As someone in a technical field, systems administration specifically, it would be a natural assumption on anyone’s part to conclude that I’d have the latest and greatest gadgets at all times. In my case, this would be a bit wrong.
In some ways I try to avoid technology. I certainly don’t fear it. I’m not intimidated by it. I just get too saturated by it. I spend every work day handling computer problems, designed new systems, maintaining old systems – so by the time I get to my personal life there are as many days where I just want to walk away from technology altogether, as there are where I spend my hours working on my own computers and gadgets.
In this, I have a love/hate relationship with cell phones. I love being able to contact someone from any location, as if I had a communicator from Star Trek. I hate it, because it makes me accessible at all times. I resisted the idea of a cell phone for the longest time, because it was nothing more than an advanced version of a pager, an electronic ball and chain that I suffered for my work, because the nature of my job demands 24/7 access. A pager is not personal. Getting a phone call is. So, as much of a hassle being paged by a computer or individual might have been, it was no where near as intrusive as a phone call for help.
My current employer came to the conclusion that I needed a cell phone. They paid for it and the plan and handed to me my ball and chain. The first cell phone I had was your typical dumb phone from the early 2000′s. It had a calculator and phone capability and that was about it. As time went on and the phone was replaced, calendar systems and the like became available, but I never really used it.
Eventually, I got sick of someone else dictating how and when I should use my phone, so I dropped the work phone and took on my own cell phone and plan. What pushed the issue at the time, was an insistence by my wife and youngest son to join the same plan as family back in Indiana, so that they could talk freely amongst themselves without additional charges. Since my employer did not use the carrier in question, it helped to make the decision to switch to a private phone.
The first personally owned cell phone I obtained, was a Casio G’zOne Type V. I’ve griped about some of the design flaws in this otherwise spectacularly designed phone back in 2009, but it really paid off to have a robust phone for the stupid places I find myself in.
Again, time changes everything and it started to become annoying to use this phone for the ever increasing SMS (text messaging) use, thrust upon me by friends and work. On less sophisticated phones, you have various shortcuts for texting, such as auto-completion and SMS specific acronyms and abbreviations, but my SMS use is as normal to English as my writing. I needed a cell phone with a QWERTY keyboard.
As my old, reliable Casio phone had me vying for a certain amount of brand loyalty by proof of effort, I first examined Casio’s G’zOne Brigade. It is a mil-spec phone, water proof to one meter depth, tough as nails, etc., but it’s not a smart phone in any way. Aside from the keyboard, it was barely different in features from my current Casio Type V. At the time my carrier was offering the phone for about $300. That seemed steep to me.
After researching the Brigade up and down, I finally decided that it just wasn’t worth the money for what you got and I stuck with my old phone.
However, another factor was working its influence on me at the time, my old HP PocketPC HX4700, which I was using as a travel computer and personal information manager (PIM), was getting long in the tooth and annoying to work with when attempting to couple it to my Linux workstation at home. It was the top of the line at the time I bought it, was quite capable for the most part, but trying to sync this thing up with anything but Windows was a real hassle. My solution for the longest time was to sync with my dual booting workstation when I was in Windows, but that wasn’t convenient as I only booted into Windows when I wanted to play high end video games. Most of the time the system was booted in Linux, and backups and syncing with Linux was difficult at best.
I finally decided that I needed a new PIM and that lead me back to the idea of a smart phone. The main problem with this, is that I wanted a rugged phone to compensate for my stupidity and clumsiness and there simply was no option.
After talking with a coworker about his smart phone, I finally decided to take a look at the phones myself and perhaps take the plunge anyway, hoping that I wouldn’t break the beast on my first outdoor excursion. While talking with the sales rep about the various smart phones my carrier offered, I complained about my dilemma and was informed that I could switch back and forth between my old phone and any new phone I had, by simply activating one phone on the number over the other. That solved my problem. I could enable the tough Casio when I was going out in the field and enable the smart phone when I was performing my normal routines.
The next issue was even easier to resolve. I didn’t need the fastest CPU, nor the best graphics made – I just needed a phone smart enough to act as a full PIM and it had to have a solid, reliable, physical keyboard.
I didn’t feel that for the money, Blackberry offered any advantage, so I quickly ruled it out. Windows CE had turned me off of Windows in the hand held world, not only with it’s poor interaction with Linux, but with its typical Windows reliability. As far as I was concerned it wasn’t even an option in a phone and with the recent fiasco with WinPho7′s update causing problems for many phones and actually “bricking” (rendering completely disabled) many Samsung models, I don’t regret avoiding the platform! Typical Microsoft lack of quality.
My carrier didn’t offer the iPhone at the time, so it wasn’t a choice – not that I’d prefer it by any means. Apple is way too closed for my tastes. If I was taking the plunge into the smart phone world, I wanted a phone as versatile and adjustable as my operating system of choice at the desktop. Android was the answer.
I looked at Motorola’s offerings and I have to say that I wasn’t too impressed. Their interface tools felt sluggish and the Droid 2 keyboard just felt…cheap. The tactile feel was lacking and the slide-out seemed awfully flimsy. It felt like a toy, rather than a tool.
I finally examined the LG Ally. It certainly wasn’t the fastest, or with the largest memory available. It’s graphic display was quick and very sharp, however and the keyboard is probably the best I’ve found in a hand held device. For $50, it seemed a cheap way to at least test the field.
When I first got the phone toward the end of last year, it was running the older Android 2.1. This was a bit of a problem with the Ally’s smaller memory capability, as 2.1 did not offer installing applications on the SD card. However, LG had promised that they were going to upgrade to Android 2.2, so I risked it. (The update came out in February.)
I didn’t play games on my PocketPC, so I had no need for that on my phone, either. Hence, the slower CPU than other Android phones hasn’t been noticeable to me. It’s fast enough for what I do and for what I wanted, I only needed to find the applications to run. I went through my inventory of PocketPC applications and hit the various Web sites out there, specializing in Android apps.
Android Central, AndroidZoom, AndroLib and AppBrain had more listing of applications than I could get my head around, but I dived in and spent probably a full month going through various offerings. All in all, it was easy to find a replacement for every app I had used on my PocketPC and then some. I also learned of the convenience of QR codes and other barcode applications, including shopping software which allowed price lookups by scanning a product code.
So, here I am with an Android phone and I have to say that I love it. The tie in with all of Google’s tools, have given me an integrated information management system for myself that I had to dive in and use to fully appreciate. As an example, the built in calendar application on my phone, uses the same Google calendar that I can access either through my Web browser or a plugin I have in Mozilla Thunderbird. Change an entry on any of them and it is changed universally. The same goes for phone contact information, notes, even documents, which I also access through Google, or Dropbox. Dropbox really has been a fantastic service, allowing me to have a synchronized file location between all of my desktop systems and my phone. As for backing up and synchronizing personal data, after I discovered rsync for Android, I no longer even need to have a physical connection to my Linux desktop to backup the memory card. I can do it right across the cell connection, from anywhere I have service. Uploads work just as easily.
I came to really love the ability to do a lookup of information on the Web from a hand held device. I thought it would be just a novelty for me, but it has become almost indispensable. Live interaction with Google maps and the built in GPS, as well as E-Book offerings and several user interfaces to the phone itself were icing on the cake. Like Linux on the desktop, Linux on my phone allowed customization unseen on other platforms.
It was a win in software and a win in hardware for my needs. Honestly, my only complaints about the LG Ally itself are the small RAM footprint and the camera. It’s adequate enough to take simple shots that you don’t care about in the slightest, but it won’t replace a point-and-shoot camera. At 3 megapixels it just doesn’t cut it and image quality is sort of muddy. The limited RAM on the system has been compensated for by App2SD, but it would have been nice to have more room anyway.
Overall, my smart phone experience has really helped me out in organizing myself and my work and allowing me to have access to information that I normally would not, from almost anywhere. It is still my ball and chain of contact, but at least it has provided enough secondary function for me, that I no longer resent carrying the beast as I used to.
