More fun with phones
I got my new phone today... the salesdrone didn't even try to slap an activation fee on it, though the sales tax (on the full value of the phone) bumped it up to $122 out the door. I'll send in the $50 rebate as soon as I'm certain I'm keeping it.
It looks good, feels good, works well. I spent about a half hour plugging my contact list into it by hand -- that lets me weed it out, which is why I do that despite the risk of transcription errors. An unforeseen bonus was that (since the phone allowed me to enter the contact info in text mode) it let me get familiar with the alpha keypad, while figuring out how to enter numbers sideways. It was surprisingly easy to adapt to, actually... I suspect that the people who complain about having to turn the phone sideways to enter numbers aren't as good at pattern recognition. This is very definitely a geek's phone.
The buttons aren't too small, and they're pleasantly raised and spaced, so I had almost no typos. I may have to keep my thumbnails clipped if I do any large amount of texting, which I'm sure will make Greg happy... it's hard to hit the little buttons sideways with a nail. I can do two-handed text input, now, and hitting buttons only once is as liberating as I'd hoped. God I hate T9 input, with its multiple keypresses, and sometimes messing up how many times to hit a key, and having to pause carefully between letters on the same key... gah.
So far, I like it. The standard Verizon UI is limiting but familiar. I have yet to check out the voice quality, but it feels like a solid little phone.
It looks good, feels good, works well. I spent about a half hour plugging my contact list into it by hand -- that lets me weed it out, which is why I do that despite the risk of transcription errors. An unforeseen bonus was that (since the phone allowed me to enter the contact info in text mode) it let me get familiar with the alpha keypad, while figuring out how to enter numbers sideways. It was surprisingly easy to adapt to, actually... I suspect that the people who complain about having to turn the phone sideways to enter numbers aren't as good at pattern recognition. This is very definitely a geek's phone.
The buttons aren't too small, and they're pleasantly raised and spaced, so I had almost no typos. I may have to keep my thumbnails clipped if I do any large amount of texting, which I'm sure will make Greg happy... it's hard to hit the little buttons sideways with a nail. I can do two-handed text input, now, and hitting buttons only once is as liberating as I'd hoped. God I hate T9 input, with its multiple keypresses, and sometimes messing up how many times to hit a key, and having to pause carefully between letters on the same key... gah.
So far, I like it. The standard Verizon UI is limiting but familiar. I have yet to check out the voice quality, but it feels like a solid little phone.