The Screaming Viking

I sold my NookColor recently…I came to the conclusion that it’s a pretty cool little device, but I just don’t have a space for it in my gadget drawer.  I bought the nook around the 1st of the year.  I was working at the Nor and my “personal” cell phone was a locked down black berry.  This was adequate for what I wanted to use a phone for at the time…and free makes it even better.  At the time, the NC did quite a bit of my crap surfing for me.  I didn’t have to fire up a laptop to check out facebook, it was light..quick to power on and served it’s purpose.  I also used it as a book reader and enjoyed what it had to offer.  At the time, I did quite a bit of reading in bed and the back lit screen worked out well for me.  The lack of battery life wasn’t a concern because I would plug it in each night.  It served it’s purpose well.

Then things changed a bit…I got my job at the school, which meant I wouldn’t have access to a black berry anymore.  Faced with the prospect of buying my own phone, I looked at what android devices were available and went with the Droid X.  This sucker has a pretty good screen size for a cell phone and is useful for quite a few things.  Also at the school I have access to an iPad for evaluation purposes.  It was with the introduction of these two devices that I now found my nook didn’t really have a niche anymore.  The iPad is bigger than the nook and offers a bit better battery life, but I don’t really care to read on it.  It can play videos a little better than the nook, the touch screen is of a little better quality and it has netflix available.  Being able to use netflix on one of these devices is actually pretty handy.  Sitting in bed and want to watch a quick episode of something…netflix to the rescue…etc.  It’s just a handy feature to have.

The phone has come in really handy for lots of things including alleviating boredom.  Since my house is about a 20 min drive from the school, on the days where I have to stay for a board meeting or when I was doing some coaching it would be handy if I had a device where I could do something to kill some time…these would be good opportunities to read.  How about when I go somewhere for lunch…I could read a bit while I’m eating.  This is where I found the nook a little cumbersome.  It’s rather large to bring with everywhere…and it’s another device to haul around.  I always have my phone on me, I’ll try to read on that.  Again, this showed me another problem…there was no way to sync the pages between the phone and the nook.  I’d have to remember where I was at from one device to the next…major suck.  I decided to try to read exclusively on the phone and see how it pans out.

Reading on the phone has worked out surprisingly well.  I can turn the screen brightness down quite a bit, the app I use is Aldiko.  It is very easy to get this software to pick up books in whatever directory you put them in to.  My screen is 4 inches…which works out well for me.  I’m not turning pages all the time and the touch screen on my phone is a bit better than the touch screen on the nook.  The phone fits a bit better in my hand, is lighter…etc.  I can see the text just as easily…it’s a win win to have less devices.

So…I sold the NC.  The guy I sold it to was eager to have one.  If I didn’t have access to an iPad I probably would have held on to it, as it was though…it became a redundant device.

Initially I was excited to get the droid x, I had heard people say it was the slickest thing ever that the android O/S was the bomb and how all the different apps would make your life so much cooler.  A couple of days after getting the phone I was pretty underwelmed.  The main problem seemed to be that I really had no idea what I wanted out of a smart phone.  My only previous experience with a “smart” phone had been with a locked down blackberry.  From that I found that I liked to be able to get my email, didn’t really care about text messaging, liked streaming music, and really liked a calendar app.  So I assumed when I got the droid these options would either be stock or I would be able to hit the slick little market app and find something that would work well.  That’s when I stumbled upon the main problem (for me) with open source software…

In the droid market there is not one single best calendar, there are 20+.  Some are paid and some are free…but you have no real idea what you want until you install it and try it.  Initially it was fun to mess around installing a few different apps that were suppose to do the same thing, but then it became a drag to have to hunt for something that would be “just right”.  It wasn’t just the calendar that I was doing this for, it was almost everything…different txt messaging apps, music apps…etc etc etc…  It’s all free, it all (in|un)installs easy…why not give it a try.  This process went from “fun” to pretty damn frustrating.  I just wanted something to work so I could move on from messing with “functional” apps to messing with “neat” apps.  I looked over a few guides online and didn’t really find any of the apps they recommended to be all that interesting.  It was right about then that I noticed something else about this phone….the battery life sucks. Read the rest of this entry »

What a pile of suck…

Actually it’s not that bad, but there are a couple things about it that are way more cumbersome than they need to be and it hurts the overall experience.

First and foremost is the whole “contacts” situation.  I knew a little bit about this phone before I got it.  I wanted it to be my everything mobile device.  I wanted it to act as my mp3 player for working out, my hand held pc…my everything mobile.  I wanted all my contacts on the phone.  That’s usually pretty simple and something most everyone wants out of their cell phone I’d think.  When I powered the phone up for the first time it walked me through setting up all sorts of accounts.  It asked me to sync my Gmail account, twitter, Facebook…almost every form of social media and personal email account you could think of it wanted the information for.  That was just fine as far as I was concerned.  I wanted this thing to be my on the go device…which it’s designed to be.  What I didn’t know at the time was that it would pull in all the contacts I have for each of those applications.  I opened up my contacts list and there is something like 400+ contacts listed in there. Read the rest of this entry »

For the past little bit I’ve been feeling the pressure of everyone around me having a cell phone.  I shook off the temptation a few times, but then I bought the nook…that device only enhanced my desire for an android based cell.  I’ve had a cell for work, and while it’s locked down and there isn’t a whole lot I could do with it…at the very least it allowed me to txt message and get calls.  Since I’m departing the office, the desire for a cell phone has become stronger and stronger.  My new position apparently comes with a phone, but I’m doubting it’s a droid..maybe it’s a blackberry, and I’m not sure what kind of plan it’s on.  It probably would have been smarter to wait things out and see what the details for that phone are…but I jumped the gun and pulled the trigger on getting my own.  I justified this by saying I would use it to figure out what we would have to do with Sara’s phone when we move up to the farm.  The farmstead is literally yards outside of the coverage map for Verizon.  There are parts of the yard that work, and some that don’t.  It will lock on to Canadian towers as well…it can be a pain.  I don’t expect there is much incentive for them to cover that small area…as there are only a hand full of people that are potentially effected. Read the rest of this entry »