Time to Upgrade!

The other day I received an email from my cell phone provider informing me that one of my lines is eligible for an upgrade.  So Monday afternoon I swung by my provider's store and chatted with a friend of mine who works up there and got the skinny on what it will cost me to upgrade.  And I had a little time to play around with a few phones to see which one I liked the most (it will be Android based).

And I have to admit that after playing with the Nexus S, HTC Evo 3D, HTC Evo Design, and the Samsung Galaxy Epic S2; that the Samsung Galaxy Epic S2 has captured my attention.  I have been reading up on it and man, that is a freakin' sexy phone.  I have been madly in love with my jailbroken iPod Touch now for a couple of years.  However, the battery isn't lasting nearly as long as it once did (an unfortunate plunder for just about every phone/mp3 player) and so I was looking for a device that would also serve for decent podcast listening (my main use for my iPod Touch).  And from everything I can tell, aside from the Epic S2 being a slick phone with a nice version of the TouchWiz UI overlayed ontop of Gingerbread, the whole phone seems to offer exactly what I'm looking for.  So hopefully within the next couple of weeks I'll be able to get my hands on some new Android goodness.

If this works out, look for some Android app review videos to hopefully start popping up over on my YouTube Channel at: http://www.youtube.com/techiesmarts

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Mobile American's: How mobile are we really?

In response to reading an article on eWeek's site this morning entitled 'American's Using Phones to Avoid Talking: Pew Report' I found some rather interesting percentages that actually make sense for a change.  A lot of consumer polls seem to be somewhat exaggerated when they post their findings.  This article basically points out that even though the majority of American's packing 'smart phones' aren't using them to actually talk.

According to the article, "about 90% of smart phone users use their devices for photos and texting.  Approximately 80% use their smart phones for sending pictures and video clips to other people and surfing the web."

What does this mean for "the spoken word"?  It apparently means it isn't being used as often.  Does this mean that our phones aren't actually mediums for communication anymore?  Absolutely not, because in the grand scheme of things if you take a picture and send it to your friend, that is still a means of communication.  If you are surfing the web with your phone, at some point you will probably visit some form of Social Networking site and make a post or comment of some type.  So you're still using it to communicate, just not the way people have traditionally communicated on the mobile phones (even within the last 5 years these 'cell phone norms' have drastically changed).

With everything becoming more mobile, smaller, and faster the 'connected world' is still pretty much in it's infancy.  I'm sure within less than a 5 year time span we'll be able to look back and say "Wow, how did we survive back then without ____________?" (fill in the blank).  I can't tell you how many people I hear ponder how they ever got along without their cell phones.

By the way, remember the days where the computer nerd was considered the 'anti-social outcast' who would stay in his room or basement 'playing with computers'.  And people would poke fun at him.  Well, if you look at things from outside the box a little bit, aren't we all sort of becoming "that computer kid" in some manner?

Something to ponder.
Read the entire article at: http://15ff1bbb.tinylinks.co


*And yes, I have been guilty of faking a phone call to get out of speaking with someone, aren't you guilty of the same?  lol

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