The biggest reason I decided to shop for another phone is that I wanted Mobile Hotspot functionality. The Pre Plus on Verizon has it; the Pre on Sprint doesn’t. Currently, Sprint has 3 phones that offer that capability. The HTC Evo, the Samsung Epic and the LG Opitmus S.

When I was doing my phone research, I looked at the hardware specs, version of Android, general features and tons of reviews. The Epic came out ahead on the hardware – better processor, better camera, physical keyboard – but it’s still on Android 2.1, so it’s lagging a bit there. I decided on the Epic. An OS update should happen before too long (I know Epic owners have been up in arms about the delay in the upgrade) and I figured, I’ve never used an Android phone before so I don’t know what I’m missing with 2.2 anyway.

I’ve had the Epic for a few days now, and so far, I really love it. There are boatloads of apps in the Android Marketplace and it’s fast. Very fast. Even without turning on the 4G, I get excellent download speeds. With 4G, it’s lightening fast. Setup of the phone was a snap, too. Since I already use Google for my mail and contacts, it was just a couple clicks and a password it was syncing everything to the phone for me. The screen is crisp and bright, the phone is responsive and just really beautiful.

So far, my favorite apps are the Live Wallpapers – they’re just fun – and the Barcode/QR Code scanning apps. The Pre doesn’t have either of those things. And, now when I am away from home (like now), I can connect my Netbook and my Kindle to the internet when I want to, which is a great big plus for me. Also, I can read Word and Excel documents on the Epic. In fact, reading anything on this phone is much more enjoyable than it was with my Pre. The text is crisp and the screen size is a plus.

The thing I’ve seen people complain about the most with the Epic (and other 4G phones) is the battery life. Coming from the Pre, the Epic isn’t actually all that bad. When I’m not using the WiFi Hotspot and 4G, I get about 10 hours out of it. And that’s doing regular (though certainly not constant) surfing and checking Twitter and playing with the various apps. With the WiFi Hotspot and 4G on, it does drain much more quickly, but I knew that going in. Even still, I usually keep a charger at work anyway – in fact, it uses the same micro-usb charging connector that my Pre uses, so I’m using the charging cable that came with my Pre to charge my Epic while I’m at work.

The other thing I see a lot of complaints about is the $10/month premium charge that Sprint charges for its 4G phones. I’m not going to get up in arms about $10. Life is too short. Plus, Sprint’s charges are still less than Verizon or AT&T. One thing I can see, though, are those folks that don’t live in a 4G area. That would be a drag, to have to pay for a service you can’t use. We just got the official 4G roll out in the Washington DC area.

The biggest drawback about the Epic in my mind is the size; although I really do like the bigger screen for reading and web surfing. It’s considerably larger than my Pre – but weighs about the same, interestingly enough. I definitely won’t be putting the Epic in my pocket.

I’m very happy with my switch to the Epic and Android. I kind of wanted to not like Android so much, but it won me over quite efficiently. This phone is a joy to use.

So, Bye bye WebOS. It was nice knowing you.

I was a little concerned when I ordered it that it would end up being another gadget that I rarely used; I love gadgets, but have a tendency to tire of them fairly quickly. Very few of the gadgets that I have bought over the years have withstood the test of time. I needn’t have worried, though, I *heart* my Kindle and wonder how I managed to go so long without owning one.

Things I love about my Kindle:

1. It’s lightweight – I don’t tire of holding it
2. Easy on the eyes – I can read for hours without eye strain
3. Easy to use – I was up and running in minutes and only needed to skim the users manual
4. Variety – I can have a library of books at my fingertips
5. Built in dictionary
6. Easy to notate and highlight

Since the iPad came out, I know a few people that prefer that gadget or are trying to decide between the two. Although I do not own an iPad, I have been asked from time to time my opinion on which to buy. In my mind, the Kindle and the iPad serve 2 different purposes. The Kindle is for reading and it excels at that purpose. The iPad is a very portable computer. Yes, you can get Kindle software for the iPad, but I wouldn’t want to read for very long on one. I can’t read for very long on a computer screen and still actually enjoy what I’m trying to read. If you can, though, more power to you. Personally, even if I owned an iPad, and they certainly have their strengths, I’d still do the majority of my reading on my Kindle. For those of you trying to decide between an iPad or a Kindle, you might find this post by Mark Jaquith helpful.

Now, I think I have some reading to do

In my internet meanderings, I’ve often seen rabid Mac fanboys and fangirls bashing the Pre as an iPhone wannabe. I doubt most of them have even seen a Pre, much less used one. I’ve got one thing to say to them — get over it. The iPhone, while a cool device, isn’t the only game in town anymore. And frankly, I’m glad – competition does everyone good. I don’t have anything against the iPhone, it’s actually a very cool device and was an innovative gadget. But, unfortunately, it’s exclusive to AT&T, I’m really not fond of them. Honestly, though, after spending 5 minutes with an iPhone and then 5 minutes with the Pre, I like the look, the feel and the usability of the Pre better anyway. You may not and that’s fine with me. It all comes down to what you like.

The Pre does everything I need for a phone to do and it looks fabulous and has a great feel in my hands. The keyboard, though small, is very workable and I have had no problems at all using it. It’s much easier to use than the onscreen keyboard that my Instinct had (which I liked better than the iPhone onscreen keyboard). I love that the WebOS is Linux, too. There are already quite a few applications out for it, although only about 50 in the Palm App Store at the moment. I’ve found another site – Pre Central – that has boatloads of Pre info, and they also host a Homebrew Apps Catalog. Does Pre have even close to the number of apps available as the iPhone? No, it doesn’t, but I have no doubt that the number will grow.

The Pre was very simple to set up and syncing my regular phone contacts with my Gmail contacts was seamless. Part of the Synergy feature is that you can sync contact lists and calendars with many different applications and websites so that you have one contact list and one calendar. It’s a cool feature, actually, though I don’t think I will be adding my Facebook account to it, just because 300+ contacts would be a little much to wade through.

The Touchstone accessory is a must with this phone. Ok, you don’t really need it, but it is a super cool accessory and you’ll want at least one. I have one for home and I really want one for work, too. The Touchstone is the best way ever to charge a phone. You either need to buy the Touchstone phone back and Touchstone separately or buy them as a kit. Now they also have a dual location kit that comes with the phone back, 2 Touchstones and an extra power cable (the Touchstones don’t come with a power cable, unfortunately, so if you get an additional Touchstone, you also need another power cable). Anyway, once it is all together, you just place the phone on the Touchstone to charge. The screen turns to a clock and any notifications you get will pop up at the bottom of the screen. If the phone rings, it automatically answers if you pick it up. If you are talking on the phone and place it on the Touchstone during the conversation, it automatically switches to speakerphone. And, if you pick it up again it will automatically switch back to phone.

The battery life on the Pre looks to be a bit so-so. While I have not run it out completely, the battery drain from surfing the web, watching videos, emailing, texting, etc is considerable. Power management is very important with the Pre. At least they made the Touchstones so damn cool. Makes you want more than one anyway. Hmm…. I wonder if Palm did that on purpose.

Suffice it to say that the Pre won me over without even trying. It’s an excellent device.

Things I absolutely love about this phone are:

1. I can have several applications and/or webpages open at a time and switch back and forth between them easily
2. The touchscreen is very responsive and bright.
3. Websurfing is fast and it is the real internet
4. The Touchstone accessory
5. The camera has a flash.

Things I would like for Palm to change or add:

1. They really need to come out with a Touchstone car charger/mount.
2. Create a setting to actually turn off the screen when the phone is on the Touchstone. Presently, the clock screen is the only setting. Unfortunately, as I have my Touchstone on my nightstand, any light is too much, and since I can’t actually turn the screen off I cover it with a cloth. It’s an easy workaround, but I would like to not need to do that. **
3. I’d also like to be able to remove “system” applications that aren’t necessary for the phone to work. For instance, there’s an NFL app and a Nascar app that I’d really love to get rid of, but since they are part of the system apps, I can’t. ***
4. I’d like to be able to have for than 5 items in the quicklaunch. I think there may be a homebrew app that takes care of this one, though.

Edited 30 Sep 2009 to add the following notes:

** There is a Homebrew app at PreCentral called Brightness Unlinked that will allow the screen to sleep while on the Touchstone.  W00t!!

*** Also at PreCentral, there is a WebOS Quick Installer that allows you to tweak the OS and although you cannot uninstall the NFL and Nascar apps, you can hide the icons.  It’s the next best thing! (The quick installer also allows you to get the fileCoaster app onto the Pre so that you can connect to the Homebrew app database from your Pre)

I like the pretty interface (Aero) and as long as the machine can handle it, it doesn’t slow things down.  I love the gadget dock, too and even added a gadget to monitor my memory and CPU usage (and yeah, I know that both the dock and the usage monitor do contribute to the memory usage.  I’m ok with that).   Oh, I should mention that I am using the 64 bit version of Vista.  I doubt I would be writing this post about the 32 bit version simply because Vista is a resource hog and only having a max of 4GB of memory wouldn’t exactly leave a whole lot for other things.

Here are the hardware specs of the new machine:

• Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 920  @ 2.67GHz
• 8 GB Tri Channel RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260
• 750 GB Hard Disk
• 700W Power Supply

It’s a DELL Studio XPS from Dell Outlet, to which I added 6 GB RAM, the kick ass video card and the power supply.  I’m quite happy with it.  It was really time to buy a new machine, my 3+ year old laptop has been having problems for about the past year and was getting more and more frustrating to use.  I decided to go back to a desktop system for 2 reasons:

1. Ease of hardware maintenence — it’s much easier to upgrade and fix desktop systems
2. I can finally have a nice, big monitor — I bought a 23″ widescreen HD Acer monitor with 1920X1080 resolution

The past week I hve spent a good bit of time playing Sacred 2 with the graphics on high and the PhysX on.  It’s beautiful.

Well, I’ve had my new Instinct for 3 days now and so far I love it. The interface is really cool, it is all touch screen. You get a QWERTY keyboard that comes up on the touch screen whenever you click a field that requires input – and I like the Instinct’s keyboard better than the iPhone’s. Also, like the iPhone, the web on the Instinct looks like the web. The browser navigaton isn’t as cool as the iPhone’s, but you do get the images and layout and zoom in and scroll around the page and such.

I also really like the Navigation feature. It talks to you and tells you where to go and how to get there as well as shows you on a 3D style map. I’m told that while the iPhone also has Navigation, it doesn’t actually tell you the directions, only shows you. If that is the case, I’d say the Instinct wins there, too. It also comes with an extra battery, which is pretty cool, so even though the battery isn’t as long lived as the iPhone, the extra one does compensate for that and it comes with a charging case as well so the extra battery can always be charging while you’re using the phone. Oh and it’s stereo bluetooth too (I would imagine the iPhone is as well, but I don’t know), so I can listen to my tunes via bluetooth.

There are also a few things I’d like to see improved upon. For instance, I’d like the option to show my wallpaper all the time and just bring up the applications when I wanted to with the hot keys. Or, an option to get rid of the “Favorites” screen. Also, not everything has been intuitive, like actually answering a call took a couple of incoming calls for me to figure out. Maybe, just maybe, I should read the manual. I don’t usually do that. Also, the web browser could use a bit of improvement. Navigating a web page is much cooler on the iPhone. I don’t normally do a lot of web surfing on my phone anyway, but hopefully Samsung will improve it with the next generation phone.

All in all, I’m impressed with the Instinct. Hopefully I’ll continue to be.