things I'd like my next phone to do. I'd like HDMI out so I can view it on a TV... a fast processor... big, but not too big, screen... front/rear cameras so I can take photos and video chat... a QWERTY keyboard... more internal storage... higher speed Internet... and at the very least version 2.2 of the OS.

At one point I was really attracted to the Xperia Play, but after reviewing the specs they really aren't all that impressive in light of the new phones coming out. Plus, being an emulator nut, I really want a full keyboard for the computer emulators like Atari800.

Well, I won't bore you with the details, but today I upgraded to an Epic 4G. It was tough doing that because it's a phone that is 8 months old, only doubles my internal storage, and I've read questionable stuff about the unit's GPS. It's certainly not impressive by today's standards, but it has the critical QWERTY keyboard and is a substantial upgrade over my Droid. I haven't put it through the paces yet, but so far, so good and wow is the Internet fast on it. And it shaves about $30 off of my monthly bill, adds free calling to all mobile phones, and more than doubles our monthly minutes (not that we'll even come close to using them) [I switched from Verizon back to Sprint]. The best part is that I can finally play and review some of the newer, high end games like Dungeon Defenders.

So here's to the thrill of getting a new phone...

4 comments:

  1. Congrats! You don't have to tell me how frustrating low internal storage can be. I'm still sportin a Droid Eris with a whopping 159MB available and no apps to sd. My Verizon contract is up in a couple months though and I'm salivating at all the new hardware coming out. I'll be sticking with Big Red because of a company discount, so I'm currently eyeing the Incredible 2, Thunderbolt and Revolution. I'm sure others will pop up too. Getting a new phone is certainly exciting!

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  2. I hear that.

    I'm with AT&T, and when I heard that the Aria was coming down the pipeline (an actual, honest-to-god Android phone, as opposed to that crippled Motorola Backflip... thing... they tried to market as one) I jumped on it.

    It's a great phone, but due to its smaller size, I'm constantly fat-fingering it.

    My wife has an iPhone, and that's the form factor I'm aiming for. The HTC Inspire looks like it would fit the bill...

    ... and unfortunately, I'm locked into my Aria until November, unless I want to pay AT&T's outrageous early termination fee (which I don't) or until I can find a refurbished Inspire on their site (in which case, they waive the fee, but so far, I haven't seen any).

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  3. shame u couldn't hold out for a 3d mobile i'm sure some killer 3d games are on the way.

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  4. I've had an epic 4G since they launched, and personally I love it. The recent update to ec05 Froyo fixed my GPS so it connects pretty much instantly, and now that you can install apps to SD, the lower internal storage is no big deal.

    This is a phone with a beautiful screen, a pretty killer qwerty keyboard and it so far runs anything I put on it very smoothly. Only downside is it did take ages for them to get Froyo out for it in a stable form.

    I use launcher pro and frankly, the speed of that and the smoothness when swapping homescreens, scrolling the app drawer etc. makes this phone feel as new as the day I got it. I think you made a good choice, it isn't easy finding a ballsy phone with a qwerty that is actually usable.

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