I’ve wanted a smartphone for a really long time. I pretty much need internet like I need air, and I definitely wasn’t getting enough of it at home. I wanted internet on-the-go. I didn’t want to have to wait for my ancient computer to restart a million times before allowing me to partake in the internet experience. It was inevitable. I had to get a smartphone.
Unfortunately, smartphones (and their data plans) are very expensive. I wasn’t sure if such a device would be worth the cost, so I spent many months talking myself into getting one and then talking myself back out of such a “silly” expenditure. Up until the Wednesday before last, I had been using a Razor – the same Razor I'd been using for the past five years. It was definitely time for an upgrade, so I went with my mom to the T-Mobile store to have a looksie at the recently advertised free phones. It wasn’t long before I wandered from the free phone section to the Blackberry section. T-Mobile had two versions of the Blackberry in stock – the 8520 Curve and something else that was newer and more expensive. I consulted with myself and decided that I had to have a Blackberry. There was no turning back. I chose the 8520 Curve purely based on price. The customer service rep told me that the 8520 ran on the slower “Edge” network (as opposed to 3G), but that there wasn’t much difference between the two. I left the store in a great mood and ready to play with my new toy. That lasted about 30 minutes, at which point the internet inexplicably left my phone. I’ll save you the details, but apparently customer service added my data plan to another phone in our family plan. It was one of the free phones, no less, and that didn’t explain how I was able to access the internet for half an hour, but okay. Customer service turned the internet back on, but I soon realized that it didn’t work so well when separated by many miles from the T-Mobile store. How disappointing!!! Web pages took 5 to 7 minutes to load, and they only fully loaded when the phone was feeling generous. Pictures pretty much never came up, and Ravelry (my favorite site) was nearly impossible to access. On top of that, the keyboard was incredibly small, and the keys were poorly positioned. I spent more time deleting than actually typing! By the second day of owning the 8520, I had become so frustrated and upset that I asked my mom to return it. I wanted one of the free phones instead. I couldn’t justify spending $30 a month on a data plan for a phone that worked (to my liking) approximately 5% of the time, and I figured that everyone else with mobile web must be more patient and forgiving than me. (And I also wondered why the heck they were paying so much money to watch a progress bar load.) I didn’t expect the phone to work at the speed of light, but I expected a decent web browsing experience.
My mom took my Crapberry back to the store last Saturday with instructions to procure a (free) green Gravity slide phone. I received a phone call from her that afternoon. She wanted me to know that the customer service rep (a different one) had shown her one of those new android phones, and that it worked really well. She said she’d get it for me for Christmas if I wanted it. I was skeptical, of course. I asked about all of its workings and made the customer service rep log into my Ravelry account and name to me all the projects she saw. I also made her navigate to multiple sections and quizzed her on the page layout, how many pictures were shown, etc. My mom told me that the customer service rep said this particular phone ran on the 3G network, and that I shouldn’t experience any of the issues I had with the Crapberry. After confirming that I could indeed return the phone if it did not operate to my satisfaction, I gave her the go-ahead to buy it.
I am now the proud owner of a black MyTouch 3G Slide. (It comes in black, white, and red.) My mom called me boring (in regard to my color selection), but I wanted my phone to match everything! It’s a touch screen phone with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. I think it’s T-Mobile’s version of the iPhone. The good news is it works much better than the Crapberry. Internet surfing is comparable to using a computer. The phone is pretty much a teeny laptop, and it came with lots of free apps and awesome features.
My MyTouch seems a little glitchy, but that’s to be expected with just about every newly released gadget. I hear T-Mobile will be releasing some sort of update in a little while that should iron everything out. The worst thing about it is the battery life. Mine only lasts a few hours before needing to be charged, and I will be returning to the store tomorrow to see if I can’t get myself a new battery. Other than that, though, it’s great!
